Norway’s ‘Sinhalicisation of development’ in Tamil country continued in 2011

[TamilNet, Saturday, 31 March 2012, 16:39 GMT]
Recent revelations on Norwegian foreign ministry’s deployment of funds have shown that Norway had allocated major funds to Sinhala institutions in Sri Lanka even in the year 2011 to carryout activities in the country of Eezham Tamils, which Tamils see as ‘Sinhalicisation of development’. Following a controversy about handling of funds by Norway’s foreign minister allegedly favouring one of his friend’s foundations, Mr. Torry Pedersen, the chief editor of VG, Norway’s largest newspaper, came out with an open call to the public on Thursday to assist journalists in the investigation on the spending of all ministries. It was unusual for Norwegian media to investigate the country’s ‘foreign spending’, but when it happened this time it also exposed Norway’s controversial role played on the affairs of Eezham Tamils facing structural genocide.
Full story >>

SLA exploits Chinese funds meant for resettlement of uprooted Vanni civilians

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 04 August 2010, 07:27 GMT]
Sri Lanka Army (SLA) occupying Vanni is exploiting funds donated by China for the resettlement of uprooted Vanni people to construct permanent housing schemes for its personnel, in Kokkaavil, located west of A9 road in Vanni, civil society organizations in K'linochchi said. Uprooted civilians forcibly taken by SLA soldiers to work in the constructions said that even two storey buildings are under construction in an area where new roads have been laid. Meanwhile, around 3,000 uprooted families, brought to be resettled in Vanni by Sri Lanka government, continue to live under trees left abandoned while Sri Lanka government exploits international assistance meant for them to settle Sinhalese families from South, Suresh Premachandran, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian said.
Full story >>

IFJ condemns death threats to journalist's family in Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 22 July 2010, 06:19 GMT]
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in a media release Wednesday said that it is alarmed by threats made against the safety of the family of senior Sri Lankan journalist Gamini Pushpakumara. "We call upon the Sri Lankan police and security agencies to take immediate measures to investigate the source of the threats and to extend all necessary protection to Pushpakumara's family," IFJ General Secretary Aidan White said. "Unfortunately, recent actions by the Sri Lankan authorities indicate that they remain disinclined to take action against the use of coercion and threats of violence that attempt to silence journalists who courageously speak the truth to power," the report said.
Full story >>

Information Department, Rupavahini get new heads

[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 May 2010, 11:17 GMT]
Sri Lanka Government has appointed Ariyaratne Athugala as the new Director of Information and Sarath Kongahage as Chairman of Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC). Ariyaratne Athugala earlier functioned as the Chairman of the SLRC. The incumbent Director of Information Anusha Palpita has been appointed as the Chairman of the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (TRC)
Full story >>

SL state media turned into propaganda outlets for Rajapaksa: RSF

[TamilNet, Thursday, 21 January 2010, 13:49 GMT]
Reporters Without Borders, on Thursday said it had established that 98.5 per cent of the news and current affairs air-time on Sri Lankan state-owned TV stations Rupavahini and ITN on 18 and 19 January was given over to the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his supporters. “The TV propaganda is deafening and the figures we are releasing today are worthy of the Burmese or North Korean regimes," the press freedom organisation said. Control of the state media has become crucial to the election campaign. The Commissioner of Elections has issued several reminders about the rules requiring balanced coverage and tried to introduce a Competent Authority to monitor the TV stations, but the president’s office resisted. The Sri Lankan supreme court’s ruling has also been ignored, the RSF said.
Full story >>

Executions: Sri Lanka refuting processed video, not original

[TamilNet, Saturday, 12 September 2009, 09:32 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s technological refutation of the authenticity of a video of Army (SLA) soldiers executing unarmed Tamil men broadcast by Channel 4 in August is based on a processed video-file taken from the broadcaster’s website, rather than the original mobile phone footage, experts said. An analysis commissioned by US-based pressure group Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) of the original video distributed by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) and Sri Lanka’s subsequent technological refutation says Colombo’s experts looked “at a second generation transcoded video to derive erroneous conclusions.”
Full story >>

Vanni war front videos under Media Minister's custody

[TamilNet, Thursday, 03 September 2009, 15:07 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lanka Thursday directed the Chairman of the State run Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation and Independent Television Network to hand over all video tapes in relation to Vanni war front immediately to the Media Minister and to ensure and verify whether any video tapes used or unused are missing or stolen while in the custody of the two institutions, sources in Colombo said.
Full story >>

Sri Lanka hunting media’s Tamil sources - RSF

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 May 2009, 23:47 GMT]
Apart from threatening to prosecute journalists who attempt to visit the northern areas captured from the Liberation Tigers, Sri Lanka’s military is trying to identify Tamil civilians who provided information to the foreign press by infiltrating paramilitaries into their military-run refugee camps, RSF (Reporters Without Borders) said Friday. While the Army general appointed in charge of resettling refugees says “all foreign journalists are working against his homeland,” the country’s police chief claims that several journalists, “mostly Sinhalese”, were on the payroll of the LTTE and were involved in the insurgency.
Full story >>

Kandy Police arrest Tamil woman

[TamilNet, Sunday, 05 April 2009, 08:34 GMT]
Kandy Police on Thursday evening arrested a Tamil while she was waiting near Rupavahini Tower located at Handana in Kandy town for a bus to her village. The Police said she was arrested on receipt of information from the residents of area about her suspicious movement.
Full story >>

Reporter arrested for plundering computers, temple artifacts in Vanni

[TamilNet, Saturday, 28 March 2009, 12:27 GMT]
A Sinhala TV reporter attached to the state-run Rupavahini Corporation and posted to cover the conflict in the Vanni was arrested on Thursday along with five laptops and ten digital cameras allegedly plundered from Tamil Tiger bases, police confirmed. Several artifacts allegedly removed from Hindu temples were also found on his possession, according to the investigators.
Full story >>

Colombo censors live TV program for criticizing media policies

[TamilNet, Friday, 07 November 2008, 17:58 GMT]
Reports sans Frontières (RSF) in a press release issued Friday condemned the Government of Sri Lanka for censoring live during a state-owned Rupavahini program a press freedom activist from Colombo-based media watchdog Free Media Movement (FMM) for being critical of Sri Lanka's media policies. Commenting on the newly-introduced Private Television Broadcasting Station Regulations, the press release said, "this law is extremely dangerous for media freedom. Delaying its implementation is not enough. Its content needs to be changed radically."
Full story >>

"End Minister's Anti-Media Campaign," IFJ demands Rajapaksa

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 August 2008, 08:22 GMT]
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in a press release issued on Wednesday demanded the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to immediately intervene and order an end to Sri Lankan Labour Minister Mervyn Silva's anti-media campaign of 'interrogation and violence' against Sirasa TV, a Sinhala channel owned by Maharajah Organisation Limited, one of the largest privately-held corporation, in Sri Lanka. "Any encouragement of violence against the media is irresponsible and potentially life-threatening for journalists in a country that has long been considered one of the most dangerous for the media profession," the IFJ has said.
Full story >>

SL Appeal Court to inquire into Ampaa'rai EPC election petition

[TamilNet, Friday, 13 June 2008, 17:28 GMT]
The Sri Lankan Court of Appeal Thursday decided to hold inquiry into the petition seeking the court to annul the Ampaa'rai district results of the Eastern Provincial Council election held on May 10 as the poll was heavily rigged with mass scale impersonation and intimidation of voters. The petitioners are Mohamed Thamby Hassan Ali of Ninthavoor and Daya Dharmapala Kilituwa of Ampa'raai. The petition was taken up for preliminary inquiry Thursday, legal sources said.
Full story >>

2 journalists targeted in Kaaththaankudi

[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 June 2008, 21:51 GMT]
Masked men called a senior journalist of Free Media Movement (FMM) out of his house Wednesday 10:30 p.m. in Kaaththaankudi, flung chili powder on his face, and stoned him, but he managed to escape unhurt through the backdoor, sources in Kaaththaankudi said. Meanwhile, unidentified persons set fire to the house of a senior journalist of Rupavahini Televsion causing damage to a section of the house. The news broadcast on Independent TV about Kaaththaankudi residents calling the members of their area not to participate in the first sitting of the Eastern Province Council is said to be the reason for the above attacks, the sources added.
Full story >>

Rajapaksa prorogues SL Parliament

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 06 May 2008, 17:31 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapaksa has moved on to prorogue the sittings of the Sri Lankan Parliament until June 05 according to an extra-ordinary gazette notification published Tuesday midnight. The move comes amid the increased media attention and the debate on SLA casualties in the Northern Front as four days were left for the Eastern provincial elections where oppositions parties including the SLMC, UNP and the JVP have protested against the armed paramilitary in the East. Meanwhile, in a specially arranged televised broadcast, Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, promised the remote villagers in the east that they would get everything that they have aspired for.
Full story >>

UNP accuses ruling party of breach of East election rules

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 29 April 2008, 13:55 GMT]
Sri Lanka’s main opposition United National Party (UNP) parliamentarian, Laxman Kiriyella, charged that the paramilitary Pillayan group, Peoples Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), Eelam Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP) and Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) that are jointly contesting Eastern Province Provincial (EPC) elections with the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA), for carrying arms besides other violations during the campaign for the forthcoming Easter Provincial Council (EPC) election, UNP sources said.
Full story >>

Military Officer in media position will affect war reporting, says CPJ

[TamilNet, Saturday, 22 March 2008, 11:59 GMT]
Citing incidents of "ongoing intimidation of Sri Lanka media ... and the treatment of Tamil journalists under investigation by the Terrorist Investigation Division," and the appointment of retired Major General Sunil Silva, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York based media watch dog, in a letter sent to Sri Lanka's President Rajapakse Friday said, "[u]nsupported terrorist accusations threaten the security and livelihood of Tamil journalists. A military leader in a state media group threatens the objectivity of journalists," and urged Rajapakse to vigorously investigate attacks and provide the journalists with due protection.
Full story >>

FMM expresses outrage at militarization of media

[TamilNet, Friday, 21 March 2008, 23:54 GMT]
Pointing to the appointment of the recently retired Army Major General Sunil Silva as Additional Director General (Administration) of the State controlled TV station Sri Lanka Rupavahini Cooperation (SLRC), the Free Media Movement (FMM), in a press release issued Thursday said: "The militarisation of State apparatus under this regime is not new, but this is the first time it has extended to the media. Not only does this set an extremely disturbing precedent, it irrevocably vitiates the independence of State media from regressive party political patronage, influence and coercion."
Full story >>

Military officer's appointment to SLRC troubles IFJ

[TamilNet, Thursday, 20 March 2008, 13:31 GMT]
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), in a press release issued Thursday, expressed deep concern at the appointment of a retired army Major General to a senior position at the state broadcaster, Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC). "The appointment follows threatened strike action by staff at SLRC to demand protection in the face of a series of threats and attacks on staff allegedly linked to a melee at the station’s office on December 27, when Labour Minister Mervyn Silva assaulted SLRC news director TMG Chandrasekara," the press release said.
Full story >>

Assault on media

[TamilNet, Sunday, 16 March 2008, 16:08 GMT]
While the 2007 Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Sri Lanka released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the U.S. State Department catalogued the deteriorating climate for media freedom in Sri Lanka, State intimidation of, and violence on journalists continue in 2008. Unidentified men have broken into the houses of journalists Munusamy Parameshwari in Gampola, and Sashi Kumar and Sunetra Athugalpura in Gonawela, Kelaniya in three separate incidents in the last two days, according to media reports. Parameshawari's relatives were assaulted before the attackers got away, reports added.
Full story >>