Sri Lankan rights activists, lawmakers and relatives of slain and disappeared journalists on Thursday held a vigil over their abductions and killings, demanding that the government expedite investigations.
Despite being in power for four years, the government “has miserably failed to fulfill its promise to punish those responsible for attacks on journalists,” vigil co-organizer Freddie Gamage said.
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena took office in 2015 promising to end a culture of impunity and ensure justice for the slain journalists.
Under his predecessor, former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa, dozens of journalists were killed, abducted and tortured. Some fled the country, fearing for their lives.
In some cases, military officers were arrested and released on bail.
A total of 44 journalists and media workers were killed from 2006 to 2015, during the Rajapaksa presidency, Gamage said.
A total of 11 journalists were killed in the same period, including five who were targeted for murder and whose cases remain unsolved, the US-based nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists said.
“Investigations have been launched only into two or three cases, but so far those probes too have not been concluded and culprits have not been punished,” Gamage said. “All the other cases of attacks on journalists have been totally neglected by the authorities.”
Ajith Perera, a lawmaker and government minister, lamented the slow progress of the investigations on attacks on journalists.
“None of those responsible for attacks on media have been punished. The government should be ashamed,” he said.
In the past, the government has said that the investigations were being handled by police and that it would not interfere.
Separately on Thursday, Sandya Eknaligoda, the wife of abducted journalist and cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda, staged a sit-in protest in front of the presidential office demanding that Sirisena’s administration bring to justice the perpetrators responsible for her husband’s disappearance on Jan. 24, 2010.
Prageeth Eknaligoda wrote about corruption and nepotism, as well as Rajapaksa’s leadership of a military campaign against the Tamil Tiger rebels.
He was abducted two days before a 2010 presidential election in which he actively supported Rajapaksa’s rival.
Several military intelligence officials have been arrested in connection with his disappearance, but they have been released on bail.
Most of the killings and attacks on journalists took place during Sri Lanka’s civil war, which ended in 2009, after government troops defeated the Tamil Tigers, who fought for a separate state for ethnic minority Tamils.
The government and the rebels were both accused of killing and abducting critics.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of