Link to Article: For Sri Lankan Reports, the Ghosts of Violence and Intimidation Loom Again
From 2005 to 2015, Mahinda Rajapaksa presided over a systematic assault on the press. The Committee to Protect Journalists estimates that 13 journalists were killed over the decade. Others were threatened, abducted and tortured. Tamil journalists were disproportionately victimised. In 2014, Sri Lanka ranked fourth on an index of countries where journalists are slain – and their killers go free. Journalism’s calling is to speak truth to power. But every time a journalist is attacked, and the perpetrators go free, the space for independent reporting shrinks. In that decade of darkness from 2005 to 2015, the priority for Sri Lankan journalists was to just stay alive.
After 10 years of watching colleagues fall or flee, journalists worked briefly without fear after the Rajapaksa government was defeated in 2015. Old investigations were reopened, and Gotabaya was implicated in several cases of corruption and violence against journalists. By clinching the presidency in 2019, Gotabaya Rajapaksa secured immunity from the charges. As president, he has suppressed investigations that led to arrests of military personnel under his command. In a brazen rewriting of history, his administration has turned police detectives into criminals, and military officials accused of murder into victims of persecution.
In Sri Lanka, too, these new repressive tactics have been deployed. Once there were white vans and guns; now there are warrants, seizures and disinformation campaigns, which erode public trust in critics and the news media. As one of the earliest targets of this subdued terror campaign, I can attest to its effectiveness. The government is waging a propaganda war – and journalists and critics are losing.