- Media professionals take to the streets demanding media freedom
“White van culture” refers to an era in Sri Lanka on which senior journalists look back with fear, a dark decade where several of their contemporaries were tortured and/or murdered after being abducted by unidentified groups in white vans.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, when serving as Secretary to the Ministry of Defence during his older brother Mahinda Rajapaksa’s two terms as President from 2005-2015, faced heavy criticism from various quarters for not preventing or investigating these incidents. In November 2019, the younger Rajapaksa was sworn in as President.
Since 2019, there has been a surge in cases of police harassment of journalists, including raids, interrogations, and acts of intimidation, for various – and sometimes unknown – reasons. The issue of impunity for crimes of violence against journalists continues to plague the press freedom climate in the island, amidst an all-consuming pandemic and an unprecedented economic crisis.
Freedom of the press in Sri Lanka is guaranteed by Article 14 (1) (a) of the Constitution of Sri Lanka, which gives every citizen “the freedom of speech and expression, including publication”. Despite this, there is widespread suppression of the media, particularly those critical of the Government.
Journalists in Sri Lanka too, took to the streets to voice out against the oppression of the media to ask for justice for the journalists who were either killed or disappeared under their regime and demand that such incidents are not repeated in future.
Colombo Gazette Editor Easwaran Rutnam, who is a correspondent to many well-known newspapers, pointed out at the protest that there have been numerous incidents of journalists and media organisations being targeted in Sri Lanka, which have motivated journalists to come out onto the streets and use this opportunity to draw attention to the injustices that have been taking place.
“We want to push for justice and accountability for these occurrences, while fighting to ensure that there is media freedom,” he stated, adding that freedom of the media has been a constant struggle they’ve been battling. Rutnam also stated that the freedom of the media and press has never been guaranteed by successive governments, adding: “We are not here today to make a political statement or back any political party; our main goal is to ensure that all those in power make sure that journalists are given the freedom and space that they need, to report what they want to.”
Sharing their goal for this protest, Tamil newspaper Veerakesari Journalist Thanuja Maharaja, who was present at the protest, stated: “We are here today to speak out on the oppression that journalists face, while supporting the ‘Go Home Gota’ protests that are happening islandwide.”
Tamil journalists in particular have been disproportionately victimised over the years. In 2014, Sri Lanka ranked fourth on an index of countries where journalists are slain and their killers go free. Standing in front of posters of killed or missing journalists that have been hung on the fence outside the Presidential Secretariat for the past couple of weeks, she urged for the freedom of journalists to report on the truth and also called for the initiation of independent journalism in the country.
Holding a board with the statement “Hands off the Media”, Journalist and Media Personality Shafiya Nawzer brought attention to the fact that over the last few years, after the current Government was elected, Sri Lanka began facing various crises.
“We are with the people. Our right to freedom to write what we want and what is right has been taken from us,” she stated, adding that her fellow media colleagues had been taken during the fight for press freedom.
Finally, journalists around the country have said enough is enough and joined the people’s protest, asking for the resignation of the current Government and requesting for press freedom – for what seems to be the nth time in Sri Lankan history. Nawzer hopes that this revolution will bring real change that will last generations to come, for both the citizens of the country and media organisations.
