|
|
|
|
It is with shock and dismay that we note the dastardly attack on the Siyatha TV and Radio stations in the wee hours of yesterday. What is more shocking is the ease with which the attackers carried out their operation and got away in a heavily guarded city teeming with so many checkpoints and military and police personnel. According to eyewitnesses, six unidentified armed persons came in two cars and mounted the attack with no resistance from the unarmed security guards.
The police are reported to have launched an investigation but it is sure to draw a blank in the end, if our experience with police probes into attacks on the media is anything to go by. Whenever goons descend on a media organisation or journalists, the knee-jerk reaction of the police is to deploy several `special teams`, give press conferences and pretend to be busy with investigations until some other issue crops up and distracts the public. Thereafter, the probe is abandoned. That is the name of the game! This we have seen happen on many occasions in the past. The police have, over the years, mastered the art of probing without probing!
It is only natural that the government in power becomes an immediate suspect whenever unidentified gangs attack media organisations with impunity and the police fail to hunt them down. One may argue that the police have also failed to take in some suspects the government politicians are all out to have arrested. All their efforts to arrest Danuna, the son-in-law of Gen. Sarath Fonseka, have come a cropper much to the consternation of the government. Out of desperation, the police even raided a well known temple in search of him but in vain. However, the fact remains that the police must be able to at least investigate and identify the perpetrators of violence against the media and the rivals of the ruling party, let alone arrest them.
Those responsible for the attacks on The Sunday Leader press, the MTV studio, the Sudar Oli office in Colombo and the Uthayan head office in Jaffna have not even been arrested in spite of the much advertised deployment of `special police teams`. The Sunday Leader editor Lasantha Wickrematunge was roughed up on several occasions and then assassinated in broad daylight but his killers are still at large. Many other attacks on journalists and media houses have gone unprobed, making one wonder whether the perpetrators could have got away so easily without political backing. (On April 28, 2003 around 9.30 pm, five goons stormed the house of an Island journalist and tried to stab him but they had to flee when he resisted and his neighbours rushed in. All of them were arrested within one hour of the incident with their weapons still in their possession and locked up at the Boralesgamuwa police Station. But, the police had to set them free shortly afterwards on orders from on high! The probe was hushed up.)
It is incumbent upon the government to have the attack on Siyatha thoroughly probed and the perpetrators arrested. Else, it will continue to be a suspect in the eyes of the public, and those who are on a human rights witch-hunt against Sri Lanka must be salivating at the prospects of using yesterday`s incident to justify their unspeakable campaign to their sinister ends.
|
|
|
AnuD
Senior Member
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 43318
Member Profile
|
 31 Jul 2010 04:27:06 GMT Report for Abuse
|
This is not democracy at all.
This kind of dictatorships are available in other Asian countries.
Sri Lanka becoming Singapore means, Father govern it until he gets really Old, after that Son begins.
Ranil just get PinPAdi and live for ever as the opposition. |
wick
Joined: Sep 2007
Posts: 2884
Member Profile
|
 31 Jul 2010 05:43:34 GMT Report for Abuse
|
Ranil just get PinPAdi and live for ever as the opposition.
Ranil dose not have an offspring to take the baton. |
p007
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 1729
Member Profile
|
 31 Jul 2010 09:01:01 GMT Report for Abuse
|
| When will the Authorities realise such cowardly and dastardly attacks are the worst things for Sri Lanka with international attention focussed on our human rights record? Either the govt. must find and punish the culprits or the country suffers. Will the so-called patriots understand this simple fact? |
saleemtariq
Senior Member
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 2167
Member Profile
|
 31 Jul 2010 09:30:29 GMT Report for Abuse
|
It is incumbent upon the government to have the attack on Siyatha thoroughly probed and the perpetrators arrested. Else, it will continue to be a suspect in the eyes of the public,
The 'government' has been 'a suspect in the eye of the' international community for a long time.
Going by the record of this govt giving impunity to such attackers the general impression is that the govt is behind these abuses.
There have been too many incidents like this to rule out the complicity of govt ministers in this too. Not a single incident was properly investigated or any culprit brought to book.
After similar attack on Uthayan offices and press and killing of their staff in Jaffna far away from Colombo, allegedly by EPDP they are forced to observe a self censorship to ensure their survival.
Edited By - saleemtariq - 31 Jul 2010 09:37:35 GMT |
RSunil
Joined: Mar 2010
Posts: 65
Member Profile
|
31 Jul 2010 16:03:30 GMT Report for Abuse
|
| Why does'nt Sirasa run a series about the IGP and ask him to go home as officials would do in developed countries. |
saleemtariq
Senior Member
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 2167
Member Profile
|
31 Jul 2010 16:30:55 GMT Report for Abuse
|
AP:
The Sri Lankan government said on its website it ordered a police investigation into the 'reported fire.'
A police investigation is ordered like other 110 investigations, their reports are awaited for several years.
The journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda is missing from January and believed kidnapped by military intelligence for the crime of being critical of the Rajapakse government. |
kiora
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 824
Member Profile
|
 1 Aug 2010 01:51:04 GMT Report for Abuse
|
| This is orchestrated by the West to destabilise the country. Act of utter contempt. All is not lost MR will have the culprit behind locked cells in no time. |
kiwikanga
Senior Member
Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 5000
Member Profile
|
1 Aug 2010 05:05:05 GMT Report for Abuse
|
The owners of the station feel it's nothing to do with the government
http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2010/08/01/hidden-hand-behind-siyatha-attack/
Popular film actress and wife of Voice of Asia Director, Roshantha Kariyapperuma, Sangeetha Weeraratne told The Sunday Leader, We have not gone against the government or the opposition. Our news has always been unbiased and impartial. There is no reason to believe that any one would want to harm us.
However, she said that the company suspected a hidden hand of a would-be competitor behind Friday s attack. Definitely not anyone who is already established but someone new, she said, refusing however, to name any person or persons.
Edited By - kiwikanga - 1 Aug 2010 05:05:43 GMT |
saleemtariq
Senior Member
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 2167
Member Profile
|
1 Aug 2010 17:57:15 GMT Report for Abuse
|
MR claimed Lasantha Wickremathune the former editor of the Sunda Leader,was his friend but his killers are still at large.
Siyatha's owner left the country some months ago after reports emerged that he had also funded the opposition presidential candidate, Sarath Fonseka.
The government temporarily prevented Siyatha from covering official events and withdrew advertising from its newspaper, which has now closed down.
However, its broadcasts have not been critical of the government.
Siyatha has not been critical of the Govt but still it is prevented from covering official events and the govt withdrew adverting from its newspaper which is closed down now due to losses.
The Govt is trying to convince the people that it has no hands in the attack as was in the killing of Wickrematunge.
A US-based journalists' rights organisation ranks Sri Lanka as the fourth-worst country for impunity in attacks on journalists.
Edited By - saleemtariq - 1 Aug 2010 17:59:27 GMT |
|
Search All News and Discussions
Share On Facebook
31 Jul 2010 14:21:04 GMT