An international human rights group is urging the Sri Lankan government to stop what it says is postelection harassment of journalists and news media.
New-York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that since Tuesday’s presidential election, authorities have detained and questioned several journalists, blocked news Web sites and expelled a foreign journalist. At least one journalist has been assaulted and several have been threatened.
‘SETTLING SCORES’
“Now that [President Mahinda Rajapaksa] has been re-elected, there appears to be a settling of scores with critics of the government,” Human Rights Watch’s Asia director, Brad Adams, said in a statement on Friday night.
On Friday, detectives questioned Chandana Sirimalwatte, an editor of a newspaper that backed Rajapaksa’s rival Sarath Fonseka and has reported on alleged government corruption.
Authorities also ordered a Swiss radio journalist to leave the country by Monday after she asked critical questions at a postelection news conference, said Andreas Notter, a spokesman for the broadcaster.
Notter said the Sri Lankan government gave no reason for the expulsion of South Asia correspondent Karin Wenger.
Human Rights Watch said authorities have blocked access to at least five news Web sites since the day before the election.
MISSING
On Thursday, armed men surrounded the office of one of the Web sites, Lanka e news, which was critical of Rajapaksa.
A contributor to the same Web site, Prageeth Ekneligoda, has been missing since leaving his office two days before the election.
Ravi Abeywickrama, a state TV employee, was assaulted after signing a statement with 60 other state media employees condemning the alleged misuse of state media to promote Rajapaksa, the group said.
“We fear that this is just the beginning of a campaign to get rid of critical voices before the parliamentary elections,” Adams said.
Media rights groups say Sri Lanka is among the most dangerous places for dissenting journalists. Amnesty International says at least 14 media workers have been killed since 2006.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
In the East Room of the White House on a particularly frigid Saturday afternoon, US President Joe Biden bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 19 of the most famous names in politics, sports, entertainment, civil rights, LGBTQ+ advocacy and science. Former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton aroused a standing ovation from the crowd as she received her medal. Clinton was accompanied to the event by her husband, former US president Bill Clinton, daughter, Chelsea Clinton, and grandchildren. Democratic philanthropist George Soros and actor-director Denzel Washington were also awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor in a White House
Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia was expected to meet Argentine President Javier Milei yesterday on a regional tour to drum up support ahead of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s swearing-in for a third term. Venezuelan authorities have offered a reward of US$100,000 for information leading to the capture of Gonzalez Urrutia, who insists he beat Maduro at the polls in July last year and is recognized by the US as Venezuela’s “president-elect.” The 75-year-old fled to Spain in September after being threatened with arrest by Maduro’s government, but has pledged to return to his country to be sworn in as
RSS