A bitter feud and an ugly media spectacle in the lead up to Presidential elections

by Dilrukshi Handunnetti - This presidential election is unlike any other. There are no manifestos published yet to augment a healthy political debate and policies do not appear to concern the two main candidates.

At this moment, the citizenry would have preferred to hear from the chief contenders their formulae for nation building post war. Yet, what we find is both candidates, President Mahinda Rajapakse and the opposition common candidate, General (Retd) Sarath Fonseka harping on two topics. Firstly, on who can justly claim credit for the war victory and secondly, whether The Sunday Leader’s recent story on alleged war crimes is true or not.

The presidential poll is being held two years ahead of schedule, and that too for a reason. The incumbent’s wish was to skillfully capitalize on the military defeat of the LTTE. What he did not bargain for was the former Army Commander Fonseka’s political aspirations that led him to a quick entry into the presidential race.

Enduring diatribe

Instead of campaigns that address public concerns, people are now compelled to endure the diatribes of the two main contenders. Each camp heaps blame on the other, devaluing their joint military achievement. As for the voters who finance this expensive presidential race, it is nothing but Hobson’s choice.

Rajapakse and Fonseka just months ago were partners in a military effort to end the protracted conflict. As they place themselves far apart in a bitter political battle, the liberal exchanges offer voters sufficient reason to be angry, to find cheap entertainment or perhaps both.

With the announcement of a presidential election, the voters had the opportunity to witness another political drama, this time, involving the slain Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge. The government demonstrated a frenzied desire (after months of pathetic failure to achieve any results in the ongoing or slow going investigations into the murder) to secure speedy justice for Wickrematunge while Fonseka too did his part, promising media freedom under his stewardship and famously visiting Wickrematunge’s grave and placing a floral tribute.

But in the circus that followed complete with mudslinging, the voters had few conclusions to draw. It may be fair to assume both candidates know much more than willing to publicly admit on the murder of the controversial editor. They have simply opened a can of worms and as the weeks go by, more worms are sure to spill out.

Patriotism contest

For impartial observers, the political campaigns are replete with calls to identify the ‘true patriot’ in this race. In seeking to paint the other black, the two presidential hopefuls have effectively reduced the campaign to one that seeks to selfishly claim credit for the war victory to the exclusion of burning issues affecting the public, the men and women whose votes they hope to garner by January 26.

It seems that both contenders prefer to speak of a glorious victory as opposed to meaningful ideas for our future development. The fact is that both the political and military leadership were required to win the war. Both these men together with thousands of others in the armed forces and the police have played their part. Sri Lanka would not take it away from them. Yet, it is a tragedy to find both men seeking to build their platform on the war victory.

If one were to analyse, issues like the cost of living, economic downturn, the displaced, the retrenchment, education issues, rehabilitation and the development hardly figure. Can claims of patriotism and efforts to patent the war victory be the answer to the post war challenges of a society in transition?

The country has nearly a quarter million people living in camps for the displaced. An election monitoring organization has estimated that nearly a 100,000 displaced may not be able to vote this January. While there are frenzied attempts to resettle them prior to the conduct of the poll with the intention of securing their votes, is the government prioritizing the other concerns of the displaced?

Political leadership vacuum

If that be the case, Sri Lanka must also acknowledge another malaise, one that goes far deeper than the superficiality of the current presidential campaign.

The decision to hold the presidential poll two years ahead of schedule was based on a political calculation. It offers an unparalleled opportunity for the incumbent whose regime saw the end to LTTE militancy. Two years later, this victory would be a distant memory for most voters.

The common opposition candidate Gen (Retd) Sarath Fonseka is no star, though a war winning general. Despite his entry into mainstream politics, again using the war effort as a key campaign slogan, he does not enjoy the popularity enjoyed by the likes of Lucky Algama, Janaka Perera, Wijeya Wimalaratne or Denzil Kobbekaduwa.

Platform of strange bedfellows

But for the United National Party (UNP), the main opposition party, Fonseka’s desire to run for presidency was a welcome development. The UNP has a history of some 15 stinging political defeats barring the 2002 general election and the local elections that followed. The party also lacks a charismatic leader who could lead a presidential a campaign that caused party cadres to agitate for ‘change’.

The same applies to the emasculated Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). Smarting from the defections staged by the group led by Wimal Weerawansa, this election affords an opportunity for the JVP to show some strategic strength. Given the leadership vacuum in both the main parties, SLFP Mahajana Wing leader Mangala Samaraweera has managed to bring strange bedfellows together to create a platform for the retired general.

In effect, Fonseka’s entry has caused some ripples and much disconcert in the government camp that prepared for a one-horse race, assuming Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremasinghe was to be the likely opponent.

Two weeks since the race began, President Rajapakse’s campaign theme is “Promised and Delivered”, one that aims at ending poverty. Fonseka’s campaign is to end corruption and nepotism with a larger commitment to abolish the executive presidency.

Seeking to mobilize public support through the media, both candidates are now indulging journalists with free meals. While the President has virtually converted Temple Trees to a veritable free meal restaurant at the tax payer’s expense, Fonseka too has not shied away from five-star entertaining.

Media conduct

Upon broad analysis, both candidates are by no means well-wishers of free expression, a hard fact the proponents of free expression should bear in mind.

Journalists are also voters, and like all other citizens, enjoy a right to hold and express political opinion. But given the divisions and politically motivated professional practice, it is the politicians who reap benefits of this disunity.

In Sri Lanka, dissenting journalists often have bitter ends as the past few years bear gruesome testimony. Others suffer in the court of public opinion.

The two main contenders now demonstrating their election time love of journalists, a tribe politicians share a complex relationship with and an industry they prefer to control than help liberalize. Despite the absence of manifestos, Rajapakse and Fonseka are competing with each other with pledges to create a free media culture.

As the political heat generated by the two intensify, President Mahinda Rajapakse publicly observed that since Fonseka’s exit from the government camp, there were no recorded incidents of violence perpetrated against journalists. The insinuation was unmistakable.

If the government’s credentials in safeguarding free expression are in want, Fonseka though no politician until recently has a past that does not inspire confidence. He first paid a glowing tribute to journalists for performing a thankless task for the betterment of society and for risking their lives for their vocation. He has already gone on record having said that he had no animosity towards Lasantha Wickrematunge but only had a difference in opinion with regard to the newspaper’s view on the conduct of the war.

Earlier on, as much as Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse poured scorn on Wickrematunge and others with dissenting opinion, Fonseka too did his bit. For example, in a well recorded statement he referred to such dissenters as ‘terrorist journalists”.

It is also well known that Fonseka enjoyed a hand superior to that of the Lake House newspapers’ editors when it came to the coverage of defence matters and exercised significant control over the state run editorials. Journalists there speak of a time when certain defence correspondents ordered desk editors to publish articles and photographs at the behest of the former commander.

In another instance, a journalist paid the price for a controversial and derogatory reference the former army commander made to protesting South Indian politicians and activists during the final phase of the Eelam War IV. To avoid a possible diplomatic row over the irresponsible comment, the newspaper editor was removed from his post.

Media freedom pledged

Today, the same Fonseka promises to introduce a Freedom of Information Act, a parliamentary bill to ensure safety to journalists, to end the culture of impunity and strengthen the media.

If Fonseka’s conduct is uninspiring, the president and his own coterie’s conduct would be more scarlet in comparison.

This government has the rare honour of having ministers who barge into media houses or order the assault of journalists on duty in their electorates, those who telephone editors and threaten to kill them, unleash hate speech against institutions and individuals and placing their lives of journalists at grave peril.

During Mahinda Rajapakse’s term as the chief executive, the onetime darling of the media, Sri Lanka recorded an all time low in media freedom indices. Some 11 journalists have been killed, 27 assaulted and seven abducted since January 2006. Scores have fled the island fearing for their lives.

If that’s what is on offer by way of political choice, the citizenry have to also deal with a nauseating media culture to boot, with some exceptions.

State media role

The state media institutions, maintained with the tax payers’ money have been effortlessly converted into propaganda machines. The Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) coverage of the nominations day was so biased that the UPFA candidate was introduced as the ‘heroic man who unified the nation, the true patriot’. The announcers shied away from introducing all other candidates as they handed their nomination papers.

The above is an indicator of a deeply entrenched problem. The fact is that journalists are more polarized than politicians. At least, politicians have binding and permanent interests. But journalists are a divided community, now further fragmented by political and commercial interests.

This defect of the ‘watchdogs tribe’ has led to the journalists’ inability to safeguard the industry’s common interests. The Sri Lankan reality is that if a journalist is attacked, a dozen other journalists would willingly justify such violence or label him/her as a ‘terrorist’.

This fragmentation has rendered it impossible to organize journalists to achieve their professional demands as doctors, lawyers, nurses do through collective bargaining. And it fosters the politicians’ unrepentant practice of divide and rule. And every effort is made to convert the watchdogs into lapdogs, and worse still, into pet poodles.

Watchdogs to lapdogs

Journalists in Sri Lanka have professional issues that need urgent addressing. But the space to perform an honest communicator’s job is first invaded either by the state or by the private media house owners. They have their own political biases and commercial interests.

Then there are issues that concern journalists themselves. Most media institutions do not have in house ethics and most journalists, as the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) polls prove, do not have the vaguest idea about the existing Code of Ethics for journalists. The electronic media does not have a self regulating mechanism altogether.

Polarized, divided and politically and/or commercially manipulated, journalists should apportion significant blame upon themselves for the plight they are in. it is best to remember that media freedom, utopian as the concept is, was never handed over to practitioners on a platter by politicians.

Recording some appalling media practices, we find accredited journalists unofficially assisting Fonseka’s campaign. Those who are more brazen and in state media are openly using their media outlets to campaign for the incumbent.

Worst practices

Chairman, Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) Hudson Samarasinginhe’s media conduct is a case in point. Each morning he unleashes his venom on the common opposition candidate Gen. Sarath Fonseka through his programme that is a travesty of free expression and one that defies ‘good journalistic practices’ by any standard. Samarasinghe is a SLFP organizer for Colombo.

The Independent Television Network (ITN) too has its own example in SLFP Kurunegala electoral organizer Sudharman Radaliyagoda. He has no qualms about keeping his job as a television journalist and ‘balances’ his twin acts merely by not conducting his ‘significantly titled’ programme named ‘Thulawa’ until the conclusion of the presidential election.

It is not as if journalists before refrained from dabbling in politics and were not involved in political campaigns and strategizing. They certainly have. But often there had been some sense of decorum in playing these roles.

There were the hosanna singers for those in political power to the exclusion of other political expression. But under President Rajapakse, the conversion is complete. Today there are card carrying cadres of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) still working as journalists in violation of Chapter 32 of the Establishment Code.

The state media houses have, for decades, suffered from the incarcerating influence of party politics. But this example of politicians heading media institutions and departments is unprecedented and truly a first.

On the one hand, there are candidates whose attitude towards media is the least inspiring. On the other, there are journalists turned into politicians, preaching good practices in journalism and using public airwaves and newspapers space to propagate candidates. That indeed is a case of the devil quoting scriptures.

As for the voters, overlooked in this struggle for power, it is a time to witness a bitter feud between the two main presidential aspirants and an equally ugly media spectacle.

Be it in politics or media, did anyone say Hobson’s choice?

Dilrukshi Handunnetti is an award winning Sri Lankan journalist and a lawyer by training. A journalist for over 17 years, Dilrukshi has extensively covered the areas of politics, conflict, environment, culture, and history and gender. She has widely traveled within and outside Sri Lanka covering the ethnic conflict from a non-military perspective and written extensively on issues of good governance, graft and corruption.

© www.groundviews.org

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169 complaints received by Police Election Secretariat

The Police Election Secretariat has so far received 169 complaints according to Chief of the Police Election Secretariat Senior DIG Gamini Navaratne.

Of the complaints, 95% are reported to be minor complaints, some involving drunken supporters.

DIG Navaratne’s comments follow allegations by UNP Ampara district organizer Daya Gamage that election violence is on the rise and opposition UNP and JVP activists have been harassed and their party offices subject to attacks.

DIG Navaratne however stated that vehicle checks are to be stepped up and that more measures will be taken to tighten security as elections draw closer.

© Daily Mirror

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SL presidential contender woos Tamil voters

Sri Lanka's former military chief Sarath Fonseka took his presidential campaign on Saturday to the ethnic heartland of the Tamil Tiger rebellion he helped crush last year.

The retired four-star general, who is seen as the main challenger to President Mahinda Rajapakse in polls slated for January 26, visited the northern region of Jaffna, where he toured a historic Hindu temple and addressed a rally.

Fonseka, 58, was also due to meet the influential Roman Catholic Bishop of Jaffna, Thomas Savundranayagam, a spokesman for his office said.

In an interview with an Indian television network on Friday, Fonseka had warned that Rajapakse was out to rig the election and said he feared a violent campaign.

"You can see the election is going to be a very violent election and we want every friendly country to put pressure on the president to ensure democracy is established," he told the NewsX network.

Both Fonseka and Rajapakse are from Sri Lanka's majority Sinhalese community and appeal largely to their own ethnic group. Both claim credit for the final defeat of the Tiger rebels in May, which ended a decades-old ethnic conflict.

The possibility that they might split the Sinhalese vote has added weight to the intentions of the Tamil electorate and officials said Rajapakse, 64, was expected to visit Jaffna later this month.

The defence ministry effectively blocked independent journalists travelling to Jaffna, even though the authorities had announced last month that travel restrictions had been withdrawn.

Rajapakse called the early January poll in a bid to capitalise on the victory over the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who had launched their campaign for a Tamil homeland from Jaffna in 1972.

Fonseka and Rajapakse have been at loggerheads since the end of the conflict. Fonseka quit after accusing the government of sidelining him and falsely suspecting him of trying to stage a coup.

© Hidustan Times

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Sri Lanka President accused of misusing state funds for election campaign

Click here to read the full report by the Transparency International

The global corruption watchdog Transparency International has accused the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on misusing state funds and properties to campaign for his 2010 reelection bid.

Issuing its first report today the Programme for the Protection of Public Resources of Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) criticized the President for using state property and public funds for the campaign activities and urged the public to raise their voice against such abuses.

The report evaluating the non compliance with the guidelines introduced by the Elections Commissioner for the election campaigns say the government is using the armed forces, police and public servants to campaign for the ruling party in the forth coming polls on January 26.

Sri Lanka's election law prohibits the use of state property or public servants for the benefit of candidates.

"The abuse of public resources at elections seems to be a continuing activity in every election in Sri Lanka. The trend seems even more ominous at the current presidential election," TISL said in its report.

Continually violating the election laws the hoardings, cutouts and other election related materials continue to be displayed in public places irrespective of the guidelines to the IGP by the Commissioner of Election to remove such materials.

The TISL report highlighted several instances where some key officials of few public media institutions are concurrently holding political party positions of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party violating election laws.

The report accused the President of holding functions at the Temple Trees to entertain various groups.

"At these events, most of the participants were transported to the venue at State expense and were provided with food and in some instances, even with liquor. The President justified such entertainment events where the cost was borne with the public money as a 'normal cultural practice'," the report said.

The President is facing a fierce competition from his former Army commander General Sarath Fonseka and 20 other at the January polls.

The Sri Lanka branch of the Berlin-based watchdog cited the misuse of funds by the youth organization 'Tharunyata Hetak' led by President's son Namal Rajapaksa.

The youth organisation is reportedly receiving high contributions (by way of sponsorships) from several public institutions such as Bank of Ceylon and National Lotteries Board, both of which fall under the purview of the President, the report pointed out.

The organization has spent over 84 million rupees for advertisements to support the President's campaign, it said. In addition 5.84 million rupees has been spent on radio advertisements.

Given the gravity of such abuses and its impact on the country particularly on its democratic values, the watchdog urged a public outcry to condemn and call upon law enforcement authorities to deal with those powerful persons who abuse public finance for personal gain at elections.

© Colombo Page

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'Many civilians killed' in Sri Lanka's war : Senior opposition politician

Many civilians, including those tried to surrender, have been killed during the last phase of the conflict in Sri Lanka, a recently defected senior opposition politician has claimed.

SB Dissanayake, the former national organiser of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) accused the main opposition candidate of betraying the armed forces.

In an interview with Sunday Leader newspaper, Gen (retd.) Sarath Fonseka has reportedly accused the defence secretary of ordering the armed forces to shoot senior LTTE leaders who tried to surrender at the last stages of war.

With white flags

Denying the comments, Gen Fonseka has sent a letter of demand to the newspaper seeking Rs. 500 million as damage.

Addressing the journalists on Friday, SB Dissanayake who recently defected to President Rajapaksa's campaign said nearly 200 LTTE cadres have tried to surrender "with white flags" at the last stages.

But the security forces have retaliated as the LTTE cadres have started firing, he said.

"Many civilians might have been killed" in the carnage, he said, and 17 soldiers also lost their lives.

© BBC Sinhala

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Policeman involved in youth's drowning in Sri Lanka dies

A policeman directly involved in an attack that led to the drowning of a youth in the sea off Bambalapitiya died today after falling ill while in remand custody.

According to the Prisons Commissioner V.R. De Silva, the suspect, police Sergeant Dimuthu Somnas fell ill this morning and was admitted to the hospital.

The suspect who was attached to the Bambalapitiya police surrendered to the Bambalapitiya police on October 30th for his part in the attack on a mentally disabled youth Balawarnam Sivakumar (26) in the sea.

The youth drowned trying to fend off the attack that was caught on live TV and his body was washed ashore the following day.

Four suspects allegedly involved in the forced drowning on October 29 were arrested and remanded by the Colombo Fort Magistrate Gihan Pilapitiya on December 18.

The other three suspects are sub inspector H.M. Wirendra Weerawardena, Nishantha Samarasinghe and Pathiranage Raja.

© Colombo Page

Related Links:
The Police `forced` a mentally retarded man to drown in Colombo - JDS

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Sri Lanka dismisses EU trade move

Sri Lanka's president on Friday dismissed the European Union's suspension of preferential trade status to the island, saying his government would resist foreign "strategic interference".

"We will not be held back by threatened economic sanctions or withdrawn trade concessions by those who seek strategic interference in the national affairs of Sri Lanka," President Mahinda Rajapakse said in a New Year message.

The statement was a clear reference to the EU decision last month to suspend Sri Lanka's preferential trade status on the grounds that it had breached commitments on human rights and good governance.

During the final months of the war with Tamil Tiger rebels in early 2009, the United States and the EU voiced alarm at Sri Lanka's treatment of non-combatants and the internment afterwards of up to 280,000 minority Tamils.

The criticism saw Rajapakse turn to China, Iran and Libya for financial and military aid.

"We remain committed to a strengthened and sustained friendship with the countries that supported us in full measure to defeat terrorism and bring peace to our people," he said Friday.

Sri Lanka stands to lose over 150 million dollars annually due to the EU withdrawal of preferential tariffs on Sri Lankan produce, according to trade estimates.

© AFP

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War-crime allegations piling up in Sri Lanka

Feizal Samath - Seven months after Sri Lanka ended nearly 40 years of bloody insurgency on the island, allegations of war crimes continue to haunt President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is seeking re-election next month.

Last week, the UN special rapporteur for extra-judicial killings and arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, urged the government to clarify allegations that Tamil rebels and some leaders had been shot down while trying to surrender and carrying white flags.

The allegation was made by the former army commander, Gen Sarath Fonseka, who is contesting the January 26 presidential election against Mr Rajapaksa. In an interview with the Sunday Leader newspaper on December 13, Gen Fonseka was quoted as saying that the defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who is also the president’s brother, had ordered field commanders to kill senior rebel commanders including those who wished to surrender.

Among those who had tried to surrender at the last stage of the conflict was the head of the Tamil rebel’s political wing, B Nadesan and the head of its peace secretariat, S Pulithevan, the report said.

The government and the defence secretary vehemently denied the charge, saying there was no such surrender offer and accused Mr Fonseka of falsely discrediting the government.

Gen Fonseka was the army commander who led the final assault against Tamil rebels until they were defeated in May 2009. Soon after that he was appointed to a new position of chief of defence staff but fell out with the president over differences relating to the war. He quit his post and became the presidential candidate of the main opposition parties in Sri Lanka.

“This [war crimes allegations] is not going to go away,” said Jehan Perera, executive director of the National Peace Council and a political commentator for the English language Daily Island newspaper.

“We need to face up to it with a credible local investigation under a process that is acceptable and transparent,” he said.

DS Wijesinghe, chairperson of a committee appointed by the president to examine an earlier report by the US state department on alleged war crimes, said Gen Fonseka’s claim of a Tamil rebel surrender is also contained in the state department report.

“That’s part of the 300 incidents cited in the report,” he said. The 68-page document presented to the US Congress in mid-October contains details of alleged “atrocities” by both the military and the guerrillas during the final stages of the war in May.

The state department report said the information was based mostly on internal reports to Washington from the US Embassy in Colombo, satellite imagery, international relief organisations and media outlets.

Sri Lanka has been facing bloody conflicts since 1971 when a group of young Marxist revolutionaries tried to overthrow the government. The revolt was quelled within days and its leaders imprisoned.

That was followed in 1980 by youngsters from the minority Tamil community taking to arms accusing the government of discriminating against their people. At the same time the Marxist revolutionaries (now represented in parliament as the People’s Liberation Front or its Sinhalese acronym JVP) tried to oust the government in a second rebellion but failed, leaving President Rajapaksa and his troops to defeat the Tamil rebels.

But the last few months of the war drew accusations of large-scale civilian casualties and pressure from the international community for a ceasefire by government troops and the rebels. Mr Rajapaksa ignored all these calls and ordered his troops to finish the job.

Since then UN, human rights agencies and western countries have been pressurising Sri Lanka to initiate a probe into civilian casualties and that rebel leaders and their families were not allowed to surrender under accepted rules of war.

Gen Fonseka’s claim stirred criticism from all quarters that he was trying to discredit his own soldiers. The following week, he told reporters that he had been misquoted. He said he was informed by a journalist of such an order by defence secretary Rajapaksa but had not been told personally. Gen Fonseka had been abroad during the period that this alleged incident happened.

However with the UN seeking an inquiry, president Rajapaksa on Monday extended the term of the Wijesinghe committee to April 30, 2010 to enable it to inquire into the latest claim by Gen Fonseka.

“The probe committee is a big bluff,” said one Tamil journalist from the northern town of Jaffna where most of the Tamils live. He declined to be named for fear of reprisals. “It’s just a mechanism to drag the issue and show the international community that the government is sincere in probing allegations of war crimes. Nothing will come out of it.”

The senior minister for international trade, Gamini Lakshman Peiris, said that although Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the Rome Convention, which set up the International Criminal Court (ICC), it can still be dragged before the ICC on war crimes charges without its consent.

He told the Sunday Island newspaper on December 20 that the UN Security Council had the right to request the chief prosecuting officer of the ICC to investigate the complaints it had received with a view to prosecution.

The political commentator Perera said international human-rights concerns are now pushing themselves into the centre stage of the country’s affairs. “They are unlikely to go away, and this government or the one that follows, will have to deal with them by following a policy of openness to dialogue and to fact finding,” he added.

The presidential probe committee headed by Mr Wijesinghe, a Sri Lankan senior lawyer like most of his colleagues on the five-member committee, said it had only begun work earlier this month. “The inquiry will be a long drawn-out process. At the moment the military is giving us a layout of the war and the ground scenario between January and May 2009 [when the alleged incidents happened],” he said, adding that the committee has met three or four times in Colombo.

He said the committee has been asked to inquire and report on the 300 incidents contained in the US state department report and make recommendations.

© The National

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Wars and disputed elections: The most dangerous stories for journalists - RSF

click here to read the full report

Two appalling events marked 2009: one was the largest ever massacre of journalists in a single day – a total of 30 killed – by the private militia of a governor in the southern Philippines and the other was an unprecedented wave of arrests and convictions of journalists and bloggers in Iran following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection.

A total of around 160 journalists in all continents were forced to go into exile to escape prison or death, often in very dangerous circumstances. The Iranian press photographers crossing the Turkish border to escape arrest or the Somali radio journalists fleeing to neighbouring countries to avoid certain death had all reported essential news and information that some people would go to any lengths to suppress.

Wars and elections constituted the chief threat to journalists in 2009. It is becoming more and more risky to cover wars as journalists themselves are being targeted and face the possibility of being murdered or kidnapped. But it can turn out to be just as dangerous to do your job as a reporter at election time and can lead directly to prison or hospital. Violence before and after elections was particularly prevalent in 2009 in countries with poor democratic credentials.

No one should be surprised that, as bloggers and websites continue to flourish, censorship and repression have surged proportionately. There is almost no country nowadays that has entirely escaped this phenomenon. As soon as the Internet or new media (social networking, mobile phones etc) start to play a leading role in the spread of news and information, a serious clampdown follows. Bloggers are now watched as closely as journalists from the traditional media.

Our major concern in 2009 has been the mass exodus of journalists from repressive countries such as Iran and Sri Lanka. The authorities in these countries have understood that by pushing journalists into exile, they can drastically reduce pluralism of ideas and the amount of criticism they attract. “This is a dangerous tendency and it must be very strongly condemned,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said as this review of 2009 was released.

Number of journalists killed up by 26 per cent

Almost every journalist killed in 2009 died in their own country. The exception was Franco-Spanish documentary film-maker Christian Poveda, who was murdered in El Salvador. “Less known to international public opinion than the foreign correspondents, it is these local journalists who pay the highest price every year to guarantee our right to be informed about wars, corruption or the destruction of the environment,” Julliard said.

The year began very badly with the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip. As well as refusing to allow foreign media into this territory, the Israeli government carried out military strikes against buildings housing media, in violation of international humanitarian law. Two reporters were killed in these attacks. Journalists and human rights defenders in the Russian Caucasus went through a terrifying year. The witnesses to the dirty war waged by Moscow and its local allies to be “eliminated” with complete impunity included Natalia Estemirova in Chechnya and Malik Akhmedilov in Dagestan.

Radical Islamist groups caused the death of at least 15 journalists worldwide. Nine reporters were killed in Somalia, where the Al-Shabaab militia carried out constant targeted killings and suicide attacks. Four of these journalists worked for Radio Shabelle, which does its best to provide news amidst the surrounding chaos. Reporters in Pakistan have increasingly been targeted by the Taliban in the northwest of the country.

Kidnappings have also continued to rise. Most cases are concentrated in Afghanistan, Mexico and Somalia. New York Times journalist David Rohde and his fixer managed to escape from the Taliban but Afghan reporter Sultan Munadi was killed in the military operation launched to rescue him.

“Three years have passed since the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1738 on the protection of journalists in conflict zones but governments still seem incapable of protecting reporters,” Reporters Without Borders said.

Other forms of violence, physical assaults and threats have gone up by a third (from 929 cases in 2008 to 1,456 in 2009). Journalists are most at risk in the Americas (501 cases), particularly when they expose drug-trafficking or local potentates. Asia comes next with 364 cases of this kind, chiefly in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal. The number of censored media is escalating alarmingly with nearly 570 cases of newspapers, radio or TV stations banned from putting out news or forced to close. This happened to a satirical magazine in Malaysia, a score of reformist newspapers in Iran, Radio France Internationale in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the BBC World Service in Rwanda.

The number of journalists arrested fell slightly (from 673 in 2008 to 573 in 2009) above all because there were fewer cases in Asia. The largest number of cases was in the Middle East.

Election violence

The 30 journalists killed in the Mindanao Island bloodbath in Philippines had been covering an attempt by a local governor’s opponent to run as a candidate for regional elections in 2010. Tunisian journalist Taoufik Ben Brik was imprisoned in the days following President Ben Ali’s reelection, while his colleague, Slim Boukhdhir, was brutally assaulted. Several journalists were attacked and others received death threats in Gabon following President Ali Bongo’s reelection. Around six media were also temporarily shut down for reporting on the post-election violence and criticising members of the new government. Protests about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial reelection in Iran prompted a horrifying wave of repression against the media.

Pluralist elections that should be a symbol of democracy and free expression can turn into a nightmare for journalists. State media are too often prevented from giving fair and balanced coverage of all the candidates’ campaigns. Such was the case during the contentious Afghan elections and the travesty of an election in Equatorial Guinea. The most committed journalists can be exposed to reprisals from a rival camp. Media access is not always properly observed, as evidenced in provincial polling in the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka.

The most serious problems arise when results are announced. Overwhelmed by an opposition movement that was relayed online and in the reformist press, Ahmadinejad’s supporters launched an ultra-violent crackdown on hundreds of journalists and bloggers, accusing them of being spies in the pay of foreigners or bent on destabilising the country.

The courage shown by journalists this year before and after elections earned them periods in custody, mistreatment and prison sentences that were in some cases extremely harsh. These post-election crackdowns should stimulate the international community to seek better ways of protecting the press after rigged election results are announced.

“This wave of violence bodes ill for 2010, when crucial elections are scheduled in Côte d’Ivoire, Sri Lanka, Burma, Iraq and the Palestinian Territories” said Reporters Without Borders, which often carries out media monitoring during election campaigns.

More than 100 bloggers and cyber-dissidents imprisoned

For the first time since the Internet’s emergence, Reporters Without Borders is aware of more than 100 bloggers and cyber-dissidents being imprisoned worldwide for posting their opinions online. This figure is indicative above all of the scale of the crackdown being carried out in around ten countries. Several countries have turned online expression into a criminal offence, dashing hopes of a censorship-free Internet.

The Internet has been the driving force for pro-democracy campaigns in Iran, China and elsewhere. It is above all for this reason that authoritarian governments have shown themselves so determined to severely punish Internet users. This is the case with two Azerbaijani bloggers, who were sentenced to two years in prison for making a film mocking the political elite.

Although China continued to be the leading Internet censor in 2009, Iran, Tunisia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Uzbekistan have also resorted to frequent blocking of websites and blogs and surveillance of online expression. The Turkmen Internet remains under total state control.

This year, bloggers and ordinary citizens expressing themselves online have been assaulted, threatened or arrested as the popularity of social-networking and interactive websites has soared. Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer is still in jail, while the famous Burmese comedian Zarganar still has 34 years of his prison sentence to serve. The approximately 120 victims of Internet policing also include such leading figures in the defence of online free expression as China’s Hu Jia and Liu Xiaobo and Vietnam’s Nguyen Trung and Dieu Cay.

The financial crisis has joined the list of subjects likely to provoke censorship, particularly online. In South Korea, a blogger was wrongfully detained for commenting on the country’s disastrous economic situation. Around six netizens in Thailand were arrested or harassed just for making a connection between the king’s health and a fall in the Bangkok stock exchange. Censorship was slapped on the media in Dubai when it came for them to report on the country’s debt repayment problems.

Democratic countries have not lagged far behind. Several European countries are working on new steps to control the Internet in the name of the battle against child porn and illegal downloads. Australia has said it will set up a compulsory filtering system that poses a threat to freedom of expression. Turkey’s courts have increased the number of websites, including YouTube, that are blocked for criticising the republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

“The number of countries affected by online censorship has doubled from one year to the next – a disturbing tendency that shows an increase in control over new media as millions of netizens get active online,” said Lucie Morillon, head of the Internet and Freedoms Desk. “That is why Reporters Without Borders will launch a new campaign against the Enemies of the Internet on 12 March.”

Media on trial

At least 167 journalists are in prison around the world at the end of 2009. One would need to go back to the 1990s to find so many of them in jail. Although the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression keeps reiterating that imprisonment is a disproportionate punishment for press offences, many governments keep laws that allow them to jail journalists, and continue to abuse these laws. The sentences given to journalists in Cuba, China, Sri Lanka and Iran are as harsh as those imposed for terrorism or violent crime.

Imprisonment and brutality are too often the only way authorities react to journalists. At least one journalist is assaulted or arrested every day in the Middle East. More than 60 journalists were physically attacked or arrested in Iraq in 2009. In the Palestinian Territories, more than 50 journalists were detained by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and by Fatah in the West Bank.

Africa and Asia were neck and neck in the numbers of journalists detained. More than 10 journalists were arrested in 2009 in Niger, Gambia and Somalia, while Eritrea maintained its dubious distinction of jailing the most journalists in Africa, with 32 of them behind bars. In Asia, arrests are thankfully down, but the Chinese and Pakistani security forces continue to arrest foreign or local journalists when they crossed the “red lines” they are supposed to observe.

The 28 June coup in Honduras, which was backed by the conservative press, resulted in the persecution of journalists suspected of sympathizing with the ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, and the suspension or permanent closure of their media. Finally, Cuba drew attention to itself again this year with at least 24 arrests and two new long jail sentences, bringing to 25 the number of journalists in prison.

When the powerful are not arresting journalists, they are harassing them by constantly dragging them before the courts. One editor in Algeria, Omar Belhouchet, was summoned before judges 15 times in 2009. The opposition press in Turkey and Morocco have been bombarded with law suits, which almost always lead to convictions or closures because the courts are more inclined to favour the plaintiff than the media.

Choosing exile to stay Alive

For the first time, the Reporters Without Borders annual roundup includes figures for journalists who have been forced to leave their countries because of threats to their lives or liberty. A total of 157 journalists went into exile in the past year, often in very harsh conditions. Among the countries where the exodus of journalists and bloggers was particularly dramatic were Iran, with more than 50 fleeing, and Sri Lanka, with 29. In Africa, some 50 journalists fled the chaos in Somalia while scores of Eritreans sought refuge abroad for fear of being targeted for reprisals by the continent’s worst dictatorship. Journalists also fled Guinea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mexico, Colombia and Ethiopia.

This new measure is an indication of the level of fear that exists within the media in some countries. Journalists encounter many hazards as they go into exile and seek an uncertain future. Some wait months, even years, to get protection and possible resettlement.

Press freedom in 2009

76 journalists killed (60 in 2008)
33 journalists kidnapped
573 journalists arrested
1456 physically assaulted
570 media censored
157 journalists fled their countries
1 blogger died in prison
151 bloggers and cyber-dissidents arrested
61 physically assaulted
60 countries affected by online censorship

© Reporters sans frontières

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Violence against media increased in 2009 : South Asia Media Commission

According to a report released on Tuesday, Pakistan topped the list of on-duty media persons’ deaths in South Asia, losing seven of 12 journalists in the conflict zones of eight South Asian states in 2009.

The figures were issued in a report prepared by the South Asia Media Commission (SAMC), indicating a worsened situation for the fourth pillar of the state.

The report stated that in Pakistan, “some zealots in the profession have used their new freedoms to scandalise and destabilise a fragile democracy, ignoring media norms quite frequently”. The report also points out that some leaders from the ruling party have lately opted to use threatening language against some journalists. The report underlines that there is a greater need now to have a shared discourse on media freedom. The year began with the detention of a journalist in a raid conducted by the Sindh Nationalist Front activists on January 3, 2009.

On January 4, Muhammad Imran, cameraman of a private TV channel and Saleem Tahir Awan, a freelance reporter, rushed to the site of a gas cylinder blast in Dera Ismail Khan only to be killed in a suicide attack along with seven others.

On January 24, Amir Wakeel, editor of a newspaper, was gunned down in Rawalpindi. Another TV channel’s employee Noor Hassan was abducted from Swat on February 8.

South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) Secretary General Imtiaz Alam was attacked with hockey sticks by four men when he was driving back home on February 18.

Another journalist Khawar Shafiq was abducted from Faisalabad by a state agency. Wasi Ahmed, a local journalist from Khuzdar, succumbed in Karachi after he was badly injured during an attack in his home district. Janullah Hashimzada, an Afghan journalist, was shot down in Khyber Agency on August 24.

The report said two journalists were killed in Afghanistan, one each in Nepal, India and Sri Lanka and seven in Pakistan.

Risky coverage: The report noted that the state authorities in these countries had failed to bring the murderers to justice. It also found that the on-going conflict in the frontier regions between Pakistan and Afghanistan and the surge of terrorism had brought tremendous pressure on journalists and reporting the truth had become “a hazardous affair”.

Poor handling: The report particularly noted that in most countries of the region, the regulatory environment had remained ill-defined, especially for the electronic media. “Newly emerging electronic media outlets employ no ethical and professional restraint on their conduct and standards fell with the induction of a non-professional breed of embedded amateurs.” The 180-page report throws light on country-wise events involving high-risk duties, casualties, threats and intimidations in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Maldives. About India, the report said that despite its long and well-established journalistic traditions, it remained seized with debates on ethics of news coverage in the print and electronic media, as the tendency to sell news space for trivia grew in the country’s boom.

Concerning Sri Lanka, it said journalists there have suffered the worst adversities of the lot, considerably more serious than the travails of their counterparts in Pakistan. The daylight murder of one of the country’s best-known editors, Lasantha Wickrematunga; the abduction-style arrest of N Vithyatharan and the 20-year jail term for JS Tissainayagam on charges of ‘terrorism’ represent a new low for the country.

The report on Nepal noted the environment for journalism there has deteriorated and the new rulers have provided no reward to the media for spearheading the movement against the monarchial rule and the restoration of democracy in 2006. In Afghanistan, the report found that the situation for journalism remains seriously muddied. “ [The] media has become an arena where armed groups contest fiercely for political space and the tussle took its toll, killing two journalists in 2009,” it said.

About Bangladesh, the report underlines that media has been facing the pangs of transition, which Bangladesh went through for the return to the democratic era. It noted that legislative work on media issues is needed there. The report stresses the need for fostering a responsible media culture while keeping professional and ethical standards above political agenda.

Speaking on the occasion, Imtiaz Alam said it is a pleasant and unique occasion that there is no authoritarian regime left in South Asia. However, he showed apprehensions that democracy in many countries of the region, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, faced serious threats and dangers.

Alam said that Pakistan currently faces the serious issue of nation-centric chauvinism, which is a cause of lack of resumption of the Indo-Pak dialogue. He said that after the Mumbai attacks, the Pakistani media went into a self-denial mood and the Indian media got involved in war mongering. He said the media in Pakistan should play its positive role and keep in mind that the country’s fragile democracy could not bear any blows.

Free Media Association President Munnu Bhai declared that the report should be published in Urdu as well. Senior journalist Arif Nizami stressed the need for monitoring and taking care of the families of journalists who got killed in the line of duty.

© Daily Times

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