President should confirm Attorney General's invitation for exiled journalists

By Upulangani Malagamuwa

(March 11, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Media reports say, Attorney General Mohan Pieris had met with delegates from the Committee for Protection of Journalists (CPJ) and had assured them the Sri Lankan journalists in exile,now totalling around 35, should return home and they would be safe. He had asked the journalists to return and work to strengthen the system. He claims the government would also back him on that.

But what is the plight of journalists working here? They can not work as professionally independent journalists. Not even journalists in the private media are allowed to voice dissent. It is because these journalists raised a dissenting voice, they had to flee the country.

The Attorney General himself is a political appointee in the absence of a Constitutional Council under the 17the Amendment to the Constitution. There is no assurance of free and independent investigation into slain journalists and therefore no one indicted for political murders of Ravi Raj MP to journalist Lasantha Wickramatunge.

Sri Lanka under this regime is ranked 4th under the global impunity index by CPJ. Therefore AG's appeal holds no validity for safety of journalists with dissenting voices. This appeal by the AG comes only as a political appeal for the government's election campaign. For this assurance of safety for journalists, the President should give a public assurance that the government would allow a dissenting voice not only in the private media, but in State media too. Journalists in the State media should also be allowed to work as independent professionals not as “agents” who have to live under orders from “Temple Trees”.

I would therefore challenge this government to make a public pledge that all media including the State media will be allowed an independent, dissenting voice, for even the exiled journalists to feel safe to come back home.