In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry. But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death, but dare not call his name. Not just my life, but yours too, depends on it.
Sadly, for all the dreams you had for our country in your younger days, in just three years you have reduced it to rubble. In the name of patriotism you have trampled on human rights, nurtured unbridled corruption and squandered public money like no other President before you. Indeed, your conduct has been like a small child suddenly let loose in a toyshop. That analogy is perhaps inapt because no child could have caused so much blood to be spilled on this land as you have, or trampled on the rights of its citizens as you do. Although you are now so drunk with power that you cannot see it, you will come to regret your sons having so rich an inheritance of blood. It can only bring tragedy. As for me, it is with a clear conscience that I go to meet my Maker. I wish, when your time finally comes, you could do the same. I wish.
Wickrematunge's prediction from the grave has come true as no one has been arrested or charged with his murder. A journalist with the Canberra Times reported that the person referenced at "dare not call his name" is Mahinda's brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the minister of defense.
See Gotabaya squirm - eyes bugging, hands flailing, voice pitch rising, changing the subject, casting suspicion on all the former presidents - when asked about Wickrematunge's death in a BBC interview last February. He derides Wickrematunge as a "tabloid writer" and said it was "just another murder."
He ends the interview by calling dissent and criticism of the government 'treason.' Nice guy.
WASHINGTON - U.S. officials are holding for undisclosed reasons a Pakistani journalist who works for an American media outlet.
Rahman Bunairee, a reporter with Voice of America who has been targeted by Taliban militants, was detained Sunday at Washington Dulles International Airport by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency's spokeswoman, Kelly Nantel, said she could not say why Bunairee is being detained because of confidentiality laws.
....
Taliban militants in northwest Pakistan bombed Bunairee's home on July 8, according to a July 9 story on Voice of America's Web site. He was not home during the attack, but he told the news outlet that no one in the home was injured.
Bob Dietz with the Committee to Protect Journalists met with Bunairee in Pakistan last month. Dietz said Bunairee was coming to the U.S. to take a one-year position with Voice of America. Dietz was told Bunairee had a valid U.S. visa.
Dietz said he did not have any information about whether Bunairee sought political asylum when he got to the U.S.
In late July, Bunairee told The Associated Press that the gunmen said they'd been instructed by a "high command" to destroy the house because he had spoken negatively of the Taliban in a radio report.
Sri Lankan editor: 'Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.'
Angry protesters thronged Lake House roundabout in Colombo Friday demanding that the killers of The Sunday Leader Editor in Chief Lasantha Wickrematunge be brought to justice.
No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.
I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader's 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse. We find ourselves in the midst of a civil war ruthlessly prosecuted by protagonists whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.
Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not. Friends tell me to revert to the bar, and goodness knows it offers a better and safer livelihood. Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice. Diplomats, recognising the risk journalists face in Sri Lanka, have offered me safe passage and the right of residence in their countries. Whatever else I may have been stuck for, I have not been stuck for choice.
But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.
The Sunday Leader has been a controversial newspaper because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism. The investigative articles we print are supported by documentary evidence thanks to the public-spiritedness of citizens who at great risk to themselves pass on this material to us. We have exposed scandal after scandal, and never once in these 15 years has anyone proved us wrong or successfully prosecuted us.
The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.
Every newspaper has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy. Think about those words, for they each has profound meaning. Transparent because government must be openly accountable to the people and never abuse their trust. Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united. Liberal because we recognise that all human beings are created different, and we need to accept others for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And democratic... well, if you need me to explain why that is important, you'd best stop buying this paper.
The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unquestioningly articulating the majority view. Let's face it, that is the way to sell newspapers. On the contrary, as our opinion pieces over the years amply demonstrate, we often voice ideas that many people find distasteful. For example, we have consistently espoused the view that while separatist terrorism must be eradicated, it is more important to address the root causes of terrorism, and urged government to view Sri Lanka's ethnic strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of terrorism. We have also agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens. For these views we have been labelled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.
The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled that there was no evidence against Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, and ordered the U.S. military to release him from Camp Cropper prison near Baghdad airport.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military in Iraq is not obliged to obey an Iraqi court order to release a freelance photographer working for Reuters news agency and will hold him into 2009, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled on November 30 that there was no evidence against Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, and ordered the U.S. military to release him from Camp Cropper prison near Baghdad airport, where he has been detained since September.
"Though we appreciate the decision of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq in the Jassam case, their decision does not negate the intelligence information that currently lists him as a threat to Iraq security and stability," said Major Neal Fisher, spokesman for the U.S. military's detainee operations in Iraq.
"He will be processed for release in a safe and orderly manner after December 31st, in the order of his individual threat level, along with all other detainees," Fisher said in an email to Reuters.
"Since he already has a decision from the CCCI, when it is his turn for release he will be able to out-process without having to go through the courts as other detainees in his threat classification will have to do."
Jassam was detained in early September in a raid on his home in Mahmudiya by U.S. and Iraqi forces. His photographic equipment was also confiscated. Jassam works for other Iraqi media, in addition to Reuters News, a Thomson Reuters company.
"We are astonished to learn that a press case has been tried under the criminal code," Reporters Without Borders said on its website.
Sulaimaniyah, 4 Dec. (AKI) - International rights groups have called for the release of a journalist jailed in northern Iraq for breaching a decency law by writing a story about homosexuality.
Adel Hussein was sentenced last week to six months' jail by a court in Erbil, capital of the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, according to the Committee To Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders.
Hussein was jailed over an April 2007 article he wrote for the independent weekly Hawlati that detailed the physical effects of homosexual sex.
Hussein is being held in Mahata prison in Erbil, north of Baghdad and has also been ordered to pay a 100 dollar fine, the groups said.
"We are astonished to learn that a press case has been tried under the criminal code," Reporters Without Borders said on its website.
"What was the point of adopting - and then liberalising - a press code in the Kurdistan region if people who contribute to the news media are still be tried under more repressive laws."
The sentence handed down by the Kurdish court was based on an outdated 1969 Iraqi penal code, said Luqman Malazadah, Hussein's lawyer.
Hussein was prosecuted as a result of a complaint brought by the city's public prosecutor over a scientific article published in April 2007 that detailed the physical effects of sodomy.
