11/6/2009
The government rejected a call by the UNP in Parliament yesterday to appoint a Select Committee to examine how investigations had been conducted into the killings, abductions and attacks on media personnel in the recent past.   more >>
 
 
 
 
11/6/2009
Over the past couple of weeks, a certain electronic media station, and certain newspapers, were strongly hinting that several journalists in the country had been having cosy relations with the LTTE. They even went to the extent of charging that these journalists had been taking money from the Tigers. The general public, who have been celebrating the military victory against the LTTE, have now started eyeing the scribes with suspicion. This charge is levelled against several journalists who were at the forefront of organising and taking part in picketing campaigns and protests rallies in the recent times. The television channel made these allegations while telecasting the footages taken of those pickets and protests. The journalists, who were shown on the television channel along with the allegations, are now in bit of hot water.
   more >>
 
8/6/2009
If Sri Lanka post war was being lulled into a false sense of security that the island nation could now become the functional democracy it deserves to be, the brutal attack on well-known journalist Poddala Jayantha last week served as an eye opener that while the war against the LTTE is over, the war against the media is certainly not.    more >>
 
3/6/2009
The dastardly attack on the General Secretary of Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association Poddala Jayantha, on Monday has again sent shock waves around the media circles. Abducted by an unknown group late afternoon on Monday as he was on his way home, he was later found beaten and left on the road side by some people. Admitted to the ICU, he was later declared out of danger.
A known advocate of media freedom, Jayantha’s attackers did not only inhumanely beat up an unarmed journalist, but also poses a greater threat to free expression in the country.
   more >>
 
2/6/2009
General Secretary of the Working Journalists’ Association, Poddala Jayantha was abducted at Embuldeniya yesterday evening and brutally assaulted by a gang that arrived in a white van.   more >>
 
2/6/2009
Lake House Journalist and Secretary of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association (SLWJA) Poddala Jayantha, was admitted to the Colombo National Hospital last night after he was seriously assaulted by an unknown gang.   more >>
 
2/6/2009
Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association Secretary Poddala Jayantha who was attacked by a group of men last evening is now being treated at the Accident ward of the National hospital.   more >>
 
1/6/2009
Journalist Poddala Jayantha was admitted to the Colombo General Hospital a short while ago with injuries to his leg after he was abducted and assaulted by an unknown group of persons before being dumped on the road in the Mulleriyawa area, Police said.    more >>
 
1/6/2009
Journalist and Sri Lanka Working Journalist Association (SLWJA) secretary Poddala Jayantha was admitted to hospital with leg injuries after being abducted and assaulted by an unknown group before being dumped on the road
   more >>
 
29/5/2009
Reporters Without Borders is extremely worried by statements by Sri Lankan officials, including army commander Gen. Sarath Fonseka, that journalists who visited areas formerly controlled by the Tamil Tiger rebels will be prosecuted.    more >>
 
29/5/2009
Inspector General of Police (IGP) Jayantha Wickramaratne has claimed that several journalists, mostly Sinhalese, were on the payroll of the LTTE and were thickly involved in the insurgency, according to latest investigations.
   more >>
 
26/5/2008
Keith Noyahr’s abduction on Thursday and the assault that followed stands out for several reasons, even amidst the regular brutalisation of this society as an act of impunity of a rare order. Noyahr was working for a relatively recently established English newspaper, and his profile there was kept low.    more >>
 
24/5/2008
It looks as if the government, while pining and blaming all and sundry about the loss of the country's place in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), it is permitting the production of evidence that lends substance to the allegation that there is a serious problem about human rights violations in the country.    more >>
 
24/5/2008
The Management and Staff of Rivira Media Corporation stood shell shocked and outraged on Thursday night (May 22) upon receiving the news that Associate Editor of The Nation and one of the paper’s most senior journalists, Keith Noyahr, had been abducted outside his residence at around 10 p.m.   more >>
 
24/5/2008
President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday directed Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and IGP Victor Perera to inquire into the incident where The Nation Deputy Editor Keith Noyahr was assaulted.
   more >>
 
 
 
Assassinated Journalist
 
 
 
Archived
   
 
 
International Press Releases and Reports
  Press freedom activist badly beaten in Colombo, hospitalised
3/6/2009
Reporters Without Borders is outraged by an assault on Poddala Jayantha, the secretary-general of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association (SLWJA), the country’s leading journalists organisation, who was kidnapped yesterday by a gang on a Colombo street, tortured and then dumped at a roadside. He is now in hospital with serious leg injuries.
more >>
 
   
  Journalist attacked – a civil society organisation threatened and a provocative campaign against freedom of expression continues
3/6/2009
Poddala Jayantha was abducted yesterday (June 1), and was later found with head and leg injuries. He is now undergoing treatment in a hospital.
more >>
 
   
  Sri Lankan Government Must Clarify Circumstances of Journalist’s Death
16/2/2009
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is alarmed to learn of the death of journalist Puniyamoorthy Sathiyamoorthy from injuries reportedly sustained in an artillery attack by the Sri Lankan Army on February 12.
more >>