SRI LANKA: Continuous delays in prosecuting the persons accused of assaulting the V FM journalist

Dear friends, 

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that VFM, one of the Sri Lanka’s leading national electronic media institutions networks, journalist Mr. Ruwan Sugathadasa of Gangaarama Road, Boralesgamuwa in the Colombo District was assaulted by an unknown group of people on 2 September 2011. Ruwan is a journalist by profession and the Managing Director of ‘VFM’. Later he was admitted to the South Colombo Teaching Hospital for treatment. Later Police Headquarters announced that two suspects had been arrested and produced before the Magistrate’s Court of Nugegoda along with a car allegedly used by the assailants. But still the prosecution has not yet started. The government has shown no interest in prosecuting the alleged perpetrators. The situation of the freedom of expression in the country is in peril. The fate of journalist is in dangers. The victim, his relatives and the society as a whole are waited to see justice done in this brutal attack. This case is yet another illustration of the exceptional collapse of the rule of law in the country. 

CASE NARRATIVE: 

According to the information that the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) received Mr. Ruwan Sugathadasa of Gangaarama Road, Boralesgamuwa in the Colombo District was assaulted by an unknown group of people on 2 September 2011. 

Ruwan is a journalist by profession and the Managing Director of ‘V FM’ one of a leading national electronic radio channel in Sri Lanka. 

Ruwan was assaulted when he was returning to his home located in the Gangaarama Road in Boralesgamuwa at around 7.30 pm. 

He was severely beaten up by a three-member gang with poles close to his residence. They had allegedly used a shovel, an ekel-broom and a club to beat Mr. Ruwan. 

Ruwan sustained injuries in the assault and was later admitted to the South Colombo Teaching Hospital and later transferred to a private hospital in Colombo for further treatment. 

Following the incident police started an investigation and later announced that they have arrested two persons on suspicion of the assault. The police further stated that the officers had also seized a car used by the three suspects in the crime. The police further informed the media that they suspect that the culprits are residents of the Madiwela area in Colombo. 

The police further revealed that the three suspects involved in the attack have been arrested and are due to be produced for an identification parade. Later they were produced before the Magistrate of Nugegoda and remanded. 

In the interest of seeking justice a neighbour noted down the vehicle number in which the attackers escaped and informed the police. 

Meanwhile, the police further noted that three police teams acting under the supervision of an Superintendent of Police (SP) have been deployed to conduct investigations into the incident. 

This is another incident against a journalist who was continuously facing enormous threat to life and danger in their professional activities in the country in the recent past. Several journalists have been killed, disappeared and harassed in different parts of the country in recent years. 

Civil society organizations, human rights groups and the intellectuals continuously raised their voices against the government asking them to take worthwhile and coherent steps to investigate these crimes and take the alleged perpetrators before courts of law to prevent the repeat of such gross human rights violations. 

Though certain suspects were arrested no positive steps to prosecute them have been taken. 

The normal practice of the Sri Lankan police is to continuously delay investigations in the hopes that public interest will wane. If this does not happen then what comes next is the abandonment of the procedures in the administration of criminal justice system as has been seen in the recent past. 

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: 

Reporters Without Borders has issued a communiqué following the recent attack on Uthayan News Editor that, 
“Combating impunity is the first step towards creating the conditions for independent and pluralist journalism.

This attack must not be the prelude to a new wave of violence against journalists, which has been on the wane during the past year, in part because so many journalists are in exile. We remind the authorities that impunity continues to encourage wrongdoers. 

Physical attacks against journalists have fallen overall since 2010 but threats and acts of intimidation continue to be common in Sri Lanka without the judicial authorities necessarily taking much interest“, they said. 

The Asian Human Rights Commission observed the attack on Sanjaya was nonetheless the third attack on Sri Lankan journalist in the past few months. Independent Televison Network journalist Niroshan Premarathna, Uthayan News Editor Gnanasundaram Kuganathan, Uthayan reporter Mr. S. Kavitharan of was assaulted in deferent places in the country. In the case of Niroshan Premarathna he was assaulted inside the Panadura Police Station even after his revitalization as journalist attached to the ITN. 

The Asian Human Rights Commission observed that there were four murders of journalists in Sri Lanka since 2008 in which a link with the victim’s work was clearly established, and a well-known cartoonist, Prageeth Eknaligoda, has been missing since January 2010. None of these cases has been solved. More than 50 journalists and press freedom activists have fled abroad in recent years because their lives were in danger. 

SUGGESTED ACTION: 
Please send a letter to the authorities listed below expressing your concern about this case and requesting an immediate investigation into the allegations of assault against the journalist by the unidentified gang, and the prosecution of those proven to be responsible under the criminal law of the country. 

Please note that the AHRC has also written a separate letter to Mr. Ambeyi Ligabo, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression on this regard. 

To support this case, please click here: SEND APPEAL LETTER