Sri Lankan media activist recovers after attack

A Sri Lankan journalist was recovering in hospital Tuesday after being beaten up near the capital Colombo as rights groups expressed renewed concern for the safety of the island's media.

Poddala Jayantha, secretary of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists' Association, was abducted near his home and severely attacked with sticks before being dumped in a suburb of Colombo, his colleagues said.

"He is conscious and is out of danger," Colombo National hospital director Hector Weerasinghe said, explaining the activist had been hit on his head and legs.

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, but colleagues said Jayantha's media activism had been criticised by state authorities in recent weeks.

The Asian Human Rights Commission AHRC said news of the assault came as a group of media rights activists were meeting in Colombo with President Mahinda Rajapakse. It said the president immediately called for a police investigation.

"This is a typical response of the president after any attack on journalists,' the AHRC said in a statement, accusing the Sri Lankan leader of not sending a strong enough message.

"There is a permissive atmosphere to engage in acts of violence. The jubilation over the assassination of the LTTE Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leaders is now being manipulated to silence all dissent, particularly that in the Sinhalese-majority south."

"All criticism against human rights abuses in Sri Lanka is being portrayed as unpatriotic actions deserving serious punishment which implies attacks similar to that suffered by Mr. Jayantha."

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists CPJ said the attack highlighted that Sri Lanka's independent media was still a target, despite the end of the war with the LTTE last month.

"The attack on Poddala Jayantha is part of a trend," said Bob Dietz, the CPJ's Asia programme coordinator.

"These attacks are a chilling reminder that journalists remain under attack in Sri Lanka even after the end of the government?s battle with Tamil separatists," he said in a statement.

The attack on Jayantha was the third physical assault on a journalist in Sri Lanka this year. The editor of the Rivira Sinhalese paper Upali Thennakoon was attacked in late January, two weeks after leading anti-establishment editor Lasantha Wickrematunga was shot dead near the capital.

Wickrematunga's Sunday Leader had been critical of the government's military campaign against the Tamil Tigers, which also caused widespread international alarm because of heavy civilian casualties.

While the LTTE was condemned for using tens of thousands of Tamil civilians as a human shield, the island's hawkish government has been accused of indiscriminate shelling of rebel-held areas.

The last territory held by the LTTE fell into government hands on May 18, with rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran killed by government troops.

State media reports in recent weeks have accused unnamed journalists of colluding with Tamil Tiger rebels, who were fighting for an independent Tamil homeland on the Sinhalese-majority island.

In January, the government told parliament that nine journalists had been killed and another 27 assaulted over the past three years, while independent activists say more than a dozen journalists have been killed.





in a phenomenon known as "Manhattanhenge." REUTERS/Lucas Jackson