The BBC reports on the murder of Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickramatunga. The editor of the Sunday Leader was shot in the head while driving to work.
As disturbing as Wickramatunga’s death is in it’s own right, he is only one in a line of journalists killed recently, marking a larger trend of brutal media censorship. Reports from Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders and Freedom House tend to agree with Global Integrity’s own analysis of the stifling atmosphere within which Sri Lankan journalists attempt to work.
Reporting on corruption issues is nearly impossible in Sri Lanka. Censorship is overt; all stories related to the recent civil war must be approved by the Media Centre for National Security. Wickramatunga’s pursuit of his story defied national leadership, costing him jail time and eventually his life. The BBC’s Alastair Lawson remembers him in this piece.
–Norah Mallaney
