A via media view of press freedom under the NPP

WHILE the buzz in media circles last week was about sensitive investigative journalist Chamuditha Wijedasa’s US Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award 2024, the slow burn in the same arena was still over a baffling lack of progress in emblematic media cases demanding justice for slain scribes.

- By Wijith DeChickera

Where the blood of assassinated editor Lasantha Wickrematunge runs as arid as the trail of suspects who carried out his slaughter at who ever’s behest, there can be no real celebration for the Fourth Estate only isolated congratulations for more intrepid members of that community as the Republic simhi.

Which should be cause for concern under the rule of men and women ‘entirely great’ such as the National People’s Power Government, whose motto of late at least is that ‘the pen is mightier’ than the assassin’s bullet or sharply spiked tool such as that which pierced Lasantha’s febrile brain.

The past is prologue

It wasn’t always the case. In the past, representatives of today’s card-carrying party membership subscribed to a diametrically opposed moral ethic. The JVP, which is in the vanguard of the NPP which ever way you cut the deck, was responsible for unleashing the carnage that in low days saw press personnel in the dark days of its second insurrection (1987-90).

Among its better known media victims were Rupavahini chief news editor K. Amaratunge, ITN chairman Thevis Guruge and Rupavahini broadcaster Sagarika Gomes. This is the more visible tip of the iceberg submerged beneath the waters of which were a slate of academics and scores of pro fessionals, to say nothing of police and military cadres.

Of course, in similarly brutal vein, the state under the patron age of then satraps – some of whom are still alive and kick ing even today – practised down on the JVP in a bestial counter campaign that cost the inimitable Richard de Zoysa his life.