Predators of Press Freedom: Sri Lanka - Gotabhaya Rajapakse

Gotabhaya Rajapakse, Defence secretary, Sri Lanka

The president's younger brother and defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse is openly hostile to the media and has not stopped targeting Sri Lankan and foreign journalists although the civil war ended in May 2009. When asked about cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda's disappearance in January 2010, he brushed aside the problem: "Eknaligoda had himself disappeared (...) We don't even know who this Eknaligoda is, what he had done." He also made insulting comments about the Sunday Leader's well-known editor, Lasantha Wickrematunge, when he was murdered a year earlier. After the defeat of the Tamil rebels, the president and his brother rounded on their new enemy, Gen. Sarath Fonseka, the opposition candidate in the January 2010 elections, and had him jailed. Ruwan Weerakoon, a journalist who supported Fonseka, was also jailed.

Media that criticize the president and his brother are subject to reprisals. The online newspaper Lanka eNews and its journalists had been threatened and attacked for more than a year until a deliberately-started fire destroyed its premises on the night of 30 January 2011. Egged on by Gotabhaya Rajapakse, the government press berates and often defames civil society groups. Dozens of state media employees were fired, suspended or threatened for protesting against government control of their editorial policies. The defence minister publicly regretted the abolition of prison sentences for press offences and, to address this "mistake," pressured for the restoration of the Press Council, which also had the power to impose jail sentences on journalists. By allowing impunity to prevail in murders and kidnappings of journalists, he has created a climate of danger that badly hobbles the media's work.