Category Archives: press freedom & censorship

September 5, 2021 · 2:31 pm

Auckland Atrocities: Grounded Appraisals from Sri Lankans

I present several comments from Sri Lankans in New Zealand and Sri Lanka

A NOTE from SM in Colombo, 7 Sept 2021

It is high time for countries to cut hard on organisations promoting and practicing extremist ideologies whether they be religious, ethnic, separatist, or nationalist.  The UK extended its ban on the LTTE a few days back which is a welcome development.  Canada should practice what they preach. With an election round the corner, the Liberal Trudeau govt soft peddles the LTTE issue in order to garner Canadian Tamil votes.  The Canadian government’s sponsorship of TGWA is a case in point.
Countries that ignore, or aid and abet violent extremism will reap what they sow.

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September 3, 2021 · 2:11 pm

Anne Abayasekara: Telling It Like It Is

Telling It Like It Is …. is a compilation of a few of the journalistic writings of Anne Abayasekara.

   

She was born Annette Aurelia Ameresekere in April 1925. In the field of journalism, she was a Sri Lankan pioneer, entering what was a male dominated profession in the early 1940s. At Lake House, before reaching 22 years of age, she was appointed Editress of the Women’s Pages in the Ceylon Daily News and Sunday Observer, being the only female in the Editorial Department.

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May 1, 2021 · 9:59 am

Sri Lankan Dissidents: Their Work Commemorated via Their Archives

Fr Tissa Balasuriya

 

VISIT THIS SITE: https://dpul.princeton.edu/sae_sri_lanka_dissidents?fbclid=IwAR0r_CuHdd9OwgkvjStbaGXlscmQ7hwkI1uJRt1uETMLIebFoVq1bPr40vY

This collection documents the activity of a generation of Sri Lankan radical activists who, in their different ways, attempted to escape the claims of rival ethno-nationalisms and build alternative political and development projects, drawing on Marxism, Christian socialism, and feminism, among other inspirations.

Fr Yohan Devananda 

Fr Michael Rodrigo & Fr Paul Caspersz

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January 4, 2021 · 1:38 pm

Sabotage! FIVE EYES Operation undermined Oz-China Relations

Tony Kevin, in ConsortiumNews, 8 December 2020, where the title reads “Australia Sabotaged Its Own Interests in China Relations”

The destruction over the past five years of Australia’s mutually beneficial diplomatic and trade relationship with China was probably a successful “Five Eyes” information warfare operation,  writes Tony Kevin.

Hong Kong protester throws egg at President Xi Jinping’s portrait on China’s National Day, Oct. 1, 2019. (Studio Incendo, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

The address to Federal Parliament by Chinese President Xi Jinping on  Nov. 17, 2014, marked a highwater mark in bilateral relations.  Xi was in Australia for the G-20 summit in Brisbane hosted by Prime Minister Tony Abbott. His theme was that China was committed to peace but ready to protect its interests.

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June 15, 2020 · 5:44 am

A Summary Overview of Sri Lanka’s Struggle to contain Covid

Lasanda Kurukulasuriya, in Island, 11 June 2020, with this title “Covid19 in Sri Lanka: From lockdown to ‘new normal’.”

Sri Lanka’s handling of the Covid19 outbreak has, comparatively speaking, produced commendable results. Tracing the trajectory of the response, it may be seen that early moves to prepare for what lay ahead served well to mitigate the outcome. A Task Force drawing on expertise of all relevant sectors was appointed by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on January 27th, the day the first Covid19 case was reported – that of a Chinese woman tourist.

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May 9, 2020 · 2:37 pm

Vale Walter Jayawardena, Fighter for Lanka

Hassina Leelarathna

The hardest thing about saying goodbye to a departed one is not being able to say goodbye, as with flowers and incense, a last long look, prayers for the journey ahead, or a final touch.
 Yet, that’s how family and friends will bid farewell to Walter Jayawardena, journalist, lawyer, and well-known activist in the Sri Lankan community in the U.S., who passed away on Sunday May 3, 2020.
 
The funeral service will be conducted online via Zoom by the Sarathchandra Buddhist meditation center in North Hollywood on Saturday starting 5:00 p.m. The subdued farewell will be a contrast to the high energy and gusto that were hallmarks of Walter’s life.

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May 8, 2020 · 1:19 pm

Covid Apocalypse: Advocates and Challengers

Fauci with Trump

As the Covid Pandemic has spread its tentacles across the world, it has spawned conspiracy theorists of all kinds – not just that powerful idiot in Washington. One line of gloom and doom targets that very regime and depicts an all-powerful set of wheeler-dealers who negate the apocalyptic picture of worldwide disaster that they perceive around the corner. That is, their ‘brilliant work’ is immediately squashed and banished by these masterminds and manipulators in Washington and its many arms.

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April 28, 2020 · 6:57 am

Reading Stephen Champion’s Photo Event in 2008 …. Today 2020

Michael Roberts

When I came across some ‘new’ material[1] of great import relating to KP Pathmanathan’s valiant efforts to extricate the LTTE leadership from their deteriorating military situation in early 2009 and to whisk them away to Eritrea with the active support of the great powers, and then reiterated my longstanding criticisms of the Western powers’ imperial effrontery in a fresh article this April,[2] I was surprised to receive an email note out of the blue from Stephen Champion in March this year 2020 – one wholly supportive of my slashing criticisms of the West.

I assumed that Champion was writing to me from UK and was mighty pleased because I was aware of his enterprising camerawork in trying and dangerous conditions in the late 1980s and have a copy of at least one of his pictorial works.[3] I decided to seek out more information on Champion via Google and immediately chanced upon Saroj Pathirana’s report in the BBC Sandeshaya programme describing an event mounted by Amnesty International in July 2008 displaying some of Champion’s photographic collections (see Pix above). Adhering to the principle of progressing step-by-step in temporal order, I placed this item within my Thuppahi site on 20th April 2020.

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April 2, 2020 · 2:10 pm

The Police State Potential in the Fight against the Covid Pandemic

Gehan Gunatilleka,whose favoured title is “Liberty in the Time of Corona” **

View at Medium.com

Sri Lanka’s police has just announced that it would arrest those who disseminate false or disparaging statements about government officials. Why is this announcement incredibly dangerous?

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February 26, 2020 · 6:05 am

Inform Lanka on Repression of Dissent in Sri Lanka. Before and after Elections in 2019

Repression of Dissent in Sri Lanka [July-December 2019]

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