SRI LANKA: JOURNALIST GIVEN 20 YEARS IN PRISON

SRI LANKAN JOURNALIST JAILED ON ON CHARGES
OF VIOLATING THE COUNTRY'S HARSH ANTI-TERROR LAW

COLOMBO (AFP) – A Sri Lankan reporter singled out by President Barack Obama as an example of persecuted journalists around the globe was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison on charges of violating the country's harsh anti-terror law. J.S. Tissainayagam's articles in the now-defunct Northeastern Monthly magazine in 2006 and 2007 criticized the conduct of the war against the Tamil Tiger rebels and accused authorities of withholding food and other essential items from Tamil-majority areas as a tool of war. J.S. Tissainayagam, 45, who contributed to the local Sunday Times and ran a website, Outreachsl.com, that focused on the island's Tamil population, was found guilty of causing "racial hatred" and "supporting terrorism," a court official said. The court found that he had received money from the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to fund his website. Tissainayagam has been in custody since his arrest in March last year, despite appeals by both local and international media rights groups for his release. He is the first Sri Lankan journalist to be convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act enacted in the early 1980s. His lawyers said they will appeal the conviction.

Tissainayagam's conviction, 17 months after the ethnic Tamil reporter was arrested, was the first time a journalist was found guilty of violating the country's Prevention of Terrorism Act. Rights groups have accused the government of waging a broad crackdown on media freedom that has continued since it routed the rebels and ended the nation's quarter-century civil war in May. Tissainayagam, who has been labeled a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, was arrested in March 2008 and indicted five months later under the anti-terror law. During his World Press Freedom Day address in May, Obama highlighted Tissainayagam's case as an example of journalists being jailed or harassed for doing their jobs. International media rights groups say the government has used emergency laws to silence public criticism of its conduct and has failed to investigate violent attacks — and killings — of journalists. The government has denied the allegations. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 11 Sri Lankan reporters were forced to flee the country in the past year, and Amnesty International said at least 14 Sri Lankan journalists and media workers had been killed since the beginning of 2006. In June, the government said it would re-establish a powerful press council with the authority to jail journalists it finds guilty of defamation or inaccurate reporting.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

The need of the spirit soul is that he wants to get out of the limited sphere of material bondage and fulfill his desire for complete freedom. He wants to get out of the covered walls of the greater universe. He wants to see the free light and the spirit. That complete freedom is achieved when he meets the complete spirit, the Personality of Godhead. There is a dormant affection for God within everyone; spiritual existence is manifested through the gross body and mind in the form of perverted affection for gross and subtle matter. Therefore we have to engage ourselves in occupational engagements that will evoke our divine consciousness. This is possible only by hearing and chanting the divine activities of the Supreme Lord, and any occupational activity which does not help one to achieve attachment for hearing and chanting the transcendental message of Godhead is said herein to be simply a waste of time.

Srila A.C. BV Swami Prabhupada:
"The Srimad Bhagavatam - Purport in Canto 1 - Chapter 2 - Verse 8"