SL one of the worst offenders in protecting Journalists-IFJ
9 May 2015 01:19 pm
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) in its latest report said that Sri Lanka along with India, Pakistan and Afghanistan is among the ‘worst offenders’ in the region in protecting journalists in 2014-15.
It also advocated a strong need for a campaign to end impunity to ensure that those who abduct, attack or kill journalists were brought to justice. "The 2014 Impunity Index, by Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), had revealed that Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India as the worst offenders on impunity in the region.
“The situation, unfortunately, remains much the same but some significant progress has been made in the region to end impunity," the 13th annual IFJ report said.
“While Sri Lanka did not experience any journalist deaths in the past year, several had close shaves. Even six years after the end of the war, the media in the Northern and Eastern Province of the island continue to face attacks and harassment,” the IFA stated.
In India and Sri Lanka more women than men were reporters while 30 percent of the respondents were freelancers and women comprised 70 percent of them.
“Clearly, regular, full-time work is difficult to find throughout the region. In India 56 percent had full time work, in Pakistan 58 percent had full time jobs. In Sri Lanka only 48 percent had fulltime jobs. Sri Lanka too women dominated feature writing (64 percent) while men were likely to be columnists (30 percent). Women seem to be stereotyped as better suited to magazine journalism and feature writing –identified as ‘soft’ news,” the survey said.
The report also said that journalists in Sri Lanka have lived for many years with civil strife, censorship, frequent attacks on journalists and a culture of impunity with perpetrators of violence invariably going unpunished. At least two prominent women editors continue to live in exile. Tamil journalists, including women are particularly vulnerable. In the north, in Tamil media, many women prefer desk jobs given the hazards of field reporting. However a few intrepid women have taken risks while reporting from conflict zones, the report said.
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