Ronnate Tissainayagam, wife of Sri Lanka jailed journalist, Jayaprakash Tissainayagam, accepted the Peter Mackler Award for courageous and ethical journalism, named for a 30-year veteran of Agence France-Presse who died last year, at a ceremony at the National Press Club Friday, AFP reported.
Seventeen months after being arrested, and almost three years after writing two articles the government claims were meant to incite “communal disharmony,” journalist J.S. Tissainayagam was sentenced to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment on August 30 by the Colombo High Court.
With news emerging that Sri Lanka may still be able to hold on to the GSP+ concessions, EU Ambassador to Sri Lanka Bernard Savage warned that there are still issues to be overcome.
Following the climax of the civil war earlier this year, the Sri Lankan Government has further increased its defence budget by 20% for the remainder of this year.
The Sri Lankan Government has refused to release documents detailing the underlying basis of the IMF loan to Sri Lanka, but has started to comply with those terms.
The lives of hundreds of thousands of Tamils held in internment camps are in "serious danger" from the imminent rainy season and a looming threat of disease, a human rights group has warned.
Andrew Stroehlein, International Crisis Group's Communications Director, during his testimony to the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights on the situation in Sri Lanka Thursday, noted the poor and deteriorating conditions in the internment camps where more than 264,000 Tamils are being held by Colombo.
The United States has responded after Sri Lanka protested over the US Secretary of State including Sri Lanka in a list of countries where rape is used as a weapon of war.
