#JeSuisTamil

By Arujuna Sivananthan -February 1, 2015

Dr Arujuna Sivananthan

Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons is a spectacle to behold. Each Wednesday when Parliament is sitting the Prime Minister answers questions asked by MPs in the main chamber. It is theatre full of “histrionics and cacophony”, yet it reinforces everything that is great about British democracy.

However, on the 14th of January the mood was sombre following the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris.

John Whittingdale, the Conservative MP for Maldon asked the following question: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the past 12 months, more than 60 journalists have been killed in the course of their work, including those at Charlie Hebdo last week? Just five weeks ago, I and several other Members of Parliament attended the signing in Paris of a declaration by representatives of every European country, recognising the vital role of journalists in a free society and pledging to do everything possible to protect their safety. Will my right hon. Friend reaffirm that commitment today?

The Prime Minister’s answer was lucid: “I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he does in supporting the freedom of the press and I certainly reiterate what he says today. This most struck me when I visited Jaffna, in northern Sri Lanka, and went to see a newspaper office that had been shot up, bombed and burned. That brings home what journalists in other countries have for years faced in bringing the truth and putting it in front of the people, which is a vital part of a free democratic system…”

As much as the Charlie Hebdo atrocity shocked us all, David Cameron reinforced in one sentence the egregious violence Tamil journalists have endured and continue to do at the hands of successive Sinhala dominated Sri Lankan regimes.

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