Daily Mirror Threatens Its Journalists Into Boycotting Protests

August 2, 2014

It has been reported that Sri Lanka’s most circulated English daily – the Daily Mirror has threatened its Jaffna corespondents into boycotting a protest organized in Jaffna against the harassment of seven journalists earlier this week by the military.

Ranjith Wijewardene (Chairman of Wijeya Newspapers) with other members of the Newspaper Society Sri Lanka

A news item published in weekly Sinhala newspaper Ravaya, has reported that two journalists from Jaffna who contribute to Daily Mirror had refused to attend the protest that was organized on July 31 to express objection to the harassment faced by seven journalists as they had been informed by Human Resources Department personnel of DM  to participate at the risk of losing their jobs.

The article that had also quoted Jaffna Press Club Advisor R. Dayabaran who had stated the two journalists who were threatened of being sacked if they participated in the protest on Thursday were among the seven journalists who were harassed by the military last Saturday night.

The vehicle in which the group of journalists were traveling had been stopped and searched at the Omanthai checkpoint on Saturday night while they were en-route to Colombo after which, they were detained under charges of possessing marijuana and interrogated for over six hours. The journalists have directly accused the military of planting the marijuana in the vehicle in order to sabotage their participation in the workshop. However, no investigation has been carried out by the Police over the accusations by journalists and had even refused to accept the complaint.