Sri Lanka Media Freedom a Neglected Dimension of Post-War Politics


( December 18, 2012, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Consultations carried out by the IFJ and its partners in recent months, suggest that media freedom is a neglected dimension in Sri Lanka’s post-war politics. Within the wider landscape of diminishing hopes, marked by the fading of early optimism of a peace dividend accruing from the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war in May 2009, the country’s media practitioners continue to face formidable difficulties. Overt measures of coercion are less conspicuous than during the war years. But there are fears that free speech is falling victim in a media environment in which political and financial power is deployed to silence dissent.