Halt attacks on journalists, ensure Freedom of Expression for citizens

Halt attacks on journalists, ensure Freedom of

Expression for citizens

– SAFMA Sri Lanka

 

The Sri Lanka Chapter of the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) strongly condemns the deliberate violence against peaceful protestors near the President’s Office and the physical assault and dispersal of journalists covering the incidents by members of the security forces.

The attacks on the political protestors on Galle Face Green, Colombo, and their forcible dispersal is a blatant, brutal suppression of the protesting citizens’ freedom of expression. The attacks on the journalists reporting these incidents is equally condemned as a shocking violation of professional media rights as well as the suppression of the right of citizens to information.    

In the interests of sustainable social peace and stability, SAFMA Sri Lanka calls on the Government to respect the will of the country’s citizens who have demonstrated peacefully and successfully, these past four months, their unified, consensual, call for a complete change of regime. Without such stability, the much-needed economic recovery is delayed, further burdening the people with more suffering.

We call on the world community to express solidarity with the struggle for democracy and survival of society in Sri Lanka.

Sir Harry Evans Global Fellowship

Sir Harry Evans Global Fellowship

The Fellowship provides an unrivalled opportunity for an exceptional early career journalist: a six to nine month Fellowship with Durham University which will include undertaking an investigative project from inside the Reuters newsroom in London, mentored by top Reuters editors in the field while being overseen by Durham University and having access to University academics and research resources. This Fellowship is designed to give the applicant the chance to develop rigorous, fact-based research and reporting skills.   

The Fellowship was created in honour of Sir Harry Evans, one of the pioneers of modern investigative journalism. The award winning work he spearheaded as editor of The Northern Echo, The Sunday Times and The Times - from his celebrated campaign to obtain compensation for Thalidomide children, to exposing the cover-up of Soviet spy Kim Philby and unmasking corporate deception at the heart of the DC-10 Paris air crash in 1974 - made him the gold standard of courageous public interest journalism. He was voted by his media peers as the Greatest British Newspaper Editor of all time. 

How to apply 

Applications for the Fellowship close midday BST Monday 15 August 2022 and are to be submitted by email.   

1. Complete the Sir Harry Evans Global Fellowship Application form (.docx). Within this form, you will be asked to complete:  

•  A short statement (up to 500 words) telling the Fellowship Committee about yourself; what you hope to achieve with this opportunity; and how your vision of journalism fits with the spirit of the Fellowship.    
• A detailed proposal (up to 800 words) for an investigative project you would like to execute during the Fellowship. Multimedia journalism is encouraged, and the proposal can include a small amount of relevant visual material, such as graphics, photos or a video clip. The proposal should tell the Fellowship Committee clearly what the story is about; what’s original about it, including what the new findings would be; why the story is important; what impact it might have; how you would report it; and how you would tell it. This proposal will be an important part of the Fellowship Committee’s evaluation, though Reuters editors may opt to assign the successful fellow another project.

2. Save your completed form in the file format: FirstName-Surname-SHEF-Fellowship.

3. In addition to the application form, we also require the following:   

• Demonstration of published examples of work (up to five examples), as links to published work or as attachments to the email.
• A letter of recommendation from an editor who has worked closely with you, assessing your abilities and potential as an investigative journalist.  

4. Send the completed form and attachments to SHEF@durham.ac.uk no later than midday BST Monday 15 August 2022. 

Selection process  

The Harry Evans Fellowship is a global opportunity, and we therefore welcome applications from all eligible candidates, regardless of their current location. The Fellowship will be undertaken in Durham and London, and the successful candidate will need to meet applicable immigration requirements. We encourage applications from members of groups who are under-represented in the media. 

The application process will be overseen by the Fellowship Committee who will ensure a diverse panel of candidates are considered for the opportunity. Applicants will be assessed in accordance with the selection criteria above. The final stage will be an interview.  

The successful applicant will be notified of the outcome by Saturday 1 October 2022. The Fellowship will commence in early 2023.

What the Fellowship offers

The Sir Harry Evans Global Fellowship in Investigative Journalism provides the opportunity for an early career journalist to develop their ideas and collaborations in a thriving community of journalists and researchers, including through engagement with the University’s departments, institutes and colleges.  

The successful applicant will be employed by Durham University for the period of the Fellowship and will spend time on placement in the Reuters newsroom in London, or with another suitable partner selected by Reuters. The successful applicant will also be allocated an appropriate academic supervisor and mentor at Durham University.  

The Fellowship commands a monthly salary of c.£4,444 per month for each month of the Fellowship (equivalent to a pro-rata salary of c.£53,333 per year), in addition to a maximum £1,250 per month living stipend, and a one-off payment of £1,800 for travel and expenses. 

Where the successful applicant is an existing employee of a news or media organisation and taking a period of leave in order to pursue the Fellowship, Durham University will pay up to a maximum of £12,000 to their employer to cover temporary staff costs, subject to specific terms and conditions.

Fellowship selection criteria

Qualified applicants will be early in their careers and will have professional journalism experience. 

Where a prospective applicant is not currently a journalist but has worked in an investigative reporting capacity in a related professional field (for example: leading human rights or other socio-political publications and campaigns; working as an author or researcher on authoritative investigative work; or developing in-field photo- or video-research projects, documentaries, or exhibitions) applications may be considered on case-by-case basis. 

Applicants should apply as per the instructions and format outlined above. 

Closing date

The closing date for applications to the Sir Harry Evans Global Fellowship in Investigative Journalism for 2022 is midday BST Monday 15 August 2022.

Application, inclusive of the completed application form and relevant attachments, must be emailed to SHEF@durham.ac.uk no later than this date/time.

Should applicants wish to discuss any questions, these can be submitted to SHEF@durham.ac.uk for response.

The Fellowship Committee will, from time to time, review selection requirements and, if appropriate, discuss and agree on updated requirements in order to continue to meet the objectives of the Fellowship. Updates will be published on this website.

For more information on how Durham University collects and processes your data please see our Privacy Notice.

18 May 2021

Call for immediate ceasefire    

Attack on media offices in Gaza is war crime – SAFMA Sri Lanka

 

The Sri Lanka Chapter of the South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) expresses its shock and revulsion at the deliberate targeting and destruction of offices of news media in the Gaza Strip by Israeli military units. SAFMA Sri Lanka, which comprises socially concerned professional journalists, unreservedly condemns this attack on an important civilian information service facility at a time of war when public information has extra importance in ensuring human safety.    

SAFMA notes that the Al-Jalaa building in central Gaza that was destroyed on Saturday housed both civilian residents as well as the Gaza branch offices of the US-based Associated Press (AP) and Qatar-based Al Jazeera.   The fact that the Israeli military authorities warned the building owners and also the news agencies concerned of the impending attack, ostensibly in order to save lives, clearly indicates that this attack on a civilian structure was a deliberate military action. In destroying this vital public informational facility, the Israeli military thereby denies the Gaza population the prompt public information system that is most needed for human safety in a time of war. Thus, the ostensible attempt to save lives in the course of the attack is negated several fold by the consequent denial of life-saving public information services during the on-going military operations.

As a body of professional journalists who have reported on counter-insurgency operations and the war in Sri Lanka, SAFMA sees this military action by the Israeli armed forces as a War Crime and, calls on the world community, especially the United Nations, to swiftly investigate this incident and bring the perpetrators to justice. 

SAFMA also calls on the world community to enforce prevailing United Nations Resolutions and other mechanisms to ensure the complete halt to illegal Israeli settlement expansion activities that have been the principal provocations of unrest among the Palestinian population. The arbitrary, forcible, eviction of Palestinian residents and displacement from home sites has been a pattern of oppression repeated over seven decades of Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian homeland. It is perpetrated by the government in Tel Aviv in total violation of general international laws of human rights, rules governing military occupations and, also violates the numerous United Nations Resolutions expressly prohibiting the settling of Israelis on lands belonging to Palestinians or otherwise used by the indigenous Palestinian population. 

Message from Lakshman Gunaseekara, President - Sri Lanka Chapter of SAFMA

My personal thoughts are with Sri Lanka's Islamic community (of all denominations) as they observe the month of Ramazan in conditions of social siege and state security operations following the Easter bombings. And this social pressure is on them despite their post bombing cooperation with the authorities to a degree that is historic in our long history of counter insurgencies. Never before has a large Sri Lankan social constituency so quickly and so collectively shunned and exposed an insurgent movement emerging from it (because this group is not a genuine expression of community interests). Already Sri Lanka's Islamic community and Muslim society is turning out to be the most rationally responding community in terms of reacting to such a dangerous phenomenon. I wish all followers of Islam a secure and stable Ramazan.

Lakshman Gunaseekara

President - Sri Lanka Chapter of SAFMA

SAFMA Exco meets

Just after the Executive Committee meeting of South Asian Free Media Association (SAFMA) Sri Lanka Chapter held on July 10, 2018 at SLPI Board Room. In picture:- Lakshman Gunasekara, Thaha Muzammil, Sharmini Boyle, NM Ameen, Hana Ibrahim, Shan Wijetunga and Dilrukshi Handunnetty. Pix by S.L. Azeez

SAFMA-SL condemns targeting of Lankan journalists

The Sri Lanka chapter of the South Asian Free Media Association is very concerned about the targeting by politicians of two Sri Lankan journalists involved in internationally reporting on Sri Lankan issues published recently in the New York Times newspaper of the USA. We are concerned that, due to this individual targeting, the professional sights of these journalists have been violated. We are also concerned that the targeting is being done by senior leaders of a political group that, when it was last in governmental power, presided over a regime that saw the collective intimidation and repression of the news media industry of by extreme violence.

Singling out and publicly targeting individual professionals for the work they perform for an employer, in this case, an internationally published newspaper, is only valid if those individuals at least appeared to have seriously violated the country’s laws in any manner. In the case of the detailed news report published by the ‘New York Times’ newspaper of the USA, headlined ‘How China got Sri Lanka to cough up a port’ on June 25, 2018, the two Sri Lankan journalists concerned were the local support reporters for the American journalist team belonging to the ‘New York Times’.

As an organisation of socially concerned journalists, SAFMA-SL upholds the right of anyone to respond to any news publication in terms of public criticism of the published item or even its publisher. In terms of the law as well as professional practice, both locally and internationally, the responsibility for publication of any news product is held by the publisher and not the employee professionals concerned.

Individual professionals are singly targeted for investigation only if there is a violation of law by the publisher that is formally considered by the authorities as serious enough to investigate and prosecute all the personnel seen as complicit. In the case of the said news report, so far, no legal authorities, either Sri Lankan or American, have thought fit to raise issues of wrong-doing, certainly not of an urgent nature that has immediate social repercussions.

The public naming of these two journalists last week remarkably echoed that period of repression and the behaviour of politicians that heralded such massive rights violations and violence. The fact that this political criticism has sparked off a wave of similar or even worse criticism of these two individual professionals via internet social media is indicative of an attempt to intimidate Sri Lanka’s news professional community as a whole.

News 1st attack harms media freedom

Statement by South Asian Free Media Association – Sri Lanka Chapter 

The South Asian Free Media Association Sri Lanka Chapter condemns the attack on the Head Office  of Sirasa News First in Colombo on Wednesday April 4^th night as an alarming and shameful attack on the news media freedom in the country.

We are reliably informed that an unruly mob exploded large amounts of fire crackers outside the gates of the News First head office complex in Colombo and threw exploding fireworks at the closed gates and boundary walls of the news group premises. Given past experience of even more destructive attacks including firing of weapons by armed men, the staff of News 1^st were reportedly severely traumatised by the Wednesday night incident which clearly directly targeted their news organisation. 

SAFMA-Sri Lanka considers such attacks, from whatever quarter, to be an act of intimidation and terrorising of people, in this case a news media organisation. It is a violation of the right of freedom of expression at a time when the nation had presumed that such freedoms had been restored after a decade of violent political repression.

SAFMA demands that the law and order authorities immediately investigate this incident and prosecute the perpetrators. Only quick and firm remedial action will convince the public that democratic freedoms have genuinely been restored in this country. 

Let industry self-regulate social media

Statement by South Asian Free Media Association – Sri Lanka Chapter 

Let industry self-regulate social media      

                                                                             -- SAFMA Sri Lanka

The Sri Lanka Chapter of the South Asian Free Media Association welcomes moves to curb abuse of internet social media but warns that State interference may only open new ways to suppress freedom of expression. We say: let the industry self-regulate social media.

SAFMA Sri Lanka is alarmed at the continued use of internet social media networks to spread ethnic hatred. The recent anti-Muslim violence in the country was accompanied by the rampant use of such social media sites as Face Book, What’s App and Instagram to spread anti-Muslim suspicions and hatred. Social media are similarly used to spread hatred and suspicion of other ethnic groups as well. Internet social media are also used to spread false information to mislead and incite the public to commit acts of violence against targeted social groups. 

This racist propaganda often espouses social attitudes of ethnic dominance and elite ethnic privilege that subvert the nation’s assurance of equality and justice to all its citizens.

The continued use of social media sites to spread ethnic hatred, supremacist attitudes and, incite communal violence urgently requires redress in the form of regulation of such internet sites to prevent future such socially destabilisation communication usage. SAFMA-SL supports action for such regulation and calls on the internet industry and web professionals to take responsibility for such regulation, with government facilitation.

SAFMA Sri Lanka points out the poor record of governments in attempting to control communication content by means of sustained censorship of content either through Emergency powers or through such mechanisms as the Censor Board and Press Council. These powers and mechanisms have been flagrantly and repeatedly abused by successive regimes in the past to suppress dissent and illegitimately sustain their tenure in power. 

While welcoming current moves to swiftly introduce regulation of social media content, SAFMA Sri Lanka insists that the government should only perform a facilitating role in enabling the stakeholders of the internet industry, both service providers and content producers, in establishing mechanisms of industry self-regulation. 

While the regulating cyber architecture may require support by the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, we urge that the oversight body for the regulatory mechanisms provides for adequate industry and professional representation to ensure that this architecture is not manipulated by government or other political interests.

SAFMA Sri Lanka reminds the government and the general public of the continued burning need for all such controls over freedom of expression to be placed under a publicly appointed body that is autonomous of government control. 

--//--  

SAWM calls for gender equality

Committed to fair gender portrayal within and outside the media, South Asian Women in Media (SAWM) Sri Lanka, mark International Women’s Day  2016 with a call for journalists to stand up for gender equality and make fair gender portrayal a professional and ethical aspiration, similar to respect for accuracy, fairness and honesty.

One of the greatest challenges we face as journalists, is to resist the culture of casual stereotype in our everyday work. There are fixed images, deeply entrenched prejudices and biased reflexes that pose challenges to journalists and the media. If we are to truly ‘Step It Up for Gender Equality’ as the Day has been themed by the UN, we have to confront these biases and prejudices in our newsrooms, and promote gender equality, both within the working environment and in the representation of women.

There is an urgent need for a discourse to highlight the issue of fair gender portrayal in the news agenda, and SAWM will, as part of its International Women’s Day activities, initiate this discourse by taking a critical look  at how the media tackles the issue of Sri Lankan’s migrant labour. 

The issue is of great significance as 49 % of the 1.8 million Sri Lankans, or 1/10th of the population, who work international migrant workers are women, the majority of them unskilled. Yet, there is no reportage through a feminist or gender lens.

Women journalists themselves have covered women migrants in an event-based manner, despite their economic contribution. There has been no discussion on the recently introduced protectionist policies that restrict women from their right to migrant and have a livelihood. The portrayal of these women has been among the worst, shown as weak, poor, victimised and vulnerable.

SAWM will in the coming weeks hold a workshop to orient a select number of women journalists, working in all three languages, on reporting on this vital issue, breaking the current stereotypes, looking through the gender lens at policy and practice and at the women who line the Sri Lankan economy.

How can we get more women in newsrooms? New study on gender and journalism in Asia-Pacific gives media professionals their say

MEDIA ADVISORY: How can we get more women in newsrooms? New study on gender and journalism in Asia-Pacific gives media professionals their say




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“Inside the News: Challenges and Aspirations of Women Journalists in Asia and the Pacific” to be launched by UNESCO, UN Women and IFJ at Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand in special event on 22 June


BANGKOK, 14 JUNE, 2015 – In many countries across Asia and the Pacific, women media professionals have increased their number in the newsrooms, but they still represent only 3 out of 10 news staff and often earn less than their male counterparts, while struggling to reach decision-making positions.


These are some of the findings in “Inside the News: Challenges and Aspirations of Women Journalists in Asia and the Pacific”, a new study set to be launched by UNESCO, UN Women and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) on 22 June. The new study highlights how issues of gender impact the lives and work of journalists in the region, with case studies drawn from the personal accounts of media professionals in Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vanuatu.


The launch event will bring together the report’s authors as well as media professionals to assess the situation women journalists in Asia and the Pacific face and strategies that can help foster greater gender equality in the media.


WHAT: Launch of the study: Inside the News – Challenges and Aspirations of Women Journalists in Asia and the Pacific.


WHEN: 22 June 2015, 16:00 – 19:30.


Programme:


16.00-16.30: Registration
16.30-16.45: Opening
16.45-17.15: Presentation of the study’s key findings and recommendations
17.15-18.45: Panel Discussion: “Fostering Gender Equality in the Media – Good Practices from Asia and the Pacific and a Look into the Future”.
18.45-19.30: Closing and reception


WHERE: Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT), 518/5, Lumphini, Pathum Wan, Bangkok 10330, access map:http://www.fccthai.com/location.html


WHO:


Opening: Gwang-Jo Kim, UNESCO Bangkok Director, NN, UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (Bangkok), Jane Worthington, Deputy Director of IFJ Asia-Pacific (Sydney).


Presentation of key findings and recommendations: Misako Ito, Adviser in Communication and Information, UNESCO Bangkok and Jane Worthington, Deputy Director of the IFJ (Sydney).


Discussion: Dilrukshi Handunnetti, Senior Associate Editor of the Sunday Observer (Colombo), Sujata Madhok, President of the Dehli Union of Journalists (New Dehli), Anothai Udomsilp, Director of Thai PBS (Bangkok) and moderated by Laxmi Murthy, Consulting Editor for Himal Southasian magazine (Kathmandu).


CONTACT: For further information about the study or to request an advance copy, and to RSVP (by 18 June, as spaces are limited), please contact: Chantal Mairesse, Communication & Information Unit, UNESCO Bangkok, c.mairesse@unesco.org


Highlights from the study and programme of the launch are attached. Recommendations from the study will be available in English and the languages of the focus countries on 21 June here.


The joint IFJ-UNESCO-UN Women study was published with the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).


Discuss the study “Inside the News” on social media using the hashtag #InsidetheNews


Download the programme of the launch here.