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.