Honored for their work, threatened at home CPJ introduces 2009 International Press Freedom Awardees Washington, November 19, 2009—Naziha Réjiba, editor of the Tunisian online news journal Kalima, said she knows what to expect when she returns home—surveillance, harassment, and threats conducted by one the world’s most repressive governments. “While I’m speaking, many homes of Tunisian journalists are completely surrounded,” Réjiba, one of four recipients of the 2009 International Press Freedom Awards, told reporters at the National Press Club today, describing state surveillance. The Committee to Protect Journalists gives the awards each year to courageous journalists working in dangerous and repressive circumstances. At today’s press conference, CPJ also introduced awardee Mustafa Haji Abdinur, an Agence France-Presse correspondent and editor-in-chief of Radio Simba in Somalia. Two other CPJ awardees, J.S. Tissainayagam of Sri Lanka and Eynulla Fatullayev of Azerbaijan, were recognized but not present: They are imprisoned in their home countries in retaliation for their work.(more)

The Tissanayagam Felicitation Ceremony

Please see photo gallery Jayathilake Bandara sings about Thissainayagam at Felicitation Ceramony held in Colombo on 7 th October. This song made by Manjula Wediwardane on 31 August the date thissa was Sentanced
Sri Lankan journalist J.S Tissainayagam rewarded by the Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism
Global Media Forum and the US branch of Reporters Without Borders have formally awarded the respected Sri Lankan journalist and editor J. S. Tissainayagam as first winner of the Peter Mackler Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on October 2, 2009. His wife, Ronnate Tissainayagam, was present at the ceremony to receive the Award. “For the last 20 years my husband has endeavoured to pursue the goals that Mr.Mackler believed in as a journalist. Like Peter, my husband was never too busy to encourage those who wanted to learn to write and has helped many in journalism. Today my husband is continuing to teach me courage and grace in difficult times. For him no matter what the circumstances are; there is no excuse for unkindness. No matter what circumstance fellow human beings must be treated with dignity », said Ronnate Tissainayagam. J. S Tissainayagam is a respected Tamil journalist and editor who wrote for the North Eastern Monthly Magazine and the Sunday Times in Sri Lanka. And is the founder of the website Outreachsl.com. He was arrested March 7, 2008 by the Terrorism Investigation Division (TID) of the Sri Lanka police and got a 20 year sentence on terrorism charges today on August 31st.(more)
ICJ Condemns Misuse of Anti-Terrorism Laws to Prosecute Sri Lankan Journalist, J. S. Tissainayagam 11 September 2009 Today the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) released its Trial Observation Report (http://www.icj.org/IMG/ICJ_Tissa_Trial_Observation_Report_11_Sept_09.pdf) regarding proceedings before the Colombo High Court in the prosecution of J.S. Tissainayagam, a Tamil journalist. On 31 August 2009, Mr Tissainayagam was convicted under anti-terrorism laws and sentenced by Judge Deepali Wijesundara to 20 years “rigorous imprisonment.” (more) ---------------------------------------------- Blow to media freedomThe August 31 verdict of a Colombo High Court sentencing the veteran journalist and columnist J.S. Tissainayagam to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment under the country’s draconian anti-terror law has raised concerns across the world on the ...
CPJ award goes to jailed Sri Lankan journalist New York, August 31,2009. The Committee to Protect Journalists announced today that it will honor imprisoned Sri Lankan journalist J.S. Tissainayagam with a 2009 International Press Freedom Award. Tissainayagam, left, sentenced today to 20 years in prison on specious charges of violating anti-terror laws, is one of five journalists who will be honored by CPJ at a ceremony in November. The full slate of awardees, selected by CPJ's Board of Directors this summer, will be formally announced in September. A Colombo High Court sentenced Tissainayagam to 20 years of hard labor in the first conviction of a journalist under the country's harsh anti-terror laws. Tissainayagam, known as Tissa, suffers from poor health and said his confession to the charge was extracted under threat of torture, according to his lawyers. (more)

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

A Summary of the Order

Journalist Tissainayagam was indicted in the
High Court of Colombo on the following offences…

1. Between the 1st of June 2006 and the 1st of June 2007 you have with persons unknown to the prosecution, with intent to commit a crime with a common intention with or without premeditation by word, sign, or visual representation have caused to wit arousing communal feelings by editing, printing or distributing the magazine called North Eastern Monthly, you have conspired and committed the offence punishable under s.113(b) and s.102 and The Prevention of Terrorism Act.

2. You have in the same course of events, have published or distributed the articles listed herein in the North Eastern Monthly magazine and committed the offence as referred to in the above law.

3. You have in the course of the said events, collected money or made payments on terrorism or aided and abetted by collecting money for the said magazine, North Eastern Monthly has committed the offence as referred to in the Emergency Regulations published on the 6th of December 2006.(more)

4 comments:

Anushka Gonawala said...

Tissainayagam has committed a crime. He violated the law. He must be punished.

What if someone committed murder, theft, arson, rape, vandalism? Aren't they crimes?

Similarly violating the PTA, ER and writing hatred are crimes and MUST be punished as per the law.

Journalists cannot have a separate law from the people.

It is hilarious some journalists are demanding free media while violating the law. Where do they draw the freedom of speech? From the constitution and other laws. If they violate these laws, they are destroying the basis of freedom.

I sincerely hope that not only Tissanaigam, but also all those who violate the PTA go to life imprisonment. They are criminals worse than murderers.

grichens said...

From the Summary: “He had further said that the accused had also written articles against the LTTE, of which he was unable to produce any.”

Tissainayagam is not, nor ever was, a “journalist”. He was a paid lackey of an internationally recognized terrorist group who never criticized the LTTE even as they heaped atrocities upon his fellow Tamils. The fact that so-called “journalist groups;’ are falling over each other to heap honours on this paid terrorist supporter is a fitting testimony to the appalling standards to which the field of journalism.

New York Times reporter Walter Duranty won the Pulitzer prize for writing a series of article praising the dictatorial government of Joseph Stalin; plus Duranty denied Stalin’s role in the 1932-1933 starvation massacre of millions of Ukrainians. If Duranty were alive today, he would be envious of the shameful tributes now heaped on Tissainayagam.

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Colombo High Court convicts journalist JS Tissanayagam under prevntion of Terrorism Act, sentences to 20 years rigorous imprisonment