thelma
What a Sham'....an
Thelma
Saturday, August 13th, 2011

Darling Ma-hinder

There are times m'dear if well fortified beforehand with the contents of half a bottle of vintage Bollinger sloshing about inside me, I could stick out an upward palm to be peered at by a soothsayer. I have been known of an evening, if sufficiently cheered on by friends to even allow a sayer of sooths to squint his eye, and register scorn at the squiggly lines on my palm and tell me this and that about my future.

sonali
Continuing the Struggle
U&U Newsdesk
Friday, August 12th, 2011

By Gena Chung

lasantha
Invictus: My head is bloody but unbowed
Saturday, January 8th, 2011

By Sonali Samarasinghe Wickrematunge

When I was 16 years old my father was to bring home a book from his travels to a beautiful little village called Caux inSwitzerland. The title startled us. It read gravely, How to be Your Own Selfish Pig…. And Other Ways You’ve Been Brainwashed by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay.

 

Lasantha Wickrematunge's widow and fellow editor Sonali Samarasinghe Wickrematunge accuses govt of dragging murder inquiry
Saturday, January 8th, 2011

Lasantha Wickrematunge was a journalist who fought fearlessly for the freedom of the press and relentlessly pursued what he believed was right. It is a sad tribute to Sri Lanka’s growing indifference to democratic principles, justice ands fair play and the present regime’s strangle hold on the media and democratic institutions, that even 24 months after his murder there has been no conclusion to Lasantha’s murder investigation.

MR Larger than Life
Integrity of Elections in Sri Lanka Endangered - Freedom House
Freedom House
Friday, January 22nd, 2010

As Sri Lankans go to the polls as a unified nation for the first time in more than two decades, Freedom House is deeply concerned about electoral misconduct and Sri Lankan authorities' flagrant disregard for the rule of law.

Lal
His work was his passion, but now he is gone - Lal
The Sunday Leader
Sunday, January 10th, 2010

A year has passed since Lasantha was brutally murdered on the high streets of the city. During this period the LTTE has been wiped out, provincial council elections held, Kumaran Pathmanathan arrested and brought back to Sri Lanka from foreign soil in a sting-like operation, presidential elections called two years prematurely only because the incumbent deems its opportune for him and of course 24 hearings have been held in the Mount Lavinia Court into Lasantha’s murder without any breakthrough! Incredible?

Shock and anger continue one year after Lasantha’s unpunished murder
Reporters Without Borders
Thursday, January 7th, 2010

"A year has gone by without any progress in the investigation into his murder," Lal Wickrematunge said today to Reporters Without Borders, on the eve of the first anniversary of the fatal shooting of his brother, Lasantha Wickrematunge, the Colombo-based Sunday Leader's well-known managing editor. It is Lal who has replaced him at the helm of investigative weekly, some of whose journalists were recently threatened.

LW Time
Sri Lanka Journalists Still on Edge After Lasantha's Death
TIME Magazine
Thursday, January 7th, 2010
A year after the murder of the prominent Sri Lankan editor Lasantha Wickrematunge, the island's independent media is still under siege. An investigation into Wickrematunge's death has gone nowhere, and at least half a dozen other journalists, including his widow, have left the country in fear since his death.
Mahinda Rajapaksa
Clear your name: Sonali Challenges Mahinda
U&U Newsdesk
Monday, January 4th, 2010

President Mahinda Rajapakse has been challenged to dispel the widely held perception that his government is complicit in a cover up of Lasantha Wickrematunge's assassins. In a letter dated January 4, 2010, Sonali Samarasinghe Wickrematunge highlighted the various steps taken by the state to stonewall an investigation into her husband's murder and called for an "impartial, transparent and professional inquiry" into the killing.

Aunty S
Sonali wins 2009 Oxfam Novib/PEN International Freedom of Expression Award
The Island
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Sonali Wickrematunge, former Editor in Chief of ‘The Morning Leader' and former Consultant Editor of ‘The Sunday Leader' was awarded this year's Oxfam Novib/PEN International Freedom of Expression award, in recognition of her courage in raising difficult issues about abuse of power and corruption.

She joins four others who will receive awards. They are: Chi Dang (Vietnam), Maziar Bahari (Iran), Irakli Kakabadze (Georgia) and Daniel Coronell (Colombia).

Sonali Receiving Harvard Award
Lasantha and Afghan Journalists Receive Harvard's Louis M. Lyons Award
U&U Newsdesk
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard presented the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism to slain Sri Lankan newspaper editor Lasantha Wickrematunge and the journalists of Afghanistan on Tuesday, November 17, 2009.

The Exhibit
An artist’s monument to Lasantha in Vienna
U&U Newsdesk
Sunday, October 18th, 2009

Peter Sandbichler one of Austria's celebrated architects and artists pays tribute to one of Sri Lanka's courageous sons.

The sculpture about 8 metres high stands outside on the Museum Quartier (MQ) forecourt. According to the Mumok Vienna's world famous Museum of Modern Arts, the artist "uses this public space in order to construct a tower-like billboard on which abstract sculpture and concrete message interact with each other: at close quarters it appears to be purely a grid of forms, but as the day goes on it turns out from a distance to be a portrait of the Sri-Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge.

Lasantha and NYT Journalist Win National Press Club Press Freedom Awards
U&U Newsdesk
Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Slain Sri Lankan editor Lasantha Wickrematunge and a New York Times reporter held captive for seven months received the National Press Club's 2009 John Aubuchon Press Freedom Awards. The awards are bestowed on one international journalist and one American journalist who embody the principles of a free press. They were honored at the Awards Dinner on August 3.

Lasantha Wickrematunge was editor of The Sunday Leader in Sri Lanka until January, when a commando hit squad on motorcycles assassinated him in his car on the way to work.

Sri Lanka war on words continues
Saturday, June 20th, 2009
CPJ image
Journalists in Exile 2009
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
A letter to Lasantha's widow
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

By Martin White

Humanity failed in Sri Lanka
Saturday, June 13th, 2009
By Suren Surendiran
Gotabhaya and Mahinda
SRI LANKA: Poddala Jayantha - Latest Journalist victim in Sri Lanka
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

The witch hunt against journalists depicted as enemies of the State continues unabated in Sri Lanka.

The latest victim in this “officially sanctioned unofficial campaign” is Poddala Jayantha, a senior Journalist and prominent media rights activist.

Senators'letter page 1
US Senators call on Secretary Clinton to step up pressure on Sri Lanka
U&U Newsdesk
Monday, June 8th, 2009

Senior US Senators Patrick Leahy (Democrat-Vermont) and Robert P. Casey (Democrat-Pennsylvania) wrote to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Friday (June 5) calling on her to use all the leverage the United States has with Sri Lanka including its support for international lending to encourage respect for basic human rights and a sustainable politcal settlement.

The neglect of Sri Lanka's tent people
Friday, June 5th, 2009
June 5, 2009
By Basil Fernando
Hong Kong, China — The internally displaced people in Sri Lanka are outside the legal jurisdiction of the country, said Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva on Thursday, addressing a gathering on the occasion of the opening of court premises.