Stench of impunity

Tuesday 15th February, 2022

Goon attacks used to be bloody. The victims thereof were shot, bombed or hacked. But today they are different; they are getting dirtier. Some egg throwers were in the news about a fortnight ago. They hurled eggs at JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, and two of them were caught and handed over to the police, who stand accused of having taken no action against them. Now, some faeces throwers, of all people, have grabbed the headlines. They attacked the residence of senior television journalist Chamuditha Samarawickrema with faeces and rocks in the early hours of Monday. They came in a white van, held a security guard at gunpoint near the entrance to the housing scheme, where Samarawickrema lives, carried out the attacks and went away. The incident must be condemned unreservedly.

The police say they have launched an investigation into the attack, but the suspects had not been identified, let alone arrested, at the time of going to press. If our experience with probes into attacks on journalists is anything to go by, then attackers involved in Monday’s incident are not likely to be brought to justice. The police have mastered the art of dragging their feet on investigations into such incidents until bigger issues crop up, distracting media attention. Now, nobody is talking about the egg throwers; everybody is agog for updates on the faeces attacks.

If anyone feels his or her interests have been adversely affected by anything Samarawickrema, or any other journalist for that matter, has said or written, he or she can always complain to the media regulatory bodies or resort to legal action. Many successful legal battles have been fought against the media in this country. Nobody must take the law into his or her hands.

It may not be fair to point a finger at anyone at this juncture while ‘investigations’ are still on into Monday’s attack. But the government in power becomes a suspect by default in this country when a journalist comes under attack. Hence the need for the incumbent administration to ensure that the police go all out to arrest those responsible for the attack on Samarawickrama’s house, soon.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa declared, in his Independence Day speech on 04 Feb., that media freedom was thriving on his watch. Maybe, the situation has relatively improved, where attacks on the freedom of expression is concerned, but the culture of impunity prevails. There’s the rub. A popular saying among the Colombian journalists comes to mind; they say they are free to say anything, and others are equally free to kill them for saying it! In this country, too, anyone is free to attack journalists, their residences or media institutions, for being critical of him or her. Impunity breeds lawlessness, and violence against journalists and other vulnerable sections of society including the political Opposition.

No one other than those in power will be safe until the prevailing culture of impunity is done away with and the rule of law restored. Unless journalists can carry out their duties and functions without let or hindrance and feel safe in doing so, media freedom will be pie in the sky.

The present government has not been able to fulfil its solemn pledge to trace the mastermind behind the Easter Sunday carnage (2019). The probe into a grenade incident at All Saints’ Church, Borella, is still going on although the government claimed, about two weeks ago, that the mastermind had been arrested. One can only hope that the government will at least be able to have a bunch of faeces throwers arrested.

Monday’s incident must not be taken lightly; the goons were armed and would not have hesitated to open fire if they had got into a tight spot. There is no guarantee that they will not graduate from faeces to bullets or bombs because they are now confident that they can get away with their attacks.