Batticaloa police served Tamil journalist Punniyamoorthy Sasikaran with a restraining order yesterday, to ban him from covering a protest that the police claimed was planned against Sri Lanka's independence celebrations.
The court order states that the police allegedly received intelligence that local Tamil organisations and political parties were going to attend a 12 hour march. however, local journalists reportedly said that there were not any protests planned.
Sasikaran is one of many Tamil journalists who have experienced intimidation tactics and court orders by Sri Lankan authorities to prohibit their reporting on key issues in the North-East. Last year, Sasikaran was interrogated for over two hours by Sri Lanka's Crime Prevention Unit, for allegedly organising an event in January 2021, commemorating the deaths of Indian fishermen who died at sea in 2020.
Since the return of the Rajapaksa regime in 2019, efforts to silence journalists and suppress press freedom have intensified. Sri Lanka is currently ranked 127th out of 180 countries in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index.
