Sri Lanka has been ranked 146th in the world for press freedom by Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) in their 2022 World Press Freedom Index, falling 19 places from the previous year.
“Press freedom issues are closely tied to the civil war that ravaged the island until 2009, and to the crimes – still left unpunished – against many journalists during the crushing of the Tamil rebellion,” said RSF.
“With a media sector lacking diversity and highly dependent on major political clans, journalism is at risk.”
RSF went on to state,
“Although journalist murders stopped after 2015, those crimes have gone completely unpunished. The tenth anniversary year of the civil war, 2019, was marked by a troubling increase in attacks on reporters based in the north and on the east coast, the traditional Tamil homeland. Journalists there suffer systematic surveillance and harassment by the police and army. These areas are completely closed to independent media.”
See more from RSF here.
