The US today asked Sri Lanka to take immediate steps to curb harassment of journalists and protect their rights as organisers of a US-funded media workshop for Tamils received death threats and had to cancel the programme for a third time since May.
The US embassy here said it had flagged the issue with the Lankan authorities after pro-government protesters stormed the session for ethnic minority Tamil journalists on Saturday, the latest incident of media intimidation.
"These events continue a troubling pattern of impunity for those who interfere with both freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in Sri Lanka," a press release issued by the embassy said.
"We have raised our concerns with the government of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan embassy in Washington, and strongly urged the government to take immediate steps to ensure the protection of fundamental rights for journalists and for all Sri Lankans."
The embassy added it was also concerned about "threats and intimidation by security forces against journalists covering the July 25 Jaffna court proceedings" for Sri Lankan navy sailors accused of raping an 11-year-old girl.
The country's main media rights group, the Free Media Movement (FMM), said dozens of pro-government activists blocked Tamil journalists from holding its training programme in Colombo on Saturday.
Journalists from the northern Jaffna peninsula, a former war zone, had travelled to Colombo for the digital security workshop funded by the US.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said organisers had received death threats in the lead up to the workshop.
The group also alleged that Sri Lanka continues with the policy of harassing journalists even after the end of fighting between LTTE-rebels and the army in 2009.
Sri Lanka faces an international probe over allegations that government forces killed about 40,000 Tamil civilians in the final months of fighting, a charge Colombo has long refuted.
Murders of more than a dozen scribes and media workers during the decades-long war have remained unresolved for the past 25 years.
