RSF, 12 July 2012 - Reporters Without Borders condemns the threats and insults that defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president’s brother, made against Sunday Leader editor Frederica Jansz during a phone interview on 9 July. “We call on defence secretary Rajapaksa to stop threatening journalists who are doing their job,” Reporters Without Borders said. “In many countries, a government official would have to resign for making such comments and would probably be subject to a criminal prosecution. The justice system cannot turn a blind eye when a secretary openly makes such grave threats."

RSF, 04 July 2012 - The freed journalists have all decided to lodge complaints against the CID and the defence ministry for violating their fundamental rights by detaining them arbitrarily. Reporters Without Borders supports this initiative, which is needed to prevent such abuses from going unpunished. It also urges the authorities to close the investigation of the two sites, which were clearly targeted because of what they were reporting.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), 23 March 2012 - Reporters Without Borders deplores a government-orchestrated campaign of threats and smears against journalists and human rights activists that is being waged above all through media controlled by Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited (ANCL), a state-owned company better known as “Lake House.” The targets include Rohitha Bashana Abeywardane of Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, a Reporters Without Borders partner organization, Dharmasiri Lankapeli of the Federation of Media Employees Trade Unions and Sunanda Deshapriya, a journalist and media freedom activist.

RSF, 28 February 2012 - Reporters Without Borders calls on all members of the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council, which began its 19th session yesterday, to pass a resolution condemning the Sri Lankan government’s violations of freedom of information and to demand an end to threats and violence against news media and human rights defenders in Sri Lanka.

RSF, 3 November 2011 - Reporters Without Borders has written an open letter to President Mahinda Rajapaksa urging him to take whatever measures are necessary to protect Frederica Jansz, the editor of The Sunday Leader, and to ensure that those responsible for last week’s death threats against her are arrested. The threatening letter Jansz received on 27 October was prompted by her 2009 interview with Gen. Sarath Fonseka, a former army commander and presidential candidate in 2010, in which Fonseka accused defence minister Gotabhaya Rajapaksa of ordering soldiers to kill Tamil Tiger rebels who wanted to surrender. This is not the first time Jansz has been threatened.

RSF, 2 August 2011 - Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the threats that President Mahinda Rajapaksa made in a phone call to the chairman of The Sunday Leader, Lal Wickrematunge, on 19 July because of an article reporting that China had given the president and his son, parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa, money to be used “at their discretion.”

RSF, 30 July 2011 - Reporters Without Borders is shocked to learn of yesterday evening’s savage attack on Gnanasundaram Kuhanathan, 59, the editor of the Tamil-language daily Uthayan, who was beaten by unidentified men with iron bars in the northern city of Jaffna. He was rushed to hospital, where he was in a critical condition with serious head injuries and still unconscious. “We demand a rapid and thorough investigation into this appalling crime,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The violence used by his attackers clearly shows they did not intend him to survive. Combating impunity is the first step towards creating the conditions for independent and pluralist journalism.

RSF, 29 April 2011 - Reporters Without Borders condemns yesterday’s refusal by a court in the Colombo suburb of Pugoda to release Shantha Wijesuriya, a journalist with the Lanka E-news online newspaper, on bail pending trial on a contempt of court charge for an erroneous news report. Access to the website was also blocked on an order from the court pending the outcome of the trial. We appeal to the United Nations to put pressure on the government to end this policy of suppressing opposition media, which are entirely legitimate in a democracy.