Sri Lanka
VANNI: Getting Graphic
War, political unrest and human suffering are unlikely subjects of comic books. Despite this, graphic novels depicting these realities have become increasingly popular, telling difficult stories to new audiences. Inspired by Benjamin Dix’s personal experience of working in Sri Lanka for the UN during the war, VANNI, draws upon over four years of meticulous research – including first-hand interviews, references from official reports and cross-referencing with experts in the field.
Art and Politics: The aesthetics of protest and the fight for human rights
by Sally Ashley-Cound On Wednesday 26 March 2014, Lacuna magazine hosted a night of discussion and performance at the Frontline Club chaired by Maureen Freely, English Pen president.
BBC Global News UK Preview Screening – Sri Lanka’s Unfinished War
Former BBC Sri Lanka correspondent, Frances Harrison, investigates on-going allegations of rape and torture by the Sri Lankan security forces for BBC Our World.
“To get justice you need truth” – No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka + Director Q&A
By Ratha Lehall On 5 November, No Fire Zone was shown at Riverside Studios as part of a series of Between the Lines follow up events hosted by Frontline Club and DocHouse. This documentary chronicles the last 138 days of the civil war in Sri Lanka, revealing the brutal tactics employed by the Sri Lankan army and government against the Tamil population. […]
Granta 125 – After the War: “The story erupted around me”
By Caroline Schmitt The Frontline Club hosted an evening of reflections marking the publication of Granta 125: After the War on 17 October. Two correspondents shared their personal views on developments on the ground, after the battles are fought and the camera teams have moved on to cover other wars.
Between the Lines Follow-Up Event: No Fire Zone + Q&A
This is an external event taking place at Riverside Studios. No Fire Zone – The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, chronicles the final 138 days of the 26-year Sri Lankan civil war, told by the people who lived through it. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Callum Macrae.
Granta 125: After the War – with Lindsey Hilsum and Frances Harrison
How long is the shadow of a battle, an explosion, a revolution? What stories arise in the wake of devastation? To mark the publication of Granta 125: After the War, two of Britain’s foremost journalists and foreign correspondents discuss the craft, conditions and issues surrounding writing about post-conflict situations.
A live issue: Tamil oppression in Sri Lanka
by Sally Ashley-Cound On 23rd April 2013, The Frontline Club held the first UK preview screening of award winning television director Callum Macrae’s new documentary, No Fire Zone – The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka. No Fire Zone uses forensically verified footage from civilian mobile phones and government forces cameras to chronicle the last 138 […]
Sneak Preview Screening: No Fire Zone + Q&A
No Fire Zone – The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, chronicles the final 138 days of the 26 year Sri Lankan civil war, told by the people who lived through it. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Callum Macrae.
Commonwealth reluctant to act against Sri Lanka
Commonwealth chiefs are facing growing calls to censure Sri Lanka over continued human rights abuses and relocate a high-level summit due to take place in Colombo later this year. But rather than refer the country to its Ministerial Action Group, which deals with persistent or serious violations of the Commonwealth’s values, the 54-member body is […]
Sri Lanka: reconciliation and justice
By Rosie Scammell View event here. View in iTunes Epitomising the troubled state of Sri Lanka post-conflict, an impassioned panel spent Wednesday night disputing the truth. Facing an equally ardent audience, they proved that the country has a long way to go before reconciliation will become a reality. Chaired by BBC Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur – who […]
FULLY BOOKED Sri Lanka: reconciliation and justice
Nearly three years after the end of the 26-year civil war in Sri Lanka that reportedly left an estimated 80,000-100,000 dead, questions are still arising about alleged war crimes and how they will be addressed.
Join us at the Frontline Club to discuss the impact of Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields and the situation today in Sri Lanka.
The week ahead: Return to Iran, Cocaine Unwrapped and reporting Sri Lanka’s civil war
Tomorrow night journalist and broadcaster Kamin Mohammadi will be talking to BBC Persian TV’s Pooneh Ghoddoosi about her book The Cypress Tree and the story it tells of her return to Iran 17 years after her family fled the country in 1979. Our Change season continues on Friday with a screening of Cocaine Unwrapped, which exposes the human cost […]
ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 8-14 August
A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 8 August to Sunday, 14 August from ForesightNews Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav is back in court in Jerusalem on Monday, appealing his April conviction and seven year sentence for indecent assault and sexual harassment of two female employees. In Dharamsala, Lobsang Sangay is sworn in as the […]
Sri Lanka: could the West do more about human rights and press freedom?
Part 1 Part 2 View in iTunes The appointment of Mervyn Silva, a politician with an established record of hostility towards journalists, as deputy minister of Information within the Sri Lankan government in April this year was met with calls for his removal by press freedom organisations. What can be done to protect journalists working […]
Splitting heads and hairs, Sri Lankan style
“Thanks to you and others, who was taking pics world can remember the sufferings!”. The words are from an email a stranger sent me recently, and should be heart-warming for an old photojournalist who’s packing up to leave struggling Sri Lanka for a while. But the message is about a war that ended 15 years […]
Magnanimous Mahinda and the Foreign Media Mob
Some little man in a Colombo cafe started shouting abuse at me the other day. I don’t know him, and I don’t know why. That sort of thing is very rare here, but perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, given the current "you’re either with us or against us" climate. The vast majority of the Sri […]
Sri Lanka: 25 years of war
As the government of Sri Lanka declares an end to the civil war that has lasted 25 years, The Guardian newspaper looks back over the conflict in a series of 31 images.
May you live long, but not here
"Ayubowan", is the first word a visitor to Sri Lanka hears on arrival. These days one could be forgiven for thinking it means something very rude. It doesn’t, and the increasingly rare tourist would probably not suspect any hostility behind the still ever-present smiles. Until, that is, she or he makes the mistake of picking […]
Doing journalism in Sri Lanka
They live in fear. A dozen have been assassinated. Such is the fate of journalists trying to cover the war in the north of Sri Lanka. link A report from CBC about journalists working in Sri Lanka. The sub-7 minute feature takes us inside the offices of The Sunday Leader, the newspaper Lasantha Wickrematunga edited […]
A world without foreign correspondents
Andrew Stroehlein, Communications Director for the International Crisis Group, wrote a great piece on his Covering Crisis blog on the Reuters AlertNet site. He has very kindly agreed to let us post it on the Frontline blog. He raises a lot of points about under-reported stories, things we regularly cover here and discuss at length […]
Not getting into Sri Lanka
Jeremy Page had a surprise wating for him upon arrival at Colombo’s Bandaranaike International airport in Sri Lanka. After multiple rejected visa applications to enter the country, The Times South Asia Correspondent decided to go the tried and trusted tourist visa route… A message flashed up on his screen: “DO NOT ALLOW TO ENTER THE […]
Call to lift Sri Lanka media ban
Reporters without borders (RSF) called on the Sri Lankan government to lift the ban on media outlets from entering the war zone in the north east of the country. "It is a disgrace that this war is being waged without independent journalists present," Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said. "With a major humanitarian crisis […]
Slain Sri Lankan editor wins World Press Freedom Prize 2009
Lasantha Wickrematunge, the editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper in Sri Lanka who was assassinated in January 2009, has been named laureate of the 2009 UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize, “Jury members were moved to an almost unanimous choice by a man who was clearly conscious of the dangers he faced but nevertheless chose to […]
Sri Lanka government to investigate journalists
The Sri Lankan government has appointed a Parliamentary Select Committee to investigate the work of journalists "who have been contributing articles detrimental to the interests of Sri Lanka to foreign Non Governmental Organizations", according to Sri Lanka Defence Spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella. Government will reveal names of those Sri Lankan journalists in about a fortnight, […]
Tamil editor abducted in Sri Lanka
Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, a senior Sri Lankan newspaper editor, was abducted by armed men in police uniform this morning, according to the Tamil Eelam News Services. The editor of both the Uthayan newspaper in Jaffna and the Colombo based Sudar Oli was attending the funeral of a friend on the Galle Road in Colombo when the […]
FULLY BOOKED Reactive Media Talk: Sri Lanka – a hollow victory?
The Tamil Tigers are looking closer than ever to military defeat as government forces continue to overrun the last remaining rebel strongholds in the north of the country. With an end to the military stalemate and the 25 year civil war potentially in sight, what is the future for the LTTE and what are the […]
Live tonight – Sri Lanka discussion
We’ll be discussing the future for Sri Lanka at the club tonight, 24 February at 7 pm GMT/11 am PST. As usual, if you can’t make it to the club in person, we’ll be broadcasting the event live on the Frontline Club live channel or you can watch it on this very blog, The Tamil […]
Sri Lankan debate
If you read Graham Holliday’s post about the Sri Lankan event controversy, you know how much pressure outside groups try on occasion to exert on us at Frontline. We all acknowledge that we do get it wrong from time to time. We’ve staged over 1000 events in 5 years. There’s often a fierce debate at […]
Frontline under fire
The Frontline Club has been coming in for a fair bit of criticism for its decision to "uninvite" two members of the upcoming Sri Lanka discussion at the club on February 24. These complaints have been received from both sides of the debate online and in private emails. The discussion will focus on the future […]