POSTPONED Special Event: Lasantha Wickrematunga Memorial

Talk Thursday 7th January, 2010

In January 2009 Lasantha Wickramatunga, a prominent journalist and editor of a leading newspaper in Sri Lanka was assassinated.  
Anticipating his own death, he wrote an editorial, which was published three days after he was shot dead, blaming the government and predicting accurately the horrific events in his country.
“Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last,” Lasantha Wickramatunga wrote.
Since then press freedom has further been eroded to the extent that Reporters Sans Frontiers now rates Sri Lanka worse than Russia and on par with Saudi Arabia.

With: Edward Mortimer, chair of Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice, Roma Tearne, author, Brixton Beach
Sonali Samarasinghe, Lasantha Wickramatunga’s wife, journalist and human rights campaigner will also be contributing to the meeting with a specially taped videomessage.



Topics: