Sri Lanka's Black January: Year two

http://www.cpj.org/blog/2013/01/sri-lankas-black-january-year-two.php

By Bob Dietz/CPJ Asia Program Coordinator

Journalists, rights activists, and opposition lawmakers, with Sandya Eknelygoda in the center, protest attacks on journalists and authorities' failure to punish the culprits in Colombo Tuesday. (AP/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

Black January commemorations in Colombo have become an annual event. Tuesday's demonstration was the second. The protest aims to recall the series of killings and attacks on journalists in Sri Lanka in recent years, many of them occurring in Januaries past. All of them have gone untried and unpunished, sustaining the country's perfect record of impunity for those who want to silence media by murder.

Save the Commonwealth Brand: Tell Sri Lanka 'Enough'

http://www.huntingtonnews.net/53873

Thursday, January 17, 2013 - 22:22BY SIR RONALD SANDERS

Sir Ronald Sanders

It is time for the Commonwealth of Nations to suspend Sri Lanka from its councils.

In doing so, the Commonwealth would restore confidence in its 2.1 billion people that it is not a hypocritical association that claims to stand for values, including democracy, human rights and the rule of law but fails to act to discipline governments that violate these values.

The Sri Lanka government has now seriously and persistently violated the principles to which every Commonwealth country has declared itself to be committed, and, according to the Commonwealth’s rules this is ground for suspension from its councils as a first step.