{"id":2508,"date":"2022-06-16T06:30:06","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T06:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/?p=2508"},"modified":"2022-06-16T06:34:15","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T06:34:15","slug":"murders-disappearances-torture-and-brutal-attacks-on-journalists-during-the-past-two-decades-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/index.php\/2022\/06\/16\/murders-disappearances-torture-and-brutal-attacks-on-journalists-during-the-past-two-decades-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Murders, disappearances, torture and brutal attacks on journalists during the past two decades in Sri Lanka.\u00a0In 2009 Journalist Upali Tennakoon was brutally attacked in Colombo."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"751\" src=\"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/upali--1024x751.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2510\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/upali--1024x751.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/pannamu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/upali--300x220.jpg 300w, https:\/\/pannamu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/upali--768x563.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pannamu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/upali--1536x1127.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/pannamu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/upali--2048x1503.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>\u201cI have no wish to return since the individuals who I believe to be responsible are still in positions of power\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fifteen days after the attack on Wickrematunge, it was Tennakoon\u2019s turn. As he drove to work with his wife near the capital Colombo, a man approached his car at about 6:40 a.m. \u201cI thought he was trying to talk to me,\u201d says Tennakoon, in an interview with Global Journalist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, the man smashed the side window of the car with an iron bar and started attacking Tennakoon. Three other armed men on two motorbikes also joined the attack with knives, wooden rods and iron bars, breaking the windshield and the side windows. Tennakoon\u2019s face and hands were bleeding. From the passenger seat, his wife flung herself on top of him in a desperate effort to shield him from the blows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c[We had] nothing to do, anything,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThey also tried to break my neck, but they missed it; otherwise I would have been dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The assailants fled, and Tennakoon was taken to a hospital. Three weeks later, he and his wife fled to the United States, where they have lived for the last nine years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI have no wish to return since the individuals who I believe to be responsible are still in positions of power\u2026\u201d Fifteen days after the attack on Wickrematunge, it was Tennakoon\u2019s turn. As he drove to work with his wife near the capital Colombo, a man approached his car at about 6:40 a.m. \u201cI thought [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"h5ap_radio_sources":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,31,28],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-2508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tharjana","category-mardhanayan","category-minimaruwan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2508"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2513,"href":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2508\/revisions\/2513"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2508"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pannamu.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=2508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}