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Gotabhaya Rajapakse - Sri Lanka
Defence secretary

The president’s younger brother and defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse is openly hostile to the media and has not stopped targeting Sri Lankan and foreign journalists although the civil war ended in May 2009. Whenever a journalist is murdered or kidnapped, he publicly questions the victim’s credibility. Asked about cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda after he went missing in January 2010, the defence minister replied: “Eknaligoda had himself disappeared (...) We don’t even know who this Eknaligoda is, what he had done.” He also insulted the memory of the Sunday Leader’s editor, Lasantha Wickrematunge, after he was murdered a year earlier. After the defeat of the Tamil rebels, the president and his brother rounded on their new enemy, opposition candidate Gen. Sarath Fonseka, and had him jailed. They also ordered the arrest of Ruwan Weerakoon, a journalist who supported Fonseka.

All the media who had criticised the president and his brother during the election campaigns were subject to reprisals. Two editors were arrested, five news websites were closed and several reporters were harassed. All of that in January 2010 alone. Egged on by Gotabhaya Rajapakse, the government press attacks civil society. Dozens of state media employees were fired, suspended or threatened for protesting against the government’s control of their editorial policies during the election campaigns. The two main state TV stations dedicated 96.7 per cent of the air time during their news and current affairs programmes to reports supporting the president. The holder of a US passport, the defence minister has publicly regretted that Sri Lanka abolished prison sentences for press offences. To address this “mistake,” he has pressured for the restoration of the Press Council, which also had the power to impose jail sentences on journalists.