Livewire – Amnesty International blogging for human rights

Activists at a vigil held in support of Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam. © Amnesty International

By Tim Molyneux, a volunteer working in Amnesty International’s Sri Lanka team.

On Wednesday 1 September, the Sri Lanka Team at Amnesty International’s International Secretariat organised a vigil outside Parliament Square in London. We gathered to protest against the sentencing of Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam, known as Tissa to his friends and family, to 20 years ‘vigorous imprisonment’ by the Government of Sri Lanka.

Tissa has been named a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International. We believe that he has been imprisoned simply for publishing articles critical of the Government of Sri Lanka.

Tissa’s case was noted by President Barack Obama on world press freedom day as an “emblematic example” of media repression; a symbol of what has become the fate of many journalists and media workers in Sri Lanka held under sweeping anti terrorist legislation.

The aggressive stifling of independent media in Sri Lanka has meant that a true picture of what is happening to civilians caught up in the conflict has not been allowed to emerge, and a dangerous culture of silence and self censorship has developed among members of the international community and local civil society.  Approximately 280,000 civilians remain displaced by the recent war, and are living in de facto detention camps without adequate food, sanitation or shelter.

Many passers by reacted with messages of solidarity and support for Tissa’s case, illustrating the need for groups like Amnesty International to speak out on behalf of those who have been silenced.

The vigil was brought to a close with a reading of ‘Oppression’ By American poet Langston Hughes:

Activists at a vigil held in support of Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam. © Amnesty International

Now dreams
Are not available
To the dreamers,
Nor songs
To the singers.

In some lands
Dark night
And cold steel
Prevail
But the dream
Will come back,
And the song
Break
Its jail.

The vigil called for Tissa’s immediate and unconditional release. If Sri Lanka is to bring about an end to its long standing conflict and secure genuine peace and security for its people, it must remove restraints on freedom of speech and allow the voices of its citizens to be heard.