The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Tuesday called upon the Sri Lankan authorities to put an immediate end to what it called the government’s harassment of photojournalist Kanapathipillai Kumanan, after a police notice obtained by the organization revealed that Kumanan had been summoned by the counter-terrorism police for questioning. The summons comes in the wake of Kumanan’s extensive documentation of mass grave excavations in the country’s northern Chemmani and Kokkuthodvai sites, which CPJ and other rights groups say have made him a target of repeated government intimidation.
“Sri Lanka police must immediately drop their summons of Kanapathipillai Kumanan, cease their harassment, and ensure that journalists can work freely without fear of reprisal,” CPJ regional director for the Asia-Pacific, Beh Lih Yi, stated. “Using counter-terrorism powers to target journalists over their legitimate reporting is an abuse of police authority and a violation of press freedom.”
Kumanan, who is an ethnic Tamil—a minority group in Sri Lanka, making up about 15 percent of the population—has established himself as a respected photojournalist and human rights defender, whose work focuses on documenting mass grave sites and enduring struggles in Sri Lanka’s war-affected northeast. Most recently, he has shared photos and updates to social media documenting over 41 days of mass grave excavations, where he claims more than 140 skeletal remains were identified. These images have been widely shared and published by advocacy groups and news outlets, putting him at odds with the Sri Lankan authorities and contributing to decades-long ethnic tensions between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamil groups.
The mass graves, located in the country’s northern Chemmani and Kokkuthodvai sites in the Tamil-majority north, are the latest in a series to be unearthed across the island nation, laying bare the final resting place of the many civilian casualties of the country’s 26-year-long civil war, which ended in 2009. The Sri Lankan civil war was fought between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the ‘Tamil Tigers’, from 1983 to 2009, and reportedly involved the forcible disappearance of tens of thousands of individuals. To date, tensions persist between the majority Sinhalese and Tamil populations, who continue to face systemic discrimination.
Kumanan, along with other Tamil reporters in Sri Lanka, has endured years of harassment by security forces and government authorities for his coverage of human rights violations and widespread discrimination against ethnic Tamils, according to the CPJ.
This is but the latest attempt by the Sri Lankan authorities to thwart Kumanan’s advocacy efforts, the CPJ finds. In May 2019, he was assaulted by a police officer while reporting at a temple, and in June 2022, he was threatened by authorities while reporting on forced land acquisition by the Navy.
Following Tuesday’s summons, several Tamil lawmakers have spoken out against the CTID, calling the summons a “blatant attempt to intimidate and silence independent reporting.”
Kumanan is expected to appear before the Alampil Counter Terrorism and Investigation Division (CTID) on August 17 to provide a statement in connection with an unspecified ‘inquiry’. However, no further information has been disclosed about the nature of this inquiry or a broader investigation, and a spokesperson for the local police did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment.
The CPJ and other rights groups continue to call for the immediate cessation of harassment of journalists in the region, emphasizing that the government has a unique opportunity to prove its commitment to press freedom and minority protection by allowing journalists – particularly those from Sri Lanka’s Tamil community – to continue to carry out essential reporting without threat of intimidation.
