{"id":52504,"date":"2016-03-01T23:27:45","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T05:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=52504"},"modified":"2016-03-01T16:04:23","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T23:04:23","slug":"on-ekneligoda-in-spite-of-ekneligoda-and-his-pals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/03\/01\/on-ekneligoda-in-spite-of-ekneligoda-and-his-pals\/","title":{"rendered":"On Ekneligoda, in spite of Ekneligoda and his pals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Malinda Seneviratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Six years ago, I wrote about Prageeth Ekneligoda in the state-owned ‘Daily News’. This around the time he was picked up as the poster-boy of NGO racketeers strutting around as champions of human rights.\u00a0 Ekneligoda, as someone recently observed, was no journalist.\u00a0 He drew some cartoons and they were nice, but there was nothing unique in them.\u00a0 He wrote soft-porn for dodgy websites.\u00a0 He has never been seen at a press conference.\u00a0 But that’s how it is.\u00a0 It is ‘received wisdom’ that if you want to defend a dodgy character it is useful to call him\/her a journo.\u00a0 Smart.\u00a0 Today Ekneligoda is back in the news.\u00a0 Today we are also seeing the ‘new’, ‘different’, ‘good’ government of Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe meddling with the media in ways that Mahinda Rajapaksa did only towards the tail-end of his tenure. \u00a0 It won’t be called ‘white-vanning’ but whatever label picked it might very well come to pass that those ‘dealt with’ in that way would not be ‘journalists’ but journalists!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Some years ago a newspaper whose editor and editorial policy was so uncritically pro-UNP and operated on the my enemy\u2019s enemy is my friend that it was full of pro-LTTE content, observed, editorially, that a Government with a 5th<\/sup> class media policy cannot complain about 3rd<\/sup> rate journalism.\u00a0 I think I a reverse of those figures would be more apt.<\/p>\n

The Government does not have a first rate media policy but we\u2019ve certainly seem far worse situations over the past 30 years or so.\u00a0 My contention has been that the Government is overly worried about criticism because the critics, apart from a handful of people like Rajpal Abeynayake and Namini Wijedasa, are absolutely compromised by corruption, fraud, political loyalties and even complicity in the designs of the LTTE.\u00a0\u00a0 All the Government had to do was give them enough rope and watch them hang themselves.<\/p>\n

The main outfits whining for media rights, such as the Free Media Movement and the Working Journalists Association, are full of people who don\u2019t deserve to be called journalists and who, by their political preferences and shady operations, were the laughing stock of the general public.\u00a0Sure, there were some who were more principled than the herd, like Uvindu Kurukulasuriya, but by and large these bunch of jokers should not have been perceived as a threat.<\/p>\n

The latest \u2018case\u2019 is the disappearance of a man by the name of Prageeth Ekneligoda, a journalist attached to the website referred to as \u2018lankaenews\u2019.\u00a0 Lankaenews is not just an anti-Government website. It is anti-Rajapaksa, anti-civility, anti-dignity, anti-integrity etc etc., and sometimes one wonders if it is a porn site.\u00a0 The people who run the site have absolutely no ethics and I doubt if they have ever heard of a term called \u2018responsible journalism\u2019.\u00a0 Personally, I think the website did more damage to the Government\u2019s opponents than it did to the Government.<\/p>\n

Now there are people, largely anti-Rajapaksa and pro-LTTE, bent on destabilizing Sri Lanka who are using Ekneligoda\u2019s disappearance as \u2018another example\u2019 of the Governments (alleged) witch hunt of media personnel.\u00a0 I don\u2019t consider Ekneligoda a journalist nor lankaenews a serious media operation.\u00a0 A fifth-grade jungle paper (kelae paththare) would show more professionalism and media ethics than lankaenews.\u00a0 And yet, there\u2019s no getting around the fact that Ekneligoda is \u2018missing\u2019.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t buy the view that all journalists and self-titled journalists that go missing or are beaten up are \u2018victims\u2019 of violence sourced to high ranking members of the political leadership.\u00a0 On the other hand, since the Government is mandated to ensure rule of law and guarantee the security of all citizens, there is some culpability that slips to the state when such things happen.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know if Ekneligoda was abducted or is in hiding.\u00a0 Gayan Kumara Weerasingha, writing in the Sunday Lakbima News of February 28, 2010 details various theories about Ekneligoda\u2019s whereabouts and doings.\u00a0 Nothing is confirmed.\u00a0 We are asked to wait and see, and assured that the true story will come out soon.<\/p>\n

I am disturbed by this disappearance and I am sure the Government is too, especially if there\u2019s no involvement of anyone in high ranking places in the regime.\u00a0 We need to know what happened to this man.\u00a0 If indeed he\u2019s the charlatan that he appears to be, then the true story behind this \u2018disappearance\u2019 will embarrass all those media-vultures who think the sun shines out of their \u2018you-know-what\u2019.\u00a0 On the other hand, if indeed he is a victim of a more sinister operation, then the Government really needs to take serious note of unruly, indiscipline and vile elements within its fold.<\/p>\n

What really harms Ekneligoda and those who wax lyrical about him and rights issues is the fact that the man is not a principled journalist in the first place.\u00a0 Lankaenews, for example, ran a story about a politician\u2019s sexual exploits that should get the award for the most vicious and irresponsible piece of writing during the year 2009.\u00a0 Ekneligoda was supposed to have written the piece.\u00a0 He had weaved in enough \u2018facts\u2019 to make it clear who he was talking about.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t have the guts to come out and say this is Mr So and So.\u00a0 That\u2019s character assassination.\u00a0 And pornography.<\/p>\n

Ekneligoda then is not a journalist, but a man with a perverted mind and badly requires a visit to a psychiatrist, along with his pals at lankaenews.\u00a0 Still, he is a citizen and deserves all the rights and guarantees that the state owes the rest of the citizenry.\u00a0 \u2018Where is Ekneligoda?\u2019 then is a legitimate question and one which we hope will be answered soon.<\/p>\n

Had Ekneligoda been a serious and responsible journalist or an exemplary citizen this \u2018disappearance\u2019 could have really embarrassed the Government. But Ekneligoda is Ekneligoda and lankaenews is lankaenews.\u00a0 Don\u2019t believe me.\u00a0 Read lankaenws. The website carried a letter purportedly written by Ekneligoda as reply to a letter written to him by the daughter of a friend who had been \u2018disappeared\u2019 during the UNP-JVP bheeshanaya<\/em> of the late eighties.\u00a0 Ekneligoda is supposed to have authored this after he was abducted and released in August last year (that his abductors have not been identified is also a problem, not because he is a \u2018journalist\u2019 but a citizen; again a black mark that the Government can do without).<\/p>\n

What is interesting in this missive is the fact that Ekneligoda deems it necessary to fall on his knees and worship, again and again, a man called Sunanda Deshapriya, a charlatan of the first order who made bucks out of activism and stole bucks from the Centre for Policy Alternatives and dares not step into Sri Lanka for fear of arrest for perpetrating numerous acts of fraud.\u00a0 Sunanda is Ekneligoda\u2019s hero.\u00a0 Need I say more?<\/p>\n

What this goes to show is the poverty of anti-Government activism in this country.\u00a0 Intoxicated by hatred, petrified by monsters of its own creation, bedding with men and women who have absolutely no integrity and are largely discredited in the eyes of the general public, these people need to do a serious re-think about who they are, what they do and what they can achieve.\u00a0 As things stand, they are not in a position to help Ekneligoda; each time they open their mouths they hurt him.<\/p>\n

We need to know where Ekneligoda is, let me repeat, in spite of who he is, what he did\/does for a living and who his friends are.\u00a0 We need to know where he is because he is a fellow-citizen.\u00a0 We should not let the antics of lankaenews distract us from this important quest.<\/p>\n

And we need brand organization to champion the cause of media rights.<\/p>\n

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached at malindasenevi@gmail.com<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malinda Seneviratne Six years ago, I wrote about Prageeth Ekneligoda in the state-owned ‘Daily News’. This around the time he was picked up as the poster-boy of NGO racketeers strutting around as champions of human rights.\u00a0 Ekneligoda, as someone recently observed, was no journalist.\u00a0 He drew some cartoons and they were nice, but there was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malinda-seneviratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}