Thread by @Nirmanusan

🧵1. On 18 July 2009, a mere two months after the end of the war in #SriLanka, a team of exiled
progressive #Sinhala journalists and #Tamil journalists came together and established @JDS.

2. In the post-war context, JDS played & continues to play a vital role on #accountability and
#justice issues related to Sri Lanka. Fueled by a moral obligation, the committed members of
JDS covered issues many feared to undertake.

3. Journalists within JDS chose to step forward and reveal evidence of war crimes and crimes
against humanity committed by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLAF) during the final stages
of the war.

4. In revealing the very first visual evidence of such crimes, JDS engaged with several international stakeholders in the aftermath of war. However, these actors chose to remain silent until JDS released the crucial video footage in August 2009 via Britain’s
Channel 4.

5. This video was obtained and televised within weeks of JDS’ formation. The 78-second video clip reset the agenda of the international media and forced a change in the foreign policy decisions of many countries around the world vis-a-vis Sri Lanka.

6. GoSL authorities denied the allegations & labelled the video clip as fake and as propaganda material of LTTE sympathisers. They projected the work of JDS as ‘a conspiracy against the motherland’ paid for by the ‘tiger rump’. The UN, however, deemed the video footage authentic.

7. Approximately one month after the telecast of the clip, the GoSL appointed Major General Jagath Dias to the SL Embassy in Berlin. According to media reports, the SL Defense Ministry assigned as his first duty to investigate those linked to JDS.

8. However, despite these new and developing threats to personal safety even in exile, the members of JDS worked persistently, this time to bring Dias himself to an accountability process in relation to international law.

9. JDS created another wave of calls for justice and accountability in February 2013 through its
release of photographs of Balachandran Prabhakaran. A set of photographs proved that the child was alive and well when taken into custody by the Sri Lankan army and later shot dead.

10. Bashana Abeywardane, who plays a key role in leading & coordinating JDS, highlighted that exiled journalists have not merely fled from trouble as interpreted by some but have instead chosen a means of challenging & changing the rule of engagement set by the tyrannical power.

link.springer.com/chapter/10.100…