Description

Around 3pm on 28th July, the journalist and media rights activist Tharindu Uduwaragedara was assaulted and arrested by the Police while covering a trade union protest held in the Borella area, in Colombo city. Officers pulled Uduwaragedara out of a trishaw while he was recording the protest sitting inside the trishaw and forced him into a police vehicle while he repeatedly identified himself as a journalist. Around 3pm on 28th July, the journalist and media rights activist Tharindu Uduwaragedara was assaulted and arrested by the Police while covering a trade union protest held in the Borella area, in Colombo city. Officers pulled Uduwaragedara out of a trishaw while he was recording the protest sitting inside the trishaw and forced him into a police vehicle while he repeatedly identified himself as a journalist. Tharindu Uduwaragedara is an Executive Committee Member of the Young Journalists' Association, has years of experience working in the press and now runs the Satahan Radio Youtube channel, which has over 171,000 subscribers. The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka issued a statement that their team visited the Borella Police station, while Uduwaragedara was being held in detention and recommended referring him to a judicial medical officer, currently conducting an investigation into the incident. He was granted bail by the Colombo magistrate court on the next day. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)Frontline Defenders and a number of local media rights groups and activists condemned the arrest.