Colombo's war on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam may have ended. But its war on media freedom is far from over. Unlike the army offensive in the northeast of Sri Lanka, this is a war waged in disregard of the island-state's ethnic divide.

    The latest illustration of this years-long offensive has come with the Colombo High Court sentencing a Sri Lankan journalist to a 20-year prison term, with "hard labor," on August 31 for his published comments on the armed conflict. Forty-five-year-old Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam is a Sri Lankan Tamil, but has never been known to function as a member of the LTTE.

    Tissainayagam belongs to the composite journalistic fraternity of Colombo, where he wrote a column for the Sunday Times newspaper and edited outreachsl.com, a web site targeted at Sri Lanka's Tamil population. He also edited the now defunct North-Eastern Monthly magazine (the northeast representing Sri Lanka's Tamil-majority region).

    The quality of justice done in this case can be judged from his printed words that, in the court's view, constituted something like a war crime.

    In July 2006, he wrote in the North-Eastern Monthly: "Providing security to Tamils now will define northeastern politics of the future. It is fairly obvious that the Government is not going to offer them any protection. In fact it is the state security forces that are the main perpetrator of the killings."

    In November 2006, he wrote in the same monthly: "With no military options, the Government buys time by offering a watered-down devolution (of powers or autonomy to the Tamil-majority region). Such offensives against the civilians are accompanied by attempts to starve the population by refusing them food as well as medicines and fuel. As this story is being written, Vaharai (a town in the Batticaloa district on the eastern coast) is being subjected to intense shelling and aerial bombardment."

    Tissainayagam was also charged with taking money from the Tamil Tigers to fund the web site edited by him. The Reporters Without Borders (RWB), which has taken up his case, however, found that the site was funded by the German-aided Facilitating Local Initiatives for Conflict Transformation (FLICT). The stated aim of the FLICT is to work "towards a peaceful Sri Lanka" by "supporting democracy" and "celebrating diversity."

    The passages quoted in the court by the prosecution may not meet a debatable definition of patriotism. The words, however, would hardly seem to warrant action against their author on grounds of terrorism. Tissainayagam has the tragic honor of being the first journalist in "the democratic world," as the RWB puts it, to be "charged under the provisions of an anti-terror law" - and now convicted under such a law.

    The law, titled the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), like its post-9/11 counterparts in many other counties, makes it possible for citizens to be arrested under "suspicion" and detained for indefinite periods. They languish in police cells with no right to bail, while "confessions" are obtained through coercion for presentation in courts as admissible evidence.

    Tissainayagam was arrested on March 7, 2008, and spent five months in detention without any charges being brought against him. After that, he has faced a prolonged trial, with public pressures on his behalf from many quarters failing to move the powers that be. Besides the RWB, the Global Media Forum (GMF), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Amnesty International extended solidarity to him, but without affecting even a bit the apparently preordained course of the case.

    More noteworthy, however, has been the support forthcoming for Tissainayagam from within the Sri Lankan media fraternity. The Free Media Movement (FMM) of Sri Lanka, speaking for both Sinhala and Tamil journalists, has condemned his arrest and indictment in categorical terms. Members of the media from both communities also demonstrated outside the Colombo High Court on August 31 to protest against Tissainayagam's trial on terrorism charges.

    None of the media campaigners for Tissainayagam can be accused of pro-Tiger sympathies. The RWB once called slain LTTE leader Velupilllai Prabhakaran "a predator of press freedom." The Sri Lankan journalists, critical of army and police excesses against Tamil civilians and asking for a political solution to the ethnic problem, have never been advocates of either the Tigers or terrorism.

    This Sinhala-Tamil unity in the Sri Lankan media should be no surprise. Not after the assassination of a non-Tamil editor in January 2009 for his outspoken criticism of the war policy of the Rajapaksa regime. Lasantha Manilal Wickrematunge, who will doubtless inspire many in the Sri Lankan media, made his position plain in a posthumously published editorial in his newspaper, the Sunday Leader.

    Stating that "our distaste for the war should not be interpreted to mean that we support the Tigers," he wrote: "The LTTE are among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations ever to have infested the planet. There is no gain saying that it must be eradicated. But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting them mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be custodians of the dhamma [loosely, teachings of the Buddha] is forever called into question by this savagery, much of which is unknown to the public because of censorship."

    He added: "What is more, a military occupation of the country's north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering 'development' and 'reconstruction' on them in the post-war era. The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful Diaspora to contend with. A problem amenable to a political solution will thus become a festering wound that will yield strife for all eternity."

    The case against a military solution to Sri Lanka's ethnic problem cannot be stated more clearly. Nor can be the case against the trials and tribulations, to which the Tissainayagams of the island are put, in the name of anti-terrorism.