Sri Lanka

Wednesday 8th January 2020, 7:00PM

VANNI: Getting Graphic

War, political unrest and human suffering are unlikely subjects of comic books. Despite this, graphic novels depicting these realities have become increasingly popular, telling difficult stories to new audiences. Inspired by Benjamin Dix’s personal experience of working in Sri Lanka for the UN during the war, VANNI, draws upon over four years of meticulous research – including first-hand interviews, references from official reports and cross-referencing with experts in the field.


March 27, 2014

Art and Politics: The aesthetics of protest and the fight for human rights

by Sally Ashley-Cound On Wednesday 26 March 2014, Lacuna magazine hosted a night of discussion and performance at the Frontline Club chaired by Maureen Freely, English Pen president.


Thursday 28 November 2013, 7:00 PM

BBC Global News UK Preview Screening – Sri Lanka’s Unfinished War

Former BBC Sri Lanka correspondent, Frances Harrison, investigates on-going allegations of rape and torture by the Sri Lankan security forces for BBC Our World.


November 7, 2013

“To get justice you need truth” – No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka + Director Q&A

By Ratha Lehall On 5 November, No Fire Zone was shown at Riverside Studios  as part of a series of Between the Lines follow up events hosted by Frontline Club and DocHouse. This documentary chronicles the last 138 days of the civil war in Sri Lanka, revealing the brutal tactics employed by the Sri Lankan army and government against the Tamil population. […]


October 21, 2013

Granta 125 – After the War: “The story erupted around me”

By Caroline Schmitt The Frontline Club hosted an evening of reflections marking the publication of Granta 125: After the War on 17 October. Two correspondents shared their personal views on developments on the ground, after the battles are fought and the camera teams have moved on to cover other wars.


Tuesday 5 November 2013, 8:00 PM

Between the Lines Follow-Up Event: No Fire Zone + Q&A

This is an external event taking place at Riverside Studios. No Fire Zone – The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, chronicles the final 138 days of the 26-year Sri Lankan civil war, told by the people who lived through it. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Callum Macrae.


Thursday 17 October 2013, 7:00 PM

Granta 125: After the War – with Lindsey Hilsum and Frances Harrison

How long is the shadow of a battle, an explosion, a revolution? What stories arise in the wake of devastation? To mark the publication of Granta 125: After the War, two of Britain’s foremost journalists and foreign correspondents discuss the craft, conditions and issues surrounding writing about post-conflict situations.


April 24, 2013

A live issue: Tamil oppression in Sri Lanka

by Sally Ashley-Cound On 23rd April 2013, The Frontline Club held the first UK preview screening of award winning television director Callum Macrae’s new documentary, No Fire Zone – The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka. No Fire Zone uses forensically verified footage from civilian mobile phones and government forces cameras to chronicle the last 138 […]


Tuesday 23 April 2013, 7:00 PM

Sneak Preview Screening: No Fire Zone + Q&A

No Fire Zone – The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, chronicles the final 138 days of the 26 year Sri Lankan civil war, told by the people who lived through it. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Callum Macrae.


March 13, 2013

Commonwealth reluctant to act against Sri Lanka

Commonwealth chiefs are facing growing calls to censure Sri Lanka over continued human rights abuses and relocate a high-level summit due to take place in Colombo later this year. But rather than refer the country to its Ministerial Action Group, which deals with persistent or serious violations of the Commonwealth’s values, the 54-member body is […]


May 17, 2012

Sri Lanka: reconciliation and justice

By Rosie Scammell View event here. View in iTunes Epitomising the troubled state of Sri Lanka post-conflict, an impassioned panel spent Wednesday night disputing the truth. Facing an equally ardent audience, they proved that the country has a long way to go before reconciliation will become a reality. Chaired by BBC Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur – who […]


May 16, 2012 7:00 PM

FULLY BOOKED Sri Lanka: reconciliation and justice

Nearly three years after the end of the 26-year civil war in Sri Lanka that reportedly left an estimated 80,000-100,000 dead, questions are still arising about alleged war crimes and how they will be addressed.

Join us at the Frontline Club to discuss the impact of Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields and the situation today in Sri Lanka.


August 16, 2011

The week ahead: Return to Iran, Cocaine Unwrapped and reporting Sri Lanka’s civil war

Tomorrow night journalist and broadcaster Kamin Mohammadi will be talking to BBC Persian TV’s Pooneh Ghoddoosi about her  book The Cypress Tree and the story it tells of her return to Iran 17 years after her family fled the country in 1979. Our Change season continues on Friday with a screening of Cocaine Unwrapped, which exposes the human cost […]


August 4, 2011

ForesightNews world briefing: upcoming events 8-14 August

A weekly round up of world events from Monday, 8 August to Sunday, 14 August from ForesightNews Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav is back in court in Jerusalem on Monday, appealing his April conviction and seven year sentence for indecent assault and sexual harassment of two female employees. In Dharamsala, Lobsang Sangay is sworn in as the […]


July 6, 2010 7:00 PM

Sri Lanka: could the West do more about human rights and press freedom?

Part 1 Part 2 View in iTunes The appointment of Mervyn Silva, a politician with an established record of hostility towards journalists, as deputy minister of Information within the Sri Lankan government in April this year was met with calls for his removal by press freedom organisations. What can be done to protect journalists working […]


June 10, 2009

Splitting heads and hairs, Sri Lankan style

“Thanks to you and others, who was taking pics world can remember the sufferings!”. The words are from an email a stranger sent me recently, and should be heart-warming for an old photojournalist who’s packing up to leave struggling Sri Lanka for a while. But the message is about a war that ended 15 years […]


June 2, 2009

Magnanimous Mahinda and the Foreign Media Mob

Some little man in a Colombo cafe started shouting abuse at me the other day. I don’t know him, and I don’t know why. That sort of thing is very rare here, but perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, given the current "you’re either with us or against us" climate. The vast majority of the Sri […]


May 19, 2009

Sri Lanka: 25 years of war

As the government of Sri Lanka declares an end to the civil war that has lasted 25 years, The Guardian newspaper looks back over the conflict in a series of 31 images.


May 1, 2009

May you live long, but not here

"Ayubowan", is the first word a visitor to Sri Lanka hears on arrival. These days one could be forgiven for thinking it means something very rude. It doesn’t, and the increasingly rare tourist would probably not suspect any hostility behind the still ever-present smiles. Until, that is, she or he makes the mistake of picking […]


April 24, 2009

Doing journalism in Sri Lanka

They live in fear. A dozen have been assassinated. Such is the fate of journalists trying to cover the war in the north of Sri Lanka. link A report from CBC about journalists working in Sri Lanka. The sub-7 minute feature takes us inside the offices of The Sunday Leader, the newspaper Lasantha Wickrematunga edited […]


April 22, 2009

A world without foreign correspondents

Andrew Stroehlein, Communications Director for the International Crisis Group, wrote a great piece on his Covering Crisis blog on the Reuters AlertNet site. He has very kindly agreed to let us post it on the Frontline blog. He raises a lot of points about under-reported stories, things we regularly cover here and discuss at length […]


April 18, 2009

Not getting into Sri Lanka

Jeremy Page had a surprise wating for him upon arrival at Colombo’s Bandaranaike International airport in Sri Lanka. After multiple rejected visa applications to enter the country, The Times South Asia Correspondent decided to go the tried and trusted tourist visa route… A message flashed up on his screen: “DO NOT ALLOW TO ENTER THE […]


April 15, 2009

Call to lift Sri Lanka media ban

  Reporters without borders (RSF) called on the Sri Lankan government to lift the ban on media outlets from entering the war zone in the north east of the country. "It is a disgrace that this war is being waged without independent journalists present," Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said. "With a major humanitarian crisis […]


April 7, 2009

Slain Sri Lankan editor wins World Press Freedom Prize 2009

Lasantha Wickrematunge, the editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper in Sri Lanka who was assassinated in January 2009, has been named laureate of the 2009 UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize, “Jury members were moved to an almost unanimous choice by a man who was clearly conscious of the dangers he faced but nevertheless chose to […]


April 2, 2009

Sri Lanka government to investigate journalists

The Sri Lankan government has appointed a Parliamentary Select Committee to investigate the work of journalists "who have been contributing articles detrimental to the interests of Sri Lanka to foreign Non Governmental Organizations", according to Sri Lanka Defence Spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella. Government will reveal names of those Sri Lankan journalists in about a fortnight, […]


February 26, 2009

Tamil editor abducted in Sri Lanka

Nadesapillai Vithyatharan, a senior Sri Lankan newspaper editor, was abducted by armed men in police uniform this morning, according to the Tamil Eelam News Services. The editor of both the Uthayan newspaper in Jaffna and the Colombo based Sudar Oli was attending the funeral of a friend on the Galle Road in Colombo when the […]


Tuesday 24th February, 2009

FULLY BOOKED Reactive Media Talk: Sri Lanka – a hollow victory?

The Tamil Tigers are looking closer than ever to military defeat as government forces continue to overrun the last remaining rebel strongholds in the north of the country. With an end to the military stalemate and the 25 year civil war potentially in sight, what is the future for the LTTE and what are the […]


February 24, 2009

Live tonight – Sri Lanka discussion

We’ll be discussing the future for Sri Lanka at the club tonight, 24 February at 7 pm GMT/11 am PST. As usual, if you can’t make it to the club in person, we’ll be broadcasting the event live on the Frontline Club live channel or you can watch it on this very blog, The Tamil […]


February 19, 2009

Sri Lankan debate

If you read Graham Holliday’s post about the Sri Lankan event controversy, you know how much pressure outside groups try on occasion  to exert on us at Frontline. We all acknowledge that we do get it wrong from time to time. We’ve staged over 1000 events in 5 years. There’s often a fierce debate at […]


February 19, 2009

Frontline under fire

The Frontline Club has been coming in for a fair bit of criticism for its decision to "uninvite" two members of the upcoming Sri Lanka discussion at the club on February 24. These complaints have been received from both sides of the debate online and in private emails. The discussion will focus on the future […]