Journalist's Death a Sign of Sri Lanka's Brutalisation?

Many cannot believe she is no longer with us.

A prominent journalists, Mel Gunasekera, was stabbed to death in her home, on Sunday. Photo courtesy: therepublicsquare.com

(COLOMBO) - One of Sri Lanka's most prominent journalists, Mel Gunasekera, was stabbed to death in her home, on Sunday. Although this death does not appear to have been politically motivated, Sri Lankans have reacted by lamenting what they say is the "brutalised" nature of their country.

BBC's Charles Haviland

To wake up to the news that a friend has been murdered is shocking.

My own distress and horror at the sudden ending of Mel Gunasekera's life is shared by hundreds of others in Colombo: her loving family and her many friends including fellow journalists.

Many cannot believe she is no longer with us.

Thanks to the internet, there have been many tributes to a woman who was good-humoured and irreverent, who helped others, who loved keeping dogs, driving fast cars and singing choral music.

"You expected her to outlive you, and just be there," one friend of the 40-year-old wrote.

Mel Gunasekera was known for her good-humoured and irreverent attitude.

In a country where many journalists are browbeaten and censor their own work, there is a dogged core of excellent and unassuming reporters, many of them women, and she was one.

She had founded the Lanka Business Online website before working for the French news agency, AFP, and then going freelance.

She did not write polemics, but she did her job well and thoroughly.

The large numbers who attended her funeral in a Catholic church and a tranquil corner of the city cemetery showed how many people cherished her.

Sri Lanka police investigate the home of former Agence France Presse journalist Mel Gunasekera after she was stabbed to death. AFP

In the reactions and tributes there is also a palpable sense of anger.

It is anger at what people see as the low value now accorded to human life here.

"Life is precisely what has become worthless in our troubled land," said one of her broadcaster and writer friends, Nalaka Gunawardene.

"Life today is so cheap it can be snapped away at the slightest provocation. Or even without any," he wrote.

He put this trend down to what he called Sri Lankan society's indifference and denial when faced with violent acts.

The violence here is not the worst in the world but you do see daily and distressing accounts of death in the newspapers.

Last month there was a report of a woman who worked in a nightclub being burned to death in her house in Colombo.

Around the same time, a boy was crushed to death at school in an accident involving a grass roller.

Rather longer ago, a video emerged of police officers chasing a mentally ill man into the sea in Colombo and drowning him while beating him.

It was filmed by an onlooker. The list seems endless. But the incidents are reported once and then, it seems, almost forgotten.

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