Channel 4 refutes Sri Lankan "propaganda offensive"

28 February 2014

Channel 4 has today taken the unprecedented step of publishing a detailed refutation of “an international propaganda offensive” launched by supporters of the Sri Lankan government against its reporting of events at the end of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war.  Channel 4’s News and Current Affairs journalists have led the way in exposing the country’s war crimes, culminating in the broadcast of the feature length documentary No Fire Zone - a forensic investigation into the final weeks of the bloody civil war in Sri Lanka.

In November 2013, Prime Minister, David Cameron, called for an independent investigation into the events at the end of the Sri Lankan civil war after viewing the ‘truly shocking’ footage that features in No Fire Zone. Next month (March 2014), the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva will consider calls for the creation of an International Commission of Inquiry into all the crimes committed in the final months of the war.

But now, in an attempt to discredit Channel 4 and suppress legitimate reporting of these war crimes, supporters of the Sri Lankan government have produced a 222 page propaganda book called Corrupted Journalism: Channel 4 and Sri Lanka which has been distributed widely around the world to diplomats, journalists and academics.  The authors of Corrupted Journalism remain anonymous and the source of its funding is a mystery. 

To counter this misleading attack on its journalism, Channel 4 has taken the unusual step of publishing a detailed 20,000 word rebuttal titled The Uncorrupted Truth.      

The booklet is authored by the director of Channel 4’s Sri Lanka films, BAFTA and Grierson nominee Callum Macrae. Macrae is a distinguished journalist who has won many awards from industry bodies including the Royal Television Society, The Association of International Broadcasters, Amnesty and several others.  

He has also won two of the United States' most prestigious television journalism awards, The Peabody and the Columbia Dupont Awards, and for two years running has been ranked by Broadcast Magazine as one of the top three directors in the UK.

Channel 4 Head of News and Current Affairs, Dorothy Byrne said: “Corrupted Journalism is a scurrilous piece of work which misleads the public. That is why we decided to publish this full and detailed response, answering every allegation in careful and meticulous detail. In contrast to the authors and funders of this spurious nonsense who have chosen to remain anonymous, Channel 4 stands proudly behind the outstanding journalism in No Fire Zone.”

Engage Sri Lanka’s Corrupted Journalism was described by Macrae, as an “irresponsible, inaccurate and misleading attack on our journalism.  A work notable as much for its failure to confront any of the serious allegations we make of massacres, crimes against humanity and torture, as for the inaccuracy of the criticisms it levels against us.  It is perhaps no wonder that they chose to do this from behind a cloak of anonymity" 

No Fire Zone tells the story of how, in 2009, following a 26-year civil war, the government of Sri Lanka launched a major final offensive against the rebel forces of the Tamil Tigers. The government declared a series of what they called “no fire zones”, encouraged Tamil civilians to gather in them, and then targeted them, shelling indiscriminately and denying adequate food and medicine to those trapped within.  The Tigers too stand accused committing war crimes, using child soldiers and suicide bombings.  They also prevented civilians from escaping the no fire zones – although the vast majority of civilians who died, did so as a result of government shelling.  At the end of the war a series of further war crimes by government soldiers saw executions of naked blindfolded prisoners and acts of sexual violence.

It was supposed to be a war without witness. But there were witnesses and they filmed the appalling events. These witnesses included both victims and perpetrators: including government soldiers who filmed these crimes as grotesque war trophies.  That evidence has been carefully investigated and authenticated by the team behind the Channel 4 films.

The Government of Sri Lanka insists the video evidence of war crimes is faked. However, Channel 4’s reporting is corroborated by United Nations investigations and reports by independent NGOs including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.