Was Channel 4 right to screen last night’s harrowing documentary, Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, which exposed atrocious war crimes but was deeply disturbing for viewers? 

The programme claimed the UN’s decision to flee the country had “left the door open” for the killing of 40,000 people during the final bloody weeks of Sri Lanka’s 25-year war.

The documentary went out at 11pm. It depicted graphic scenes, including images of murdered, mutilated and raped bodies being disposed of, filmed by the perpetrators on their mobile phones as “trophy” footage.

Other evidence appeared to show hospitals full of Tamil civilians that had been systematically shelled by government forces. They would be bombed again 10 minutes later, witnesses said, to make sure anyone trying to help the wounded and dying were also killed. There was more, including summary executions of bounded and gagged men and women.

It was “grotesque behaviour”, said the Daily Telegraph’s short ‘review’, which questioned Channel 4’s right to subject the British public to such imagery. Serena Davies argued that it was a matter for the “experts”, rather than “the untutored members of another nation on the other side of the world”.

Unfortunately, the “experts” haven’t been taking a blind bit of notice.

And surely the idea of any piece of journalism is to educate those in the dark? After all, newspapers have failed to inform their readers about these events, however unpalatable.

Speaking of which, there hasn’t been much reaction in the press even now. Compare that to the media campaign surrounding Terry Pratchett’s documentary on assisted suicide in the same week. Why the difference?

No one was forced to watch either and Channel 4 warned viewers that Killing Fields would be highly disturbing. It was a bold move, and its clarion call to “wake the world up” to these crimes has not been completely in vain.

Since the programme aired, the Foreign Office has said evidence of human rights violations was “convincing”. It has publicly demanded a “serious response” from the Sri Lankan government, which only issued a flat denial. That’s purely down to Channel 4.

And so journalism has done its job: gathered the evidence and brought it to the world’s attention. If it didn’t do that, why would the “experts” bother?

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