Senior journalist Latheef Farook honoured with Siddi Lebbe award
Senior journalist Latheef Farook was awarded the first ever Siddi Lebbe award in recognition of his achievements in journalism by the Siddi Lebbe Research Forum on Sunday July 22 at the Moors Islamic cultural Home at Lilly Avenue, Colombo 6.
Held under the theme “Challenges faced by Sri Lankan Muslims in the era of neo- colonialism”, a number of research papers submitted by leading intellectuals from Sri Lanka, South India, Malaysia and Qatar dealing with burning issues were discussed during the two-day national research conference.
Senior journalist Latheef Farook began his career with the now defunct Independent Newspapers in 1966 before joining the Lake House in 1971 where he worked for the Ceylon Daily News and the evening Observer, covering politics, foreign affairs, finance and economic beats.
He also worked as correspondent for Middle Eastern news agencies.
In 1976, the Daily News nominated him for the United Nations’ Dag Hammarskjöld scholarship for Third World journalists. The same year, he led a group of Sri Lankan journalists to Dubai to relaunch the English language daily “Gulf News”.
A year later, he joined the Khaleej Times where, for seven years, he covered almost every aspect of the United Arab Emirates’ development programme, besides covering the Indian elections of 1979, which brought Indira Gandhi to power. Rejoining the Gulf News in 1987, he worked as the Gulf News Bureau Chief in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
After almost a quarter century living and working in the Gulf, he returned to Colombo in March 2003 and began supplying feature articles on Sri Lanka, catering to Sri Lankan expatriates in the Gulf region, Europe, the Americas and the Far East.
He also wrote several books on local and international issues.
His first book” War on Terrorism-The Untold Truths” published by Malaysiabased Strategic Information and Research Development deals in detail with the myth of associating terrorism with Islam and Muslims under the guise of fighting a war on terrorism.
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed wrote the foreword for the book which contains comments by well-known British playwright Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter. It was later published in Colombo.
His second book “Nobody’s PeopleThe Forgotten Plight of Sri Lankan Muslims” highlights the sufferings and the ethnic cleansing of Sri Lankan Muslims by the LTTE, during the ethnic war.
His third book America’s New World Order- EXPORTING WARS deals in depth with the Israelisponsored and United States- led British, European and Russian invasions and destruction of Muslim countries since the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the planned massacre of millions of Muslims which continues to date with the mass killings of Muslims in Syria.
This book has comments from Nobel Laureate Tawakkul Karman, well known American journalist Paul Craig Roberts who was former assistant secretary of the Treasury during Ronald Regan’s presidency, Chicago-based journalist Stephen Lendman, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Secretary of State for International Development Clair Short, Malaysian intellectual Dr Chandra Muzaffar and Indian writer Ram Punyani.
The book documents the genocides committed in Muslim countries from the never ending Israel atrocities in Palestine, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Iraq, Libya, and Algeria to Somalia and Syria.
His book “Muslims under Siege” deals with the atrocities committed against the Muslims during the Mahinda Rajapakse regime.
He also compiled a book titled “Mayhem during Curfew” and it deals with the attacks on Muslims at Aluthgama, Dharga Town and Beruwala in June 2015.
‘India lost Kashmir’ is another book compiled by him. This is a collection of articles on the freedom struggle of the Kashmiris.
The pinnacle of his career was when the Sri Lanka Press Institute awarded him the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award for journalism at a glittering ceremony at Mount Lavinia Hotel in July 2015.
In addition he maintains a website ” Latheeffarook.net” supplying regular feature articles on local and international affairs especially dealing with the plight of Muslims in Sri Lanka and the atrocities committed against Muslims worldwide . This website is widely read by Sri Lankan and other Muslim expatriates in Canada, Britain, the Middle East, the Sub Continent, Malaysia and Australia to New Zealand.
His latest book “Genocide of Rohingya Minorities” is a collection of articles on the genocide of Muslims by Myanmar government.