SLTMA urges action on Journalist's killing

[TamilNet, Sunday, 29 April 2007, 20:37 GMT]
The Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance (SLTMA ) in a communique issued Sunday appealed to the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) to take immediate action to find those involved in the killing of Uthayan journalist Selvarajah Rajivarman in Jaffna Sunday morning, sources in Jaffna said.

The full text of the communiqué follows:

In Jaffna various forms of pressure and threats are being issued continuously on journalists and media organizations. SLTMA considers the killing of Selvarajah Rajivarman on the second anniversary of the abduction of the popular journalist Sivaram as a pre-planned act. Even though this Alliance has brought to the attention of Media minister Mr.Anura Priyadarshana Yapa regarding the killings of journalists and the various forms of intimidation they are subjected to, we are very concerned to note that no action has been taken to stop these.

The killing of Selvarajah Rajivarman is a clear indication that GoSL did not take any action to protect the media men especially the Tamil media personnel. Uthayan newspaper office was attacked on many occasions and the employees have been threatened several times .The killing of yet another journalist has a created fear among Tamil media journalists .We therefore publicly issue an appeal to GOSL to take steps to arrest the culprits involved in this killing and produce them before law.