Young Journalist Murdered in Northern Jaffna

TAMIL YOUTH ORGANIZATION – NEW ZEALAND 1 st May 2007

Young Journalist Murdered in Northern Jaffna

The right to freedom of expression has yet again taken another blow in Sri Lanka with the murder of a promising young journalist. Selvarajah Rajivarman, aged 25, was a staff reporter at Jaffna 's Uthayan Daily newspaper.

He was shot dead on Sunday March 29 th . He was killed by gunmen riding on a motorbike at Naavalar Road, Rasaavin Thoaddam junction around 10:00 a.m. Reports from Sri Lanka suggest the gunmen were part of the paramilitary force operated by the Government of Sri Lanka.

Mr Rajivarman was on duty collecting news at the time of his senseless murder. The North Sri Lanka Journalists Association (NSLJA) said Mr Rajivarman was a talented and energetic news reporter. His death is a great loss to the Sri Lankan journalism community.

Tamil Youth Organisation-New Zealand (TYONZ) is increasing alarmed at the number of murders, threats and disruptions that the media and journalism community is facing in Sri Lanka. Freedom of press is of vital importance for a free democracy. However, both of these have been seriously undermined in Sri Lanka.

Since June 2004, 6 journalists and editors have been murdered. The common trend for these journalists and editors was that they are Tamils and belong to Tamil media organisations.

The murder of Mr Rajivarman comes only two weeks after Sri Lanka’s defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaks, the brother of President Mahinda Rajapakse, threatened the editor of Sri Lanka’s English language Daily Mirror paper over two articles, the first dealing the activities of a pro-government militia and the second with the appalling conditions facing Tamil refugees in the East.

TYONZ condemns this and all other attacks on the freedom of expression in Sri Lanka. This killing adds to two lists- first the increasing number of young Tamils being killed and the number of journalist being murdered.

Senseless killings of media professionals will plunge Sri Lanka into an already worse state of chaos. TYONZ urges the international community to step up and condemn these attacks before all independent voices in Sri Lanka are silenced and freedom is expression is lost forever.

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