A lone gunman shot dead a journalist for a Tamil language newspaper in Sri Lanka's port town of Trincomalee on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported quoting the area's police chief. Subramaniyam Sugitharajah, 35, an ethnic Tamil, was shot repeatedly and died on the spot as he was walking to work, Deputy Inspector of Police Rohan Abahayagunawardena said when reached by the telephone.
KILLED ON THE SPOT: Police investigate at the scene where journalist Subramaniyam Sugitharajah was shot dead in the eastern town of Trincomalee, about 240 kilometres (150 miles) northeast of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Tuesday, January 24, 2006. Sugitharajah was fatally shot by a lone gunman. (AP Photo/Mangalanath)The motive behind the killing was not immediately known, but his Colombo-based newspaper, Sudar Oli, carried several articles that reported on the ongoing violence and the Tamil Tiger rebels' aspirations for autonomy in the country's northern areas.
Tamil language media and journalists are under serious pressure and have also faced numerous threats recently. Four Tamil journalists have been killed during the last 12 months by key antagonists in the conflict, according to the Free Media Movement (FMM). Tamil newspaper offices have been searched repeatedly by state security forces; several Tamil journalists have been assaulted and detained during the last two months.
"Sugitharajah was a fearless reporter and we believe that he was killed to demoralise journalists working in the northeast," the paper's managing director, E Saravanapavam, said, according to AP. "Journalists there are already panic-stricken and this killing is aimed at suppressing news coming from there," he said. Trincomalee has been a hotbed of violence that has threatened to sink Sri Lanka back into civil war.
In April last, a top Sri Lankan journalist whose articles favoured the mainstream Tamil Tiger rebels over a breakaway faction was fatally shot after attackers seized him at a restaurant in the capital. Dharmeratnam Sivaram, 46, an ethnic Tamil and board member of the pro-rebel TamilNet website, was abducted by four men in Colombo and taken away in a jeep to a city outskirts where his bulletridden body was found later.
WHAT'S HE SAYING? Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse (right) with Norwegian peace envoy Erik Solheim in Colombo on Tuesday. Rajapakse had allegedly threatened with abusive language editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper, Lasantha Wikramatunge, a couple of weeks back. (AFP)After Sivaram's death, two other newspaper editors reportedly received threatening letters from a previously unknown group called Theraputtabhaya Force. The group is named after a military commander of an ancient Sinhalese king, whose forces fought invading Tamil kings from neighbouring India.
"We are horrified by the level of violence against Tamil journalists," Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said. "The impunity enjoyed by the instigators and perpetrators of these murders encourages more violence against the press. We urge Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake to do everything possible to ensure that the police identify and arrest Sugirdharajan's murderers, as well as the murderers of Relangi Sevaraja and Dharmeratnam Sivaram, who are still at large."
"We call on the authorities to investigate these vicious attacks and bring those responsible to justice," said Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Executive Director Ann Cooper. "The government has a responsibility to ensure the safety of journalists whose lives are increasingly endangered by political violence."
Assailants have twice thrown hand grenades into Sudar Oli premises. On August 29, two men lobbed grenades into the building housing the printing press, killing a guard and injuring two other staff members. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse last week condemned the attack as an assault on freedom of expression. On August 21 two grenades were tossed into the paper's advertising office but failed to explode.
BURN OUT: Tamil protesters burn an effigy of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse next to a military checkpoint in Vavuniya, northern Sri Lanka. Rajapakse met Norwegian peace broker Erik Solheim on Tuesday as diplomats tried to avert a return to civil war, but in the north, protesters burnt his effigy and accused the army of killing civilians. (Reuters/Anuruddha Lokuhapuarachchi)On August 30 two parliamentary reporters were assaulted while they waited for a bus. One was seriously injured. A photographer was set upon and robbed on August 23 while covering a rally of the People's Liberation Front (JVP) to protest killings by the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). JVP activists turned the photographer over to the police on suspicion of being an LTTE member. He was released the next day.
A CPJ statement said Sudar Oli and its Jaffna-based sister publication Uthayan have come under attack by both LTTE and anti-LTTE forces in Sri Lanka's civil conflict. A top leader of the JVP recently issued a public condemnation of the newspaper, accusing it of having LTTE ties. Increased political violence in recent months has put Tamil journalists at particular risk. In April, senior Tamil journalist Dharmeratnam Sivaram was abducted outside a Colombo restaurant and murdered, and in August, popular Tamil broadcaster Relangi Selvarajah was shot and killed with her husband in the capital.
