Tamil journalists seek “international inquiry” into murder of media persons in Sri Lanka

Siva Parameswaran

Tamil Journalists in the war-affected area have voiced their support in demanding an international inquiry into the killings of journalists in the country including the Sinhala and Muslim journalists.

This call for an international inquiry has been voiced by the Tamil scribes even when no such support has come from the Sinhalese or Muslim journalists seeking accountability for the killing of Tamil journalists.

Journalists attached to the Batticaloa Press Club (BPC) have sought an international inquiry into the murders of at least 43 media persons. Among them 35 are Tamil journalists and the balance 8 comprise of five Sinhala and three Muslim journalists.

“Since no justice will be rendered concerning the killing of these journalists in Sri Lanka, the responsibility of getting justice for them lies with the international human rights organizations,” a media statement from the Batticaloa Press Club said. 

Their demand for an international probe came on the occasion when they assembled to pay tribute to the slain Tamil journalist Ayyathurai Nadesan, a popular media person in the Eastern city of Batticaloa who was shot dead in broad daylight 20 years back. 

Events were also organized by the Press Clubs in Jaffna, Vavuniya, and Mullaitivu to pay tribute to him. His portrait was displayed at the respective press clubs with journalists paying floral tributes and lighting a candle in his memory.

A separate event was organized by the Eastern Journalist Forum, Sri Lanka Professional Web Journalists Association, North, East and South Media Societies in Batticaloa where journalists from the south participated and paid tribute to him.

None of his killers’ have been brought to justice yet although enough circumstantial evidence and eyewitness accounts were there.

The same has been the case with two other popular journalists ‘Taraki’ Sivaram who was killed in the capital Colombo in April 2005 and Mylvaganam Nimalarajan who was killed when a grenade was thrown into his house and subsequently shot as he was reporting for the BBC Sinhala service 

Nadesan, Sivaram and Nimalarajan were among the Tamil journalists at the forefront of exposing the state atrocities and reporting the actual happenings in the war zone. 

Similarly, Lasantha Wickremetunge, Editor of the Sunday Leader was assassinated in Colombo in January 2009 whose killing is yet to be solved. Another Sinhala journalist and cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda is untraced since he went missing in January 2010.

The killing and abduction of journalists had continued for decades and journalists say it increased rapidly during the presidency of Chandrika Bandaranaike and Mahinda Rajapaksa. 

Even after the bloody civil war came to a brutal end in May 2009, the intimidation and arrest of Tamil journalists continued. 

Tamil journalists were summoned to police stations even for flimsy reasons like posting a picture of the ‘Maveer Naal’ (Hero’s Day) observation-when the Tamils remember the war dead and pray their solemn tributes and for exposing state atrocities like land grabbing, depriving the livelihood of Tamil working class and carrying out their regular newsgathering work.

In recent times, such intimidation and summoning for inquiries have become more common in the war-torn Northern Province. Two senior journalists were summoned before the dreaded Sri Lanka terror police alleging they pictured military posts in the war-ravaged Mullaitivu district. Phones and working laptops were seized and searched before being returned and journalists were forced to part with their passwords for their devices.

Batticaloa Press Club journalists point out that although the Sri Lankan government began investigations into the death of two Sinhala journos none of the alleged perpetrators have been arrested so far. But in the case of Tamil Journalists even that enquiries have not begun they allege. They also say the media played a big role in ousting the whom they call a ‘murderous regime’ from power. 

While observing the 20th death remembrance day of murdered Tamil journalist Ayyathurai Nadesan, the BPC, Batticaloa district Tamil Journalists Union, and East Sri Lanka Journalist’s Association jointly appealed to the international human rights group to press for an international inquiry to render justice for all those journalists killed brutally by the state agencies and their associates.

Their demands include the official release of details about the journalists who were either killed or disappeared with their names and other information.

BPC also sought the reopening of the Ayyathurai Nadesan’s murder inquiry who was killed in Batticaloa.

Quoting the popular adage “Justice delayed is Justice denied” BPC emphasized they are in such a dire situation and forced to seek international intervention since even after two decades of his murder justice remains an illusion in Sri Lanka and their only hope lies in the international inquiries and as such global human rights organizations have a responsibility towards it.