The JVP today stated that the shooting of Sunday Leader Journalist Faraz Shaukatally by gunmen is not an isolated or accidental incident and that it was another instance media oppression which has been taking place for a long period.
At around midnight Friday, three men stormed Shaukatally’s house and shot him. Shaukatally survived the attack, which left him with a bullet lodged under the neck.
“Although Mr Faraz was not killed from the gunshots, it is clear from the critical injuries he suffered that the shooting was carried out with the intention of assassinating him,” the JVP said in a statement.
A process of “hunting down” media organizations and journalists, who are critical of the government and its leaders and defy them, has been taking place under the present regime for the past years, the Marxist party accused.
Disappearances, assassinations, assaulting and threatening of journalists has become a common occurrence, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna said, adding, journalists who are subject to these are always those who are against the government.
