Chief Minister of the Northern Province, C.V. Vigneswaran, has charged that the Sri Lankan government is not investigating the killing or disappearance of Tamil journalists when it is investigating cases involving Sinhalese journalists.
Speaking at a function to give a “Lifetime Achievement” award to veteran Tamil journalist V.Thanabalasingam at Karaveddi in Jaffna, Vigneswaran said that he had raised this issue when the Sri Lankan Media Minister, Gayantha Karunathilaka, had visited Jaffna in March, but till date no action has been taken in this regard.
Vigneswaran pointed out that since the killing of BBC Tamil journalist Nimalarajan in Jaffna 16 years ago, 40 Sri Lankan journalists had been killed or had gone missing. Of these, only two were non-Tamils. The present Sri Lankan government is investigating two of the cases involving Sinhalese journalists (Lasantha Wickrematunge and Prageeth Eknaligoda) but there is no investigation into the cases of Tamil journalists.
“When the present leaders assumed power in 2015, they promised to investigate the killing and disappearance of journalists. But we now have little or no hope that these will be investigated,” Vigneswaran said.
-NIE
-Agencies
