Why only Sinhala journalists? Tamil reporters confront minister over unpunished killings

Tamil journalists in Jaffna boycotted a media workshop attended by Sri Lankas Deputy Minister of Mass Media, Kaushalya Ariyarathne, on Friday, staging a protest instead to demand justice for Tamil journalists killed or forcibly disappeared during the armed conflict and the years that followed.

The demonstration, organised by the Jaffna Press Club, took place outside the Jaffna District Secretariat, where a government workshop for journalists from the Jaffna and Kilinochchi districts was being held. As journalists chanted slogans demanding justice at the main entrance, Ariyarathne entered through another entrance without engaging with them.

Protesters attempted to enter the secretariat to present their demands directly, but a heavy police presence blocked their access as they continued calling for justice for slain and disappeared Tamil journalists.

Speaking during the protest, the Jaffna Press Club president K. Selvakumar said the deputy ministers refusal to engage exposed the National Peoples Power governments lack of commitment to securing justice for murdered journalists, noting that two years had passed since the administration took office without investigations being expedited.

He contrasted her conduct with that of previous media ministers, who he said had at least been willing to meet journalists and discuss the lack of progress.

"Today, the deputy minister has refused to meet us. This demonstrates how this government is treating journalists," he said.

Selvakumar accused the government of abandoning promises made before coming to power to investigate the killings of journalists and pursue long-delayed cases, and alleged that the Jaffna district secretary had instructed police to remove demonstrators from the entrance, acting in support of the government despite being fully aware of the pain journalists had endured.

"The deputy minister was not even prepared to listen to our demands or our grievances," he said, adding that the governments assurances had proven false.

He criticised the decision to hold a media workshop inside the secretariat while journalists protested outside for justice.

"If this was genuinely a workshop for journalists, then all journalists should have been able to participate," he said.

The event, he alleged, had been organised to create the appearance of engagement while the government remained unwilling to hear journalists concerns. He pledged that the Jaffna Press Club would continue its campaign until justice was secured.

They were deliberately targeted

Although the Jaffna Press Club boycotted the workshop, more than 25 journalists from the Vadamarachchi Media House and the Jaffna Media Forum attended and challenged Ariyarathne directly over the governments handling of unresolved cases. They recalled that Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake had pledged justice for Tamil journalists who were murdered or disappeared, but said no tangible progress had been made.

Ariyarathne responded that old case files were being revisited and that justice would be delivered during the tenure of the present government. The answer was met with dissatisfaction, with journalists stressing that the situation of Tamil journalists in the North-East was distinct, because they had been deliberately targeted while acting as the voice of the Tamil people during the war.

They noted that 58 journalists in the North alone had been killed or forcibly disappeared, and asked why the government appeared willing to pursue the cases of the Sinhala journalists Lasantha Wickrematunge and Prageeth Eknaligoda, while cases involving Tamil journalists such as Isaipriya, Nimalarajan and Taraki Sivaram saw no comparable progress.

The disparity, they argued, reflected a reluctance to pursue cases involving Tamil victims because investigations would inevitably implicate members of the Sri Lankan military.

Ariyarathne rejected the allegation, saying investigative authorities operated independently, that the government did not interfere in their work, and that investigations were not prioritised according to whether victims were Tamil or Sinhala.

Journalists challenged that, arguing that if files had genuinely been reopened over the past two years, there would already have been visible developments, and repeatedly asked when concrete investigations would begin.

The deputy minister declined to give a timeline, saying only that the NPP administration would act more honestly than its predecessors, before attempting to conclude the session, citing another engagement. Journalists continued to press her, insisting that justice for murdered and disappeared journalists must take precedence over discussions on media development, accreditation or salaries, and urged her to convey to Dissanayake that accountability for slain and disappeared colleagues remained their foremost concern.

Sri Lanka has been one of the most dangerous countries in the world in which to be a journalist. At least 41 media workers are known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict, the overwhelming majority of them Tamil, and not a single perpetrator has been brought to justice.

The cases the journalists raised are among the most emblematic: the Tamil broadcaster Isaipriya, killed in the final days of the war in 2009; the BBC and Ravaya correspondent Mylvaganam Nimalarajan, shot dead in Jaffna in 2000; and the veteran commentator Dharmeratnam Sivaram, known as Taraki, abducted and murdered in Colombo in 2005.