It is reported that Media Minister Dullas Alahapperuma who visited Jaffna recently has to face serious opposition from journalists in the North.
Journalists in Jaffna have met the Minister and protested against the fact that there has been no investigation into the killings, disappearances, attacks on journalists and media institutions in the North and East over the past few decades and the perpetrators have not been punished. Journalists and journalists wearing black cards symbolized the protest at a meeting held at the Jaffna Kachcheri to mark the opening of a branch of the Government Publications Bureau in Jaffna.
Nimalarajan, Subramaniam Rajivaran, Sahadevan Nilakshan, Paranirupasanham, K. Ganaranathan, Anthony Pillai Siththiranjan, a media worker, was killed by government security forces.
In addition, many Tamil journalists were killed in the North and East, such as Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi, Vavuniya, Mannar, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara.
Media Minister Alahapperuma, who arrived in Jaffna 15 years after the disappearance of Valampuri news paper’s journalist Subramaniam Ramachandran, has promised to re-investigate the killing of journalists in the face of protests from journalists.
According to a report compiled by Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, 44 journalists have been killed or disappeared in the past decade. Most of them are Tamil journalists from the North and East.