H.E. Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga
President
Presidential Secretarial
Secretarial Building
Colombo, 01
Sri Lanka

Vienna, 20 October 2000

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors and media executives, condemns in the strongest possible terms the murder of a Sri Lankan journalist.

According to our sources, on 19 October, Mailvaganam Nimalaranjan died after being shot by unidentified attackers. Nimalaranjan was working in the study of his home in Jaffna, the centre of Sri Lanka’s 17-year-old civil war, when gunmen shot him through a window. The assailants then threw a grenade into the living room, injuring both his parents and his 11-year-old nephew.

Nimalaranjan worked for several local newspapers, radio and TV stations, he was also a regular contributor to the BBC’s Sinhala and Tamil services. According to his colleagues, Nimalaranjan’s reporting may have led to his murder. Nimalaranjan had reported on alleged vote rigging in the 10 October parliamentary elections and the problems facing people displaced by the war between government troops and Tamil separatists. Prior to the attack, he had filed reports critical of a former Tamil militant group which now fights alongside government troops against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. At present, no one has claimed responsibility for the murder.

The killing of Nimalaranjan is a heinous crime and contributes to a climate in which attacks on journalists are carried out as reprisals for the articles they write. Therefore, IPI urges Your Excellency to ensure that there is a thorough investigation into Nimalaranjan’s murder and that those responsible for his murder are brought swiftly to justice. In addition, we urge Your Excellency to take all possible steps to prevent the murder of journalists in Sri Lanka and to ensure that journalists reporting on developments in your country are allowed to do so freely and safely.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director