A deputy minister has promised to arrange a meeting between Tamil journalists and President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on the killings of journalists in the North-East, telling them to “give us time.”
Sundaralingam Pradeep, Deputy Minister of Plantation and Community Infrastructure and a National People’s Power MP for Ratnapura, made the pledge at a meeting at the Jaffna Press Club on Monday, 26 October, Tamil Guardian reported.
What the journalists asked for
Representatives of the press club called for immediate investigations into three things: the killings of journalists, the abduction and enforced disappearance of media workers, and attacks on media institutions across the North-East.
What the minister said
Pradeep said the government did not distinguish between journalists from the South and the North, and would not follow the practices of previous administrations. He said court verdicts once considered unimaginable were now being delivered, and assured those present that justice would be pursued for those murdered.
“Give us time,” he said.
He asked the journalists to submit a memorandum setting out their demands, and pledged to arrange direct talks with Dissanayake and the relevant authorities.
Also present was Kapilan Sundaramoorthy, a Jaffna Municipal Council member and coordinator to the chairperson of the Jaffna District Coordinating Committee.
The cases behind the demand
The meeting came a week after Tamil journalists marked 26 years since the murder of Mylvaganam Nimalarajan, shot dead at his home in Jaffna in October 2000. No one has been convicted for his killing.
Nor has anyone been convicted for the killings of Dharmeratnam Sivaram in 2005 or Aiyathurai Nadesan in Batticaloa in 2004, or for the 2006 raid on the Uthayan newspaper in which two employees were killed.
In July, Jaffna journalists confronted the deputy media minister over the same grievance, asking why the cases of the Sinhala journalists Lasantha Wickrematunge and Prageeth Ekneligoda were progressing while those of Tamil journalists were not. They said 58 journalists had been killed or disappeared in the North alone.
Monday’s meeting is the first reported occasion on which a minister has responded to that campaign with a specific undertaking.
Not reported
The pledge carries no date, no deadline and no mechanism. The filing does not say when the meeting with the President might take place, whether the President’s office has agreed to it, or whether Pradeep has the standing to commit to it — he holds a plantation and community infrastructure portfolio, not a media or justice one.
It does not say whether any of the named cases has an active investigation, which authorities would attend the proposed talks, or what “the relevant authorities” means. It gives no response from the President’s office, the Ministry of Justice, the police or the Attorney General’s Department.
It does not say how many journalists attended, whether the press club accepted the undertaking, or when the memorandum he requested is to be submitted. Pradeep’s claim that court verdicts once considered unimaginable are now being delivered is not supported in the filing with any example.
Single source. Tamil Guardian is a verified outlet for this desk. No Sri Lankan newsroom had filed on the meeting at the time of writing. The source carries no publication timestamp; the date used here is supported by two tells within the article — the image path’s 261026 date code, and the article’s own statement that the meeting fell a week after the Nimalarajan commemoration, which this desk dates to 19 October from the same outlet’s image paths. Ada Derana has returned an HTTP 403 block to this desk for some 48 consecutive days.
