File photograph: Jaffna Press Club journalists remember Rajivarman and Sivaram in 2014.
Today marks 17 years since the killing of the young Tamil journalist Selvarajah Rajivarman.
The 25 year old, who was working for Jaffna-based newspaper Uthayan, was shot and killed by a lone gunman riding a motorbike in Jaffna on April 29 2007.
Before joining Uthayan, Rajivarman worked for Namathu Eezhanadu and Thinakkural. TamilNet reported that he was on duty collecting news when he was shot. Rajivarman used to go to the police stations and hospitals to seek information about the many crimes that were taking place in Jaffna at the time.
Rajivarman was murdered on the second anniversary of Dharmeratnam ‘Taraki’ Sivaram’s death, a renowned Tamil journalist and editor of TamilNet who was abducted and murdered in 2005.
“Gunned down on his bicycle near the newspaper's office in the northern city of Jaffna, Selvarajah Rajivarman was the second journalist to be killed in a government-controlled area in the past 10 days. The people who murder journalists in Sri Lanka feel so well protected that they carry out fresh murders to mark the anniversaries of their preceding ones," Reporters Without Borders said in a press release condemning Rajivarman’s murder.
"On the second anniversary of the murder of Tamilnet.com editor Sivaram Dharmeratnam and the first anniversary of the murder of two Uthayan employees, the killers struck again, murdering another journalist with impunity in an area controlled by the army. We call on the authorities to identify and punish those responsible,” the press freedom organisation added.
At the time, journalists based in Jaffna told RSF that they suspected that the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), a notorious government-aligned paramilitary group, could have been behind Rajivarnam's murder.
S. Jeyananthamoorthy a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP for Batticaloa, said at the time:
“As far as I am concerned, the Sri Lankan armed forces and paramilitaries are behind this murder. As a whole, the Government of Sri Lanka is answerable to this killing.
If the killers think that by killing they can stop the journalist, it would definitely end up as daydream. There is no doubt that Tamil journalists would never stop their duties and in contrary continue to expose the atrocities committed against the Tamil people.”
Like many slain Tamil journalists, there has not been any justice for Rajivarman.
