Selvaraja Rajivarman
Sunday, April 29th, 2007
JAFFNA, Sri Lanka: Unidentified men fatally shot a reporter for a Tamil-language newspaper in Sri Lanka's troubled northern Jaffna peninsula on Sunday.
Selvaraja Rajivarman, 24, worked for the Jaffna-based Uthayan newspaper, which is considered neutral but has good access to information from Tamil Tiger rebels fighting a separatist war with the government.
The identity of the attackers and their motive were not immediately known. There have been a growing number of unsolved killings and abductions in Jaffna, regarded as the heartland of Sri Lanka's 3.1 million ethnic-minority Tamils.
The Defense Ministry's information center said it was unaware of the killing.
Free Media Movement, a local media rights group, condemned the killing and said it was "yet another instance that clearly demonstrates the culture of violence, intolerance and intimidation that exists in Sri Lanka at present."
