Abducted journalist Dharmaretnam ‘Taraki’ Sivaram, a Tamil journalist and political analyst with Tamilnet, is murdered in Colombo.
Sivaram’s body was found with severe head injuries in Himbulala, a suburb between Jayawardhenapura hospital and the Parliament building. Sivaram was abducted the evening before in front of the Bambalapitiya Police Station.
Sources
Murdered editor, champion of Tamil causes, BBC, 29 April 2005; Editor of Tamilnet murdered in Colombo, Reporters without Borders, 29 April 2005; The Life and Death of a Revolutionary Tamil Journalist in Sri Lanka, Mark Whittaker, 2007.
Quotations
“The premeditated murder of one of the most renowned Tamil journalists is a huge loss for Sri Lanka’s press. Through his website that was visited by tens of thousands of people daily, he provided essential news on the situation in the country. Whatever one may think of his relations with the Tamil Tigers movement, Sivaram, was a brilliant journalist,” Reporters Without Borders.
“Plenty of people of various political sorts did detest both TamilNet.com and more particularly its editor. In the month of January 2004 alone, for example, Sivaram (as “Taraki”) was denounced in the Sri Lankan government controlled press as an LTTE agent, and by the LTTE’s chief theoretician, Anton Balasingham as, at once, a CIA and an Indian secret agent!” The Life and Death of a Revolutionary Tamil Journalist in Sri Lanka, Mark Whittaker, 2007.
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