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Sri Lanka ranked 6th on CPJ impunity index

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked Sri Lanka 6th in its 2015 Global Impunity Index, which “spotlights countries where journalists are slain and the killers go free”.

Published this week, ahead of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists on November 2, the index examined journalist murders across the world that took place between September 1 2005, and August 31 2015.

“Sri Lanka moved to sixth place from fourth on this year's Index, its improvement due not to prosecutions-the island nation still maintains a perfect record of impunity in journalist slayings-but to the fact that no journalists have been murdered for their work since the end of civil war in 2009,” said the CPJ.

It added that the new Sri Lankan government has shown a greater “political will for justice” with several army officers having been arrested over the disappearance of cartoonist Prageeth Eknelygoda.

However the CPJ also noted that the assassination of Lasantha Wickramatunga “and all other killings remain unsolved”.

See related article:

‘Media repression and Tamils’ – Tamils Against Genocide (12 Oct 2013)

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