Sri Lanka failing to probe journalist murders: Press group

COLOMBO, June 22 (Reuters) Sri Lanka shows no political will to probe a spate of murders of journalists, international press groups said today, demanding an end to impunity for the perpetrators and intimidation of the media.

Rights groups say 11 journalists and media workers have been killed since late 2005 as the island slid back into a two-decade civil war -- with some of the deaths blamed on state security forces. But there have been no convictions.

And that makes Sri Lanka -- and particularly the army-held northern Jaffna peninsula -- among the most dangerous places in the world to cover, an international press freedom mission that includes Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists said.

''Of most concern to the mission is the continued targeted killing of media workers,'' Jacqueline Park, director of the International Federation of Journalists, told a news conference.

''What's most worrying is the impunity, the fact that none of these cases are being investigated and being brought to court.'' ''We were given assurances that the cases would be investigated,'' she added. ''Eleven journalists and media workers have been killed since August 2005.'' The mission called on President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government, under mounting pressure from the international community on human rights amid mushrooming abuses, to safeguard media workers during a raging parallel propaganda war.

The government has already ruled out one of the group's demands -- that a United Nations human rights monitoring mission be brought to the island.

''There is still an attempt by all groups to intimidate and harass the media, and that is having a very real effect -- a chilling effect -- on press freedom,'' Park added.

''Our message is very clear. The responsibility for creating a secure working environment lies with the government and it needs to do this by not tolerating any attacks or killings of journalists and media workers.'' HARASSMENT, VILIFICATION The mission recommends the government stops any interference in editorial independence and halts public vilification of journalists by some officials and ministers -- and calls on it to divest its ownership of state media, which it argues polarises coverage along partisan lines.

''Members of the government have endangered the lives of media workers by insulting them or applying other invectives,'' the mission said in a statement.

The working environment for journalists in Jaffna, highly militarised and controlled by the army but cut off from the rest of the island by rebel lines, is very tense.

''What we found is in the government-controlled areas there is a general feeling of fear and it has a huge impact on the way the people living in the Jaffna region can get access to information,'' said Vincent Brossel of Reporters Without Borders.

''There is no political will to investigate such crimes and that is perpetrating a feeling of fear among the Jaffna journalists,'' he added, referring to killings.

''The presence of LTTE (Tamil Tiger) cadres in the region also has a chilling effect on the work of the journalists.'' Reporters have been stopped from visiting Tiger-held areas since August 2006 for what the government says are security reasons, but one top official said was to avoid Tiger propaganda being spread.

Several Tamil language newspapers have been unable to print and distribute editions to majority Tamil areas in the north and east for months as a new chapter in a war that has killed nearly 70,000 people since 1983 escalates.

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