Associated Press

Colombo, May 13:

At least two Sri Lankan journalists have received death threats from a group that claimed responsibility for abducting and killing a Tamil journalist whose articles criticised a breakaway faction of the country’s Tamil Tiger rebels.

The threats targeted Victor Ivan, a member of the Free Media Movement, a local media rights group, as well as its spokesman Sunanda Deshapriya, the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement seen today.

The letters threatened all “traitors” and said they should be ready to become “fertilizer of the motherland,” CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said in a statement quoting the letter.

A group calling itself the Theraputtabhaya Force said it issued the threats and also claimed responsibility for the April 28 murder of Dharmeratnam Sivaram, a founding member of the pro-rebel TamilNet Web site and a columnist for the English language Daily Mirror.