Vienna: Sri Lanka has been added to a global media watchdog s list of countries where media freedom is under fire, the organisation said today. The International Press Institute said the Asian island country, which has been on the watch list before, was included again because journalists were being targeted as the country's ongoing civil war has heated up in recent years.

So far this year, three journalists have been killed in the island nation off the southeast coast of India, the IPI said. Five were killed last year, two in 2005 and two in 2004, it said. "Unfortunately, the situation has deteriorated over the last 18 months," the IPI said. Government pressure on journalists in Sri Lanka has increased, and authorities have been slow to investigate slayings and other violent attacks on journalists, the Vienna- based watchdog said.

Sri Lanka joins five other nations, Ethiopia, Nepal, Russia, Venezuela and Zimbabwe, on the group s watch list, the goal of which IPI said was "to open dialogue with these counties before they slide into repression."
IPI Director Johann P Fritz said he hoped Sri Lanka would take steps to improve the situation and get off the list, as it did after landing on the list in October 2000,after then President Chandrika Kumaratunga imposed a state of emergency that included severe restrictions on media.

"Between 2000 ad 2003,Sri Lanka reacted very positively to the pressure that came as a consequence of being on the IPI watch list. IPI hopes to achieve the same results this time," Fritz said.

Source : PTI