Sri Lankan government use prevention of terrorism act to harassment of journalists, in the North or East, is summoning them to appear in Colombo is too expensive these days.
In recent weeks, at least half a dozen journalists were summoned to appear before Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) Headquarters in Colombo from the North and Eastern provinces while undergoing tremendous difficulties from transport to securing lodging facilities.
One Northern journalist who was summoned to Colombo lamented that the travelling cost him was around Rs 4000, in addition to other expenses during his one day stay in Colombo.
The latest to be summoned by the TID is Pararajasingam Sujeevan, a student at the University of Jaffna and journalist attached to local media. He was summoned following a complaint lodged by a monk alleging he is attempting to revive the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
A European Union (EU) delegation arrived in Sri Lanka on last October to assess if the bloc should withdraw the country’s largest trade concession that has helped the island nation’s top export garments, amid renewed concerns over human rights abuses against ethnic minorities.
The European parliament’s key demand was for Sri Lanka to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), arguing that the legislation has been systematically used for arbitrary arrests and the detention of Muslims and minority groups in Sri Lanka.
