{"id":7594,"date":"2012-06-30T09:14:32","date_gmt":"2012-06-30T13:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=7594"},"modified":"2012-06-30T13:12:39","modified_gmt":"2012-06-30T17:12:39","slug":"nine-arrested-in-colombo-police-raid-on-offices-if-two-web-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=7594","title":{"rendered":"Nine arrested in Colombo Police raid on offices of two web sites"},"content":{"rendered":"

R<\/strong>eporters Without Borders firmly condemns today\u2019s police raids on the offices of two Colombo-based news websites, the SriLankaMirror and SriLankaXNews, in which eight of their journalists and an office assistant were arrested.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call for the immediate release of all those detained,\u201d Reporters Without Borders said. \u201cThe exact reasons for the raids on these two news websites, which the authorities have had in their sights for some time, must be clarified without delay. However, given the government\u2019s past violations of freedom of information, we regard it as an attempt to censor and intimidate critical journalists.\u201d
\n
\nThe raids were carried out at around 11:45 a.m. by about 25 police officers from the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) and the Crime Investigation Department (CID), who had a search warrant issued by Judge Prasanna Alwis of Colombo court No. 4.<\/p>\n

Both websites are located in the same building \u2013 71 Thotupolar Road in the Colombo suburb of Athulkotte. One of them, SriLankaXNews, is operated by the United National Party (UNP), an opposition party.<\/p>\n

The nine detainees were taken to CID headquarters in Colombo for questioning. They consisted of six SriLankaMirror journalists and an office helper:<\/p>\n

1. Kleum Shivantha Rodrigo – editor
\n2. Ajith Senevirathne – photographer)
\n3. Tharindu Rajapaksa – feature writer)
\n4. Himashi Karunarathne – sports editor)
\n5. Shiranthini Manawadu – reporter
\n6. Asanka Nivantha – marketing manger
\n7. R.M. Preamawathi – office helper<\/p>\n

And two SriLankaXNews journalists:<\/p>\n

8. Siddik Kariyappar – Tamil-language editor
\n9. Subhash Jayawardane – features editor<\/p>\n

The police confiscated computers from both offices, which they sealed. They also searched the home of Ruwan Ferdinandez, who used to work for SriLankaMirror and is now editor in chief of SriLankaXNews.<\/p>\n

The raids were carried out one day after access to five Tamil-language news websites \u2013 TamilWin, Athirvu, Sarithan, Ponguthamil and Pathivu \u2013 were blocked.<\/p>\n

This not the first time the government has targeted the SriLankaMirror site, which was one offour leading independent news sites critical of the government that were blocked on the information ministry\u2019s orders in November 2011. The other three were SriLankaGuardian, Paparacigossip9, and LankaWayNews.<\/p>\n

Access to the SriLankaMirror site was unblocked after it appealed to the supreme court. The Lankaenews and Lankanewsweb sites have also been hounded by the authorities, especially in connection with their coverage of corruption.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka was classified as one of the countries \u201cunder surveillance\u201d in the latest Reporters Without Borders report on \u201cEnemies of the Internet.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Text of statement issued by Reporters without Borders)<\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns today\u2019s police raids on the offices of two Colombo-based news websites, the SriLankaMirror and SriLankaXNews, in which eight of their journalists and an office assistant were arrested. \u201cWe call for the immediate release of all those detained,\u201d Reporters Without Borders said. \u201cThe exact reasons for the raids on these two …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Nine arrested in Colombo Police raid on offices of two web sites’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7594"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7594"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7610,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7594\/revisions\/7610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}