Reporters Without Borders
www.rsf.org
19 May 2009
/EIN News/ SRI LANKA
Army holding three doctors who gave information to press
Reporters Without Borders urges the Sri Lankan authorities to
quickly release three Tamil doctors Thangamuttu Sathiyamorthi,
Thurairaja Varatharajan and V. Sunmugarajah who have been arrested
for providing the news media with information about the humanitarian
situation in Vanni.
“The government will be held responsible if the army’s military
victory is accompanied by such criminal acts of revenge against those
have who have described the humanitarian tragedy,” Reporters Without
Borders said. “We urge the authorities to act with clemency and not
use the Tamil Tiger defeat for a generalised settling of scores with
Tamil civil society. We are also concerned for the few Tamil
journalists who covered the recent events.”
A health ministry official said yesterday that the three Tamil
doctors were arrested for providing false civilian casualty figures
to the national and international media. The army arrested them as
they were fleeing the combat zone.
