The Sri Lankan government states the Northern Province has recovered from the clutches of three decades of war. However, in the North, particularly within the Jaffna peninsula, intense threats against the media, which is described as the 4th pillar of democracy, are still seen.

The incident that took place yesterday at the Omanthai check point in Vavuniya is a very good example of what we have stated above. Yesterday on Friday, at 5pm, 16 journalists from the Jaffna peninsula travelled to attend a training workshop taking place in Colombo today about security for journalists.

Unidentified people followed the journalists from Jaffna town, as they were travelling in two vehicles. At this point, military police who stopped the journalists at the Maankulam region, recorded the journalists' name, address as well as their identity card number. Whilst the details were being recorded, only one of them was wearing military police uniform, the other three were wearing civilian clothes.

When the journalists questioned “why are you inspecting us?”, the only reason they stated was: “we stopped your vehicle at the Elephant Pass check point, however you did not stop.”

After this, when the journalists continued their journey and reached Omanthai check point, there were up to 6 vehicles present for inspection. However, 5 army soldiers and 3 police officers only inspected the vehicles that the journalists travelled in.

As everything in the vehicle was being vigorously inspected, one army soldier placed a cigarette box under the driver's seat. As 3 of the journalists who travelled in the vehicle were watching, a police officer took it and said there were drugs (marijuana) inside.

Then the police took the vehicle and the journalists to the Omanthai police station. There the police confiscated the journalists' identity cards as well as mobile phones and laptops. Later, after media organisations in the south learnt of the incident and spoke to the police, the journalists' belongings were returned. However the police stated they must arrest the driver.

Even when the journalists, who saw the army soldier place the cigarette box, said, “you can't arrest the driver, arrest the soldier”, there was no action taken. Under these circumstances, the journalists continued their journey to Colombo from the police station today, early on Saturday morning, at 5am.

Therefore, whilst we point out that this act by the army was very well planned, we also strongly condemn such immoral acts. From this incident we conclude that the Sri Lankan government is committed to preventing journalists from the North from fostering a relationship with journalists in the south in every way [and] repressing them by any means available.

At this moment, we remember when Sinhala chauvinist groups twice drove away journalists from the Jaffna peninsula, who had gone to a journalists' training workshop, preventing them from taking part.

On one hand, as the Sri Lankan government is trying to portray the journalists of the [Jaffna] peninsula as terrorists, on the other, it is taking measures to ensure their circle of contacts does not widen.

Therefore, whilst we strongly condemn such dreadful and immoral actions, we wish to highlight that Jaffna journalists are working amid such harassment and deceptive efforts by the Sri Lankan government.