Newspaper editor arrested: News from Feb. 26, 2009

SUMMARY:

It seems like if a journalist isn't being killed, a journalist is being arrested.

According to a Reporters Without Borders article, N Vithyatharan — editor of Sudar Oli, which is a member of the Uthayan press group — was forcibly detained while attending a funeral in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The editor of the Colombo-based Tamil daily is still imprisoned but is being "treated well" by police.

RWB is shocked at this arrest because it was executed without a warrant — which is violation of the law.

The organization is calling for the release of Vithyatharan immediately.

According to the article, three uniformed officers and three men in casual clothes arrested Vithyatharan at the funeral of Uthayan press group chairman M. Saravanapavan's relative.

Anyone who tried to intervene in the arrest was hit.

Saravanapavan told RWB that he remains upset at what happened.

Vithyatharan is being held by the Colombo Crimes Divison (CCD) to be questioned. RWB has requested that Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake guarantee his safety.

Relatives do have visiting access to see Vithyatharan.

The Sudar Oli and Uthayan have been targets of violent attacks recently. Six employees of the group have been killed since 2005.

Similarly, Uthayan press group senior members have received threatening calls telling them they will be arrested too if they do not leave the country.

Both its offices in Jaffna and Colombo have been attacked multiple times.

MY OPINION:

I am amazed at how many journalists are being threatened or imprisoned outside of America.

Because the U.S. is hardly ever exposed to "real news," I honestly would have never known about any of these reporters being killed or arrested.

Granted these people are in other parts of the world, so there is not really a direct impact to many Americans because of the distance between the countries.

However, I do think that there needs to be some mention of it in the news.

We all live in a self-centered society where the only news involves things happening in our personal lives.

But this stuff is important. I hope this blog has helped reveal some insight to happenings of journalists so far and that you--the reader of the blog--will realize that this is major news.

This is impacting so many journalists, which is probably leading to much self-censorship. How will we ever get an accurate portrait of things occurring if there is not an object journalist reporting all of the facts.

SOURCES:

Reporters Without Borders