On Sunday, Sri Lankan police stormed the house of Tamil Guardian journalist and Batticaloa Press Club secretary, Selvakumar Nilanthan, and interrogated his family over his whereabouts after he had fled the country.
As Nilanthan was not in his residence, his family was questioned on his whereabouts and were threatened that if he did not meet with them that they would need to attend in his place. The police asked the family which countries he had recently visited, the phone numbers he had dialled and where he was. Last month Colombo’s counter-terrorism unit had called him in for questioning.
Reporters without Borders reports that Nilanthan fled the country 8 months ago due to the continued he faced.
[2/2] The reporter, who feared being arrested and tortured for his work, was forced to flee Sri Lanka eight months ago. Journalists from the #Tamil minority are routinely arrested by the police, who have been multiplying fallacious accusations of terrorism.https://t.co/YoR6wgLX9r
— RSF (@RSF_inter) December 1, 2022
He had faced routine interrogations by Sri Lanka’s authorities. In July 2020, the Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) summoned Nilanthan to their Batticaloa office where they demanded Nilanthan to disclose his personal and financial details. He was asked a significant amount of questions about his accounts and the passwords and told to give full access to his Facebook account, Whatsapp account, email account, bank account and other personal details.