Reporters Without Borders has condemned the Sri Lankan military's attack against journalists covering the incident at Weliweriya. In a statement published on Monday, the press freedom group, said:
RSF added,
“We are very disturbed by the repeated use of violence against journalists in Sri Lanka,”
“At best, the police take no action when journalists report that they have been the targets of violence. At worst, the army itself, equipped with lethal weapons, organizes and executes these attacks, as it did in Weliweriya.”
“These unacceptable incidents show that, although the civil war is now over in Sri Lanka, violence by the armed forces is still far from being brought to an end and that freedom of information is still in great danger.”
RSF added,
'The Weliweriya incidents came less than a month after Kunala Dileep, a journalist with the Tamil-language daily Uthayan, was attacked in the northern city of Jaffna as he was leaving the newspaper to go home by motorcycle on 10 July.
Several individuals in a tricar deliberately drove into his motorcycle and then fled. Dileep was hospitalized with arm and leg injuries, which fortunately were not life threatening.
Ranked 162nd out of 179 countries in the 2013 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, Sri Lanka is ruled by the Rajapaksa family, who are on the 2013 Reporters Without Borders list of “Predators of Press Freedom.”'