Reporters sans frontières - Sri Lanka

Reporters sans frontières - Sri Lanka: "Supreme leader of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Velupillai Prabhakaran tolerates no dissident voices in the areas his troops control. An advocate of ‘blind terrorism’, he has told the movement’s secret services which he set up in 1976 to boost surveillance of Tamil journalists, threatening those who dare to openly criticise LTTE actions. Several journalists have been killed by the Tamil Tigers after being accused of backing paramilitary groups or the army.

Pressure applied by the LTTE may be discreet, but it is none the less effective. “We know that the reaction of the LTTE can be dangerous to our staff, so we are very careful. You weigh each word when you talk about the LTTE and the army. And, of course, we never used the word terrorists for the Tigers”, says one management figure on a Tamil newspaper."