COLOMBO: Three armed men set fire to the printing machine of a Tamil-language newspaper that is critical of the Sri Lankan government, forcing the paper to halt printing, the editor said on Saturday.
The attack on the Uthayan newspaper office is the fifth attack on the media since January in Sri Lanka's former war zone in the north, and the second after the United Nations passed a resolution on March 21 calling on the government to address human rights violations.
"Three men wearing helmets threatened my staff at the printing section and set fire to the main printing machine," Thevanayagam Premananth, the editor of the Uthayan told Reuters.
Uthayan is the leading newspaper in the island nation's northern peninsula of Jaffna. It has been critical of President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government, and the military.
Last week, an unidentified group of people attacked another Uthayan office, leaving five workers injured.
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