Sri Lanka to deport Chinese journalist

COLOMBO, February 28: Sri Lanka is to deport Chinese journalist Jin Hui who was arrested following his report on a Tamil rebel attack against a navy sea convoy, officials said today.

The police criminal investigations department said they were ordered by the secretary to the Ministry of Defence to deport Jin, the Colombo correspondent of Beijing’s official Xinhua news agency. It is the first deportation order against a journalist by the government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga which came to power in 1994 promising greater press freedom.

“We arrested him last night following the order and we will be transferring him to a detention centre before his deportation today,” deputy police inspector general V T Sumanasekara said today.

Official sources said the authorities were angry over a report Jin had filed on the Tamil rebel attack last monday on a sea convoy off the northern peninsula of Jaffna. The report speculated that navy chief Cecil Tissera was killed when he was not on board either of theships that were attacked and sunk by the rebels.