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EIGHT TIGERS SENT TO NORWAY UNDER THE JOURNALIST LABEL APPLICATIONS WERE CALLED BY SRI LANKA PRESS INSTITUTE Vijayani Edirisinghe

Police intelligence has received information saying that a group of members connected to LTTE were sent to Norway through Denmark under the Journalist label by the Sri Lanka Press Institute. This foreign tour has taken place in the year 2007.

The Sri Lanka Press Institute has called application for a foreign training for the journalist in Denmark. Approximately 500 journalists had applied for this programme. The SLPI had announced that 10 Sinhala and 10 Tamil journalists will be provided training under this programme. Applications had been called from both print and electronic media. Later, 100 applications had been selected. Responsible official at the SLPI has stated that all application was dispatched to Denmark and 100 applicants were selected there. These 100 applicants were called for interviews and 20 were selected. Out of the twenty, 10 were Sinhala and 10 were Tamils. Out of this 10 Tamils, eight are from Jaffna. Even though these eight Tamils were said to be journalists, information say that they were not connected to any media organization and had no knowledge about media. Also they had no knowledge on Sinhala or English languages. All expenses to bring them from Jaffna to Colombo had been incurred by the SLPI. Once they were sent to Denmark for training, Sinhala & Tamil Journalists had been separated. Other journalists participated in the program were in a confused situation with regard to this separations. Other journalists clearly noticed that this group who were said to be Tamil journalists was acting totally partial towards the Tiger organizations. Also there had been debates between the rest of the journalists and this group on the LTTE. It is said that among this Tamil group there was a guy who is employed at the Jaffna library. The SLPI has sent this group under the sponsorship of a well known NGO. The group sent under the journalist label had not returned to the country after the training. Information have received to say that they have gone to London and Norway, said intelligence officers.