November 11, 2002	Monday	Ramazan 5, 1423

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PARIS, Nov 10: British journalist Paul Harris, correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and Jane’s Intelligence Review, is being forced to leave Sri Lanka, allegedly following a campaign of intimidation.

His expulsion and the circumstances in which it took place is at the center of a complaint being lodged against the Sri Lankan government by Paris-based international journalists’ rights organisation Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF).

RSF says it “regrets that Sri Lankan gave no reason for their action” and, in a letter to Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Tyronne Fernando demands that Paul Harris’s visa be renewed “without delay.”

Harris announced earlier this week that he was leaving the country “on the advice of the British embassy” who were apparently concerned about his security if he should have chosen to stay behind and continued working without a visa.

Harris told RSF that he was being targeted for his critical reporting of peace negotiations between the government and the Tamil Tiger separatists, who he said may have pressured the government not to renew his visa.

He was asked to speak publicly to opposition members of parliament after he wrote an article in Jane’s Intelligence Review in May. He was subsequently characterized as “an agent of the British MI5 intelligence service” by a high-ranking minister, Rajitha Senaratne, with the full Sri Lankan government ordering a week later a secret investigation into his background.

“Staff at his hotel were questioned,” reports RSF’s Asia-Pacific spokesman Vincent Brossel, “and his room searched and his movements closely watched. For the past week, he has been intimidated and harassed by armed men.”