Police arrest 2 French journalists for filming Sri Lanka military checkpoint: Rights group

Police have arrested two French journalists for filming a military checkpoint in southern Sri Lanka, and anti-terrorism investigators are questioning the pair, a local media rights group said Tuesday.

The military stopped journalist Capucine Henri and cameraman C. Siomon of France 24 news channel after they filmed the checkpoint as they drove to the district of Galle, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital Colombo, on Monday, the independent Free Media Movement said in a statement. The statement did not explain how the group heard of the arrests.

A police officer in Galle confirmed the arrests, and said the checkpoint was near an army camp in Boossa in Galle. He declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He provided no further details.

Staff at Paris-based France 24 said Capucine Henry, not Henri, is the channel's correspondent in India, but they declined to comment on the reported arrests. They refused to give their names due to the sensitivity of the matter.

The French Foreign Ministry said it heard about the reports but was unable to immediately confirm the arrests. Calls to the French Embassy in Colombo were not answered Tuesday.

Police also arrested an ethnic Tamil family traveling to Galle with the journalists, the group said. The journalists were reporting on ethnic Tamils who were detained at the Boossa camp, it said.

The journalists captured only five seconds of images as they drove past the checkpoint, the rights group said. "They are being investigated by the Terrorist Investigation Division," it said.

The Free Media Movement said "it does not consider videoing a road block a national security issue and expresses its serious concern (that police detained the) TV crew and a whole family."

The arrests were "another attempt to intimidate foreign media covering conflict-related issues in Sri Lanka," the group said.

Ethnic Tamil rebels have been fighting since 1983 for an independent Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka's north and east following decades of discrimination under successive Sinhalese-dominated governments. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict.