"The Criminal Investigations Department officers have surrounded the Lanka office and sealed it today," the web edition of the paper said. A police spokesman said he was not aware of any action taken against the newspaper and the government declined to comment. The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders urged President Mahinda Rajapakse to end arrests, and what it called intimidation of journalists working for privately owned and foreign media.
Reporters Without Borders said a political reporter disappeared two days before January's presidential election while another editor of an anti-government newspaper had been arrested.
The group urged the government to deploy more police officers to search for political reporter and cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda, who has been missing since January 24. His family has had no news of him since. The government has also ordered the expulsion of a Swiss reporter covering the elections.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said it had received reports of government retribution against journalists seen to be siding with the opposition. Dozens of Sri Lankan journalists are living in exile abroad because of the dangerous and sometimes deadly situation for media workers in Sri Lanka, according to rights groups.