Sri Lanka closes Tamil paper

The Sri Lankan authorities have shut down the only newspaper published in the war-torn northern Jaffna Peninsula.

The Tamil-language paper, Udayan. was shut down on Friday.

It¿s the first closure in Sri Lanka to be enforced by the authorities since the imposition of press censorship laws in the island earlier this month.

A government spokesman in Colombo said the newspaper had violated several laws, but declined to give further details. Correspondents say the closure could be linked to the fact that the paper recently published names of civilians reportedly killed during air raids on rebel positions in the north.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service