Colombo: Sri Lanka's anti-terrorist police have arrested two prominent human rights activists who were working in Sri Lanka's former war zone in the latest crackdown on rights defenders, colleagues and a media rights group said on Monday.
The charges on which Human Rights Documentation Center adviser Ruki Fernando and Catholic priest Praveen of the Center for Peace and Reconciliation were arrested were not disclosed, according to the colleagues and the Free Media Movement.
Both have been prominent in promoting human rights and media freedoms in the island's nation northern region, where government forces defeated separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009, and since then came under pressure to investigate the alleged war crimes.
Sunil Jayasekara from the Free Media Movement, a local rights group, urged authorities to release them immediately.
Several attempts to contact a police spokesman were unsuccessful on Monday.
Sri Lanka faces criticism for cracking down on rights activists, and has rejected calls for an international inquiry into the conduct of the final months of the civil war.
The United States has sponsored a third resolution on Sri Lanka at the U.N. Human Rights Council calling for an international probe on alleged war crimes if the nation fails to conduct one of its own.
Last week, authorities arrested an outspoken activist, Balendran Jeyakumari, and her 13-year-old daughter who were campaigning for the release of their kin missing from the war.
Military spokesman Ruwan Wanigasooriya said that the two were arrested for harboring a former rebel who shot at police and fled when they tried to catch him. He said one policeman was wounded.
