The Sri Lanka government is intent on controlling freedom of thought by expelling foreign passport holders who visit the country and later attend seminars or give press interviews on subjects the regime considers taboo.
On November 23 it arrested a well-known Tamil poet whose verse speaks of the yearning of his people for freedom from violence and oppression. V. I. S. Jeyapalan left his native Jaffna in northern Sri Lanka in the 1980s and lived in exile in Norway, writing poetry, acting in a celebrated South Indian movie and playing the role of a public intellectual
