Sri Lanka’s most notorious hardline Buddhist monk, the recently pardoned from jail Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, has called on Sri Lanka’s 10,000 Buddhist temples to campaign for a Sinhala government to protect Sinhala interests.

Around 1000 Sinhala Buddhist monks and thousands of hardline supporters reportedly gathered in Kandy on Sunday for a convention called by Gnanasara, the head of the Sinhala supremacist Bodu Bala Sena group.

Hundreds of Tamils flocked to Mullaitivu on Saturday as a Hindu temple, formerly on the verge of being colonised by Buddhist monks, held a festival for the first time in over a decade.

The Neeraviyadi Pillaiyaar temple in Semmalai has been at the centre of a local dispute about land-grabs and Sinhalisation, as a Buddhist monk has spent the last ten years establishing a vihara on the temple’s premises, culminating in the building of a massive Buddha statue.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) warned that it had been “monitoring closely the situation of Muslims in Sri Lanka” and that it was concerned over “the rise in incidents of intimidation, anti-Muslim rhetoric and hate speech” on the island.

“The OIC reiterates the call on the authorities in Sri Lanka to counter firmly the spread of rhetoric of hatred and intolerance, while ensuring the security and safety of the Muslim community in that country,” it said in a statement released on Wednesday.

Muslims shops in Kandy will remain closed this weekend as extremist Sinhala Buddhist monks from the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) announced it will meet in the town tomorrow.

“All Muslim-owned shops are likely to be closed on Sunday to avoid any possible confrontation, as thousands of monks are expected in the town for the conference,” Niyaz Muheeth, president of the Kandy Muslim Traders Association, told Reuters.

The All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama (ACJU), also called on Muslims to avoid visits to the central district.

Tensions were high in Batticaloa on Friday as the Sri Lankan military and police carried out a round-up making over twenty arrests, following the theft of a handgun from a police officer.

Although the stolen gun was found, supposedly tossed on the floor a short distance from the original incident, LTTE cadres were left particularly anxious by the search operations as they recalled the round-up of former cadres and six months detention of one, following the murders of two police officers in the district.

“We hope we are not wrongly scapegoated and punished again,” one former cadre told journalists.

Black Tigers Day was marked at the Tamil National Alliance office in Kilinochchi on Friday.

The day commemorates the men and women of the LTTE’s elite Black Tigers on the anniversary of the first ever Black Tiger offensive by Captain Miller in 1987.

Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has granted interim relief in a petition filed by a death row prisoner who was due to be executed by the state, delaying the death penalty until at least October of this year.

As many as twellve petitions had been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the implementation of the death penalty on the island after a 43 year moratorium, a move which has sparked international condemnation. Sri Lanka’s president Maithripala Sirisena had vowed to push ahead with implementation despite the outrage.

The Sri Lankan military claimed that it did not receive any surrendering Tamil fighters during the closing stages of the armed conflict in 2009, in an extraordinary denial of its role in the disappearances of hundreds of LTTE cadres.

Responding to a Right To Information (RTI) Act request, the Information Officer of the Sri Lanka Military, Brigadier Sumith Atapattu, who was part of the Mechanised Infantry regiment claimed “LTTE members have not surrendered themselves to the Sri Lanka military during the last stages of the war and they have handed themselves over to the Sri Lankan government”.

Sri Lanka’s human rights commission has criticised police for arbitrary and illegal arrests in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks.

Hundreds have been arrested in the months following the attacks, with Sri Lankan police receiving high profile criticism for cases such as that of a Muslim woman arrested for wearing a dress which supposedly insulted Buddhism, and a Muslim doctor arrested following a smear campaign by a Sinhala newspaper.

“Arrests should not be made merely on hearsay,” the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) told Sri Lanka’s acting police chief, noting that the commission had received a number of complaints alleging illegal arrests.

Muslims in Sri Lanka continue to face the threat of mob violence and arbitrary arrests amongst other abuses warned Human Rights Watch (HRW) today, as it called on the government to do more to protect the Muslim community.

“The ethnic violence and human rights violations that many Sri Lankans have suffered are now being directed against Muslims,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at HRW. “The Sri Lankan government needs to take a stand against discrimination and intolerance, use the law to punish those responsible for abuses and protect, rather than target, vulnerable people."