Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has pardoned five fishermen from Tamil Nadu, who were convicted of drug trafficking offences in October.

The men will be released without conditions in the next few days, said Deputy Minister of Telecommunication and Information Technology Prabha Ganesan, who conveyed the news to the Indian high commission in Colombo.

The move comes soon after the Indian government said it is filing an appeal against the sentencing.

India’s external affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said to reporters earlier on Wednesday that the government “gives high priority to the issue of the five Indian fishermen” and “will pursue all avenues”.

“I can confirm to you today that on behalf of those five Indian fishermen an appeal in the Sri Lankan Supreme Court has been filed,” he said, adding that a top Colombo lawyer had been hired for the case.

The Sri Lankan military has completed the construction of a new Buddhist shrine in the headquarters of the 7 Sri Lanka Artillery division in Kilinochchi, the former de-facto Tamil capital.

The shrine was constructed using funds collected from members of the security forces and civil officials, the army's official website reported.

The International Association of Tamil Journalists condemned the suspected cyber attacks on two websites critical of the Sri Lankan state.

In a statement, the group, representing Tamil journalists from across the world, said that inioru.com and lankanewsweb.com have been disabled due to attack on their domains, saying that this was in retaliation for news items published on the websites.

IATAJ said it condemned this attack on freedom of expression and demanded that those responsible be brought to justice.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon supported the recent statement made by the High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, in which he slammed Sri Lanka’s refusal to co-operate with a United Nations inquiry into mass atrocities.

The UN will continue to urge Sri Lanka to cooperate with the OHCHR Inquiry on Sri Lanka (OISL), Ban Ki-moon’s deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said while speaking to reporters in New York.

The Bodu Bala Sena has threatened to contest the presidential elections to be held next year, if none of the other candidates do not give sufficient prominence to Buddhism, reported the Daily Mirror.

According to BBS leader Gnanasara, the BBS will make a decision based on the other candidates’ election manifestos.

“We have four options: to support the present government, to support the opposition, to remain neutral, to contest in the forthcoming Presidential Election,” Gnanasara said.

“We are ready to go even for the last option, after carefully monitoring the election manifestoes of various parties. We will decide depending on how the political parties give prominence to Buddhism.”

Sri Lanka's Supreme Court has ruled that President Mahinda Rajapaksa can contest for a third term, according to leader of the parliament Nimal Siripala de Silva.

The minister said that according to the court, there is no legal barrier preventing the president from holding an election after 4 years in office or seeking a third term.

The issue was taken up for consideration by a full bench of judges, led by Chief Justice Mohan Peiris.

NPC Councillor Ananthy Sasitharan said she feels "threatened", after she was followed by unidentified men on motorbikes, while she was travelling between meetings with foreign diplomatic officials in Colombo on Tuesday.

Sasitharan, who arrived back in Sri Lanka on Monday after attending a Tamil conference in Malaysia, said at least two men were following her vehicle, without making any attempt at hiding their presence.

The councillor tweeted pictures of the men, saying that the members of the Terrorism Investigation Department were "following and threatening" her.

“I felt threatened by the manner they menacingly followed me, being deliberately conspicuous, making no attempt to hide themselves,” she told the Tamil Guardian.

“I raised the issue with the foreign officials I met, but I am worried for my safety.”

(Pictures: Uthayan)

A protest against sexual violence was held by campaigners from the North-East, demanding justice for victims of rape, highlighting a recent case of an 18-year-old woman who was kidnapped and raped in Ariyalai, reported the Uthayan.

The campaigners gathered at Vembadi Junction in Jaffna, demanding that violence against women is stopped and pledged to continue voicing for the rights of victims.

“As I have repeated on numerous occasions the militarisation of the North of Sri Lanka, where I am the Chief Minister, takes place not due to any real security threat, but to maintain a stranglehold over the populace; to subjugate them and make them compliant; to stifle any form of democratic or political dissent.” 

“We have long advocated a phased withdrawal of the military and the handing over of administrative matters to the civil forces according to a transparent timeline. How can Human Security exist when the people are under an occupying force?  And indeed the North and East of Sri Lanka are under an occupying force!”

“In the last few weeks Sri Lanka is openly arresting and intimidating those who are trying to collect evidence for the investigation... The State does not want to allow the evidence to leave the shores of the country – just as in the incarceration of the 350,000  Tamils, the primary aim was to let no evidence leave the shores.”