President Mahinda Rajapaksa has refused to allow Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the UK Chris Nonis to resign, after he was assaulted by UPFA MP Sajin Vaas Gunawardena.

Nonis was at a dinner with the president and several other members of the Sri Lankan delegation, when an intoxicated Gunawardena abused him and delivered a “thundering slap”, causing him to fall to the ground where Nonis was kicked several times by the MP, reported Colombo Telegraph.

The British Deputy High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Laura Davies has detailed how she was monitored and people she met questioned, during her visit to Amparai, Batticaloa and Trincomalee, in the North-East of the island.

In a blog post "Looking over my shoulder", published on Tuesday, Davies said several people were “too scared” to meet her.

“[It] gradually became impossible to ignore the fact that I was being watched,” she wrote on the Foreign Office blog page.

“Worse, it was clear that the people I was meeting were having follow-up visits or phone calls, asking what I had done and said. Some of this was almost comic: I met with one individual who had invited a large press corps to capture the moment of our meeting.”

“It is still in existence five years after the end of the war, which the government claims was against terrorism. We demand that it be repealed immediately. It was the existence of such an act that made the detention of Ms. Jeyakumari and several others without charges possible."

“Given the fact that Washington has been so vocal about Sri Lanka’s clear lack of progress on accountability, human rights and the rule of law, why would Rajapaksa’s piece even be considered for publication? Does Washington view this piece as constructive engagement with an authoritarian regime.”