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 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.

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.”

“The present government has run a coach and horses through our arms export controls, circumventing the legislation we put in place by putting a particular spin on it. It has enabled them to sell arms to countries and for purposes that should not be allowed under the legislation.”

“There is a clear policy in the legislation that arms should only be sold to countries for defensive purposes and not for internal suppression or external aggression.”

Sri Lanka on Saturday rejected UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein's condemnation of the government's persistent efforts to discredit the UN inquiry into mass atrocities on the island, accusing him of challenging the right of a sovereign state to "raise concerns regarding procedural aspects of an investigation".

"The Government of Sri Lanka, its departments and agencies made no attempt whatsoever to prevent bona fide witnesses from submitting information to the investigation team," Colombo's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ravinatha Aryasinha, said in a statement.

"Neither was any attempt made to deter and intimidate individuals from submitting evidence. The submissions that the Investigation would have received by now would stand to prove this fact," he said.

"[You] have challenged the right of a sovereign State to raise concerns regarding procedural aspects of an Investigation which impacts its people and their future in the context of the ongoing sensitive reconciliation process."

The Sri Lankan military has increased its presence in the areas near the University of Jaffna, the Uthayan reported.

Troops who have been based at he main entrance for a few weeks have started questioning passing students on activities inside the university and whether students "are talking in groups", the Tamil daily said.

Sources told the Uthayan that this was due to the forthcoming Maaveerar Naal (Heroes Day) commemorations, which the security forces have attempted to prevent from occurring in previous years.

Sri Lanka’s Terrorist Investigation Division (TID) arrested a young Tamil man on Friday, accusing him of being a former LTTE cadre who had not been rehabilitated, reports Uthayan.

S Mahinthan, a 28 year old man from Kodikamam in Jaffna, was arrested by TID officers who came to his house on Friday.

Indian organisations petitioned the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) calling for the upcoming cricket series with Sri Lanka to be cancelled, in light of death sentences handed down to five Tamil Nadu fishermen by a Sri Lankan court.

The All Indian Traditional Fishermen Association, Vanighar Sangangalin Peravai, Tamil Youths and Students Federation and the Future India Party jointly delivered a petition to the BCCI, calling for the Sri Lankan cricket team to be barred from playing in India.

The petition stated that protests had erupted across Tamil Nadu against the sentence handed down to the fishermen, adding “with respect to the feelings of the people of Tamil Nadu and in solidarity as people of one nation, we hereby ask the BCCI to take action to send the Sri Lankan cricket players back to Sri Lanka immediately, without conducting any further future matches.”

The organisations went on to say that a sports boycott should be put in place on Sri Lanka due to the “continuous systematic discrimination, human rights violations and genocide of the Tamil people.”

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has asked the Supreme Court to determine whether there is any constitutional “impediment” to him contesting presidential elections for a third term in office.

Rajapaksa requested that the court answer a series of questions that he submitted to them on whether he can contest again, by 10 November.

The 18th amendment, which was passed by the Sri Lankan parliament in 2010, transferred power to the president to appoint individuals to quasi-independent commission bodies and abolished the two-term limit on all presidents.

The Asian Human Rights Commission described Rajapaksa's latest move as a "political trick".

Rajapaksa came to power in 2005 running on a Sinhala nationalist platform and was re-elected again in 2010 following the end of the armed conflict. Government spokesperson Keheliya Rambukwella said that the government would be looking to hold elections in January 2015.