Sri Lanka’s former defence secretary and a frontrunner in next month’s presidential elections, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has vowed to free all Sri Lankan soldiers that he claimed had been imprisoned on “absurd charges”.

Addressing a rally at Anuradhapura yesterday, Rajapaksa claimed that he had defeated “terrorism” and “a large number of soldiers who committed themselves to this cause have been falsely accused and put in prisons.”

Demonstrations were held by Tamil families of the disappeared across the North-East last week to mark Children’s Day.

Protestors held photographs of the Tamil children and babies who had disappeared when their families surrendered to the Sri Lankan army in May 2009.

The families also sent a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, urging her to investigate the fates of the disappeared children.

“Many hundreds of infants and children were killed by the Sri Lankan Army during the last phase of the war,” said the letter.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) announced it will support former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa in next month’s presidential election, in a landmark move this morning.

SLFP parliamentarian Nimal Siripala de Silva told reporters in Colombo this morning that the party will be signing two Memorandums of Understanding with Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), to form a new alliance called Sri Lanka Freedom People's Alliance.

The Vice Chancellor of Jaffna University was dismissed earlier this year on “national security” grounds reports the Daily Mirror this week, with the Sri Lanka government refusing to give any further information into the incident.

Professor Ratnam Vigneswaran says he still has not received any further information into his dismissal earlier this year, which reportedly came after Sri Lankan military intelligence complained to the University Grants Commission (UGC) over “pro-LTTE student activity”.

Hundreds of German Tamils attended an event in Stuttgart last week, to commemorate the 32nd anniversary of the death of Lt Col Thileepan, a political wing leader of the LTTE who fasted to death in 1987, appealing to the Indian government to honour pledges made to the Tamil people.

The British High Commissioner to Colombo has announced more than £10 million in funding to Sri Lanka over the next three years for the explicit aims of long-term stability. 

Sarah Hulton, British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, stated that these funds would further support “peacebuilding and dialogue, supporting resettlement and livelihood for displaced communities and strengthening the rule of law”.

This statement follows the Minister of State for the Commonwealth, UN and South Asia and Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon's visit to Sri Lanka from 1-2 October.

Sri Lanka risks alienating Muslims with its response to the Easter Sunday attacks, warned the International Crisis Group (ICG), calling on Colombo to “lower communal tensions” on the island.

The UK’s Metropolitan Police announced that four “Sri Lankan nationals” were arrested on “suspicion of being a member of a proscribed organisation”, as they arrived into the country this weekend.

The four were arrested on arrival at Luton Airport on Saturday, 5 and Sunday, 6 October.

A demonstration was held in Jaffna last week, demanding former Sri Lankan defence secretary and presidential candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa appear before the courts and give answers on a habeas corpus case of two disappeared Tamil youths.

Lalith Kumar Veeraraj and Kugan Murugananthan, who were involved in organizing a protest of families of the disappeared persons in Jaffna town, were forcibly disappeared in December 2011 when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the defence secretary.

Hundreds of Tamils gathered outside Downing Street on Sunday, to call on the British government to take action on Sri Lanka over the forcible disappearance of Tamil children.