A Buddhist organisation, the Ravana Balaya, manhandled a group of evangelical Christians who were distributing religious magazines outside Colombo, reports Colombo Page.

Buddhist monks mobbed the Christian campaigners and handed them over to the police.

After facing further intimidation from the monks at the police station, the campaigners were eventually released.

Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ravinatha Aryasinha, has urged that more action be taken against “terrorist” activities in the diaspora, carried out under guises, such as religious, sport and youth organisations.

Aryasinhe was addressing the International Counter-Terrorism Focal Points Conference on 'Addressing Conditions Conducive to the Spread of Terrorism and Promoting Regional Cooperation' and said that front organisations increase the legitimacy of certain causes, where the “parent group” may already be discredited.

“Since the military defeat of the LTTE in Sri Lanka in May 2009, besides the radicalised activism of LTTE front organisations in several European capitals, and the arrest of 32 LTTE activists in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland and the conviction of a further 28 in France, the Netherlands and Belgium, its known activists continue to advocate mono-ethnic separatism in Sri Lanka while espousing the ideology of the LTTE, using its money and being manipulated by its surviving military leaders, who are primarily domiciled in Europe” Aryasinhe said.

President Rajapaksa’s begrudging announcement of a Northern Provincial Council election in September has sparked an utterly predictable melee of impassioned responses to the 13th Amendment. The government is presenting an urgent bill to parliament, a minister is demanding a referendum to guarantee abolition, the TNA is aghast, a party of Buddhist monks is on the warpath, and an alarmed New Delhi is summoning the TNA for talks. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s main opposition, the UNP, is attempting to position itself as defender of ‘minority’ rights. This circus is a farce. Neither the 13th Amendment, nor the provincial council election, is of any consequence to the Tamil question. The 13th Amendment cannot address the immediate needs of the Tamil people in the North-East, or the political aspirations of the nation. Its presence, absence and anything in between is of absolute insignificance and irrelevance. That Tamils are compelled to reiterate this 26 years on, is testament to the dismaying lack of progress on resolving the conflict.

The Sri Lankan delegation to Europe has urged the German government to be aware of several Liberation Tamil Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) front organisations, that were operating under the disguise of community initiatives and organisations.

The Sri Lankan Election Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya has said he agreed to a suggestion made by the UNP to invite international monitors to observe the Northern Provincial Council elections.

The commissioner said that it would be appropriate to have monitors from Asia or other Commonwealth countries, rather than observers from the European Union.