A pro-government mob and a group of Buddhist monks today stormed a meeting in Colombo that was attended by family members of disappeared persons in the North.

The meeting was also attended by Political Chief of the US Embassy in Colombo and several other diplomats. The protestors dubbed the participants of the meeting as traitors and demanded cancellation of the meeting with immediate effect. The event was held at the CSR building in Colombo.

"I have seen first-hand the intimidation you face as families of the disappeared and I will report it back to my office" told the Political Chief of the US Embassy in Colombo to the family members of the disappeared.

However, the group of protesters did not claim they belonged to any organization. However, their slogans strongly resembled the viewpoints of the Sri Lankan government.

Although the organizers of the meeting urged Police to intervene in resolving the problems, Police failed to control the protesters who said they had a legitimate right to disrupt any meeting that was anti-Sri Lankan. They accused the organizers of attempting to tarnish the image of Sri Lanka.

This incident happened just a few days after a group of persons disrupted a training programme organised for Tamil journalists in Colombo.

Journalists from Jaffna had travelled south to Colombo for a workshop on electronic media organised by the Free Media Movement, a collective working for media rights in Sri Lanka.