Sri Lanka's court of appeal has ordered a halt to the deportation of Afghan, Iranian and Pakistani refugees before their asylum claims are fully assessed, an official said Saturday.

Sri Lanka Thursday delivered a withering send-off to U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay, accusing her of prejudice and trying to influence an ongoing war crimes investigation against Colombo.

The foreign ministry said Pillay was trying to make a U.N.-mandated international probe follow a "preconceived trajectory" and that her "prejudice and lack of objectivity" was unfortunate.

The U.N. refugee agency on Tuesday accused Sri Lanka of breaking international law in its growing campaign to kick out Pakistani asylum seekers without a fair hearing.

"Fundamentally, this is a breach of the principle of no forced returns. That's a clear violation of international law," said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the U.N. high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR).

Sri Lanka Wednesday accused Western diplomats of favoring the Tamil minority as tensions mounted over a meeting in Colombo between envoys and families who lost loved ones in the country's war.

U.S. and other Western diplomats met on Monday with ethnic Tamil families whose relatives disappeared or were killed during the decades-long separatist conflict that ended in 2009.

The United States led Western criticism of Sri Lanka on Tuesday after pro-government activists broke up a meeting of U.S. diplomats and ethnic Tamils who lost loved ones in the island's separatist war.

The U.S. embassy said activists led by Buddhist monks stormed the meeting in a Catholic Church compound in Colombo on Monday and "behaved threateningly towards the families".

Sri Lanka extended an "unqualified apology" to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday over an article and uncomplimentary illustration of the leader and a regional Tamil politician published on a government website.

The Sri Lankan defense ministry said it had taken down the offending caricature of Modi and the chief minister of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa Jayaram, following complaints to Colombo.

Pope Francis will travel to Sri Lanka and the Philippines in January for his second trip to a continent where evangelization is a big priority for the Catholic Church, the Vatican said on Tuesday.

The 77-year-old Argentinian will visit Sri Lanka from January 12 to 15, before heading to the Philippines -- Asia's largest Catholic country -- until January 19.

The United States on Monday urged Sri Lanka to crack down on harassment of journalists and protect their rights after organizers of a U.S.-funded media workshop for Tamils received death threats.

The U.S. embassy in Colombo said it had raised the issue with the Sri Lankan administration after pro-government protesters stormed the workshop for ethnic minority Tamil journalists on the weekend, in the latest incident of media intimidation.

A firebrand Sri Lankan monk on Tuesday criticized the Dalai Lama for urging the island's Buddhists to halt violence against minority Muslims and rejected him as a global spiritual leader.

Buddhist monk Galagodaatte Gnanasara said the Dalai Lama was ignorant of the "true situation in Sri Lanka" and accused the Nobel Peace Prize winner of being a victim of "Islamic extremist propaganda".

A Sri Lankan government crackdown this month on NGOs has sparked claims that President Mahinda Rajapakse, paranoid that he could be toppled, is again attempting to silence critics and tighten his grip on power.

The defense ministry this month banned non-governmental organizations from holding press conferences, awareness campaigns, training for journalists, workshops and disseminating press releases on everything from voter rights to exposing corruption.