U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay on Saturday accused Sri Lanka of becoming "increasingly authoritarian" with activists facing growing military harassment four years after the end of a civil war.

Pillay charged that military officials were harassing and intimidating priests, journalists and other civilians as punishment for meeting her during a fact-finding trip to the island to probe allegations of war crimes.

Sri Lanka ratcheted up criticism of the U.N. human rights body on Thursday, accusing it of repeated "vicious and baseless" allegations, as its chief visited the island to probe alleged war crimes.

Foreign Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris told Navi Pillay that Sri Lanka "resents vicious and baseless positions which are incessantly repeated" against the island, which is emerging from decades of ethnic war.

Families of people who disappeared during Sri Lanka's ethnic war demonstrated in the former rebel stronghold of Jaffna Tuesday as U.N. rights chief Navi Pillay visited the area on a fact-finding mission.

Demonstrators led by women held photographs of their missing relatives outside the Jaffna library and urged Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to intervene.

The U.N.'s top rights official begins a fact-finding mission to Sri Lanka on Sunday after the government dropped public hostility towards her and promised access to former war zones.

Navi Pillay, who has previously been accused by Colombo of overstepping her mandate, is on a week-long mission that will include talks with President Mahinda Rajapakse and trips to the former war zones in the north and east.

Sri Lanka's president Wednesday ordered a new investigation into the disappearance of thousands of people in the island's northeast during an ethnic war which ended four years ago.

The announcement comes just days before U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay is due to visit the island, amid international criticism of Colombo's human rights record during the war against Tamil separatists.

The European Union expressed concern on Tuesday at the state of political and religious freedom in Sri Lanka after a deadly army crackdown on a protest and the vandalizing of a mosque.

The EU urged Sri Lanka to ensure speedy investigations into an August 1 incident during which soldiers fired on locals protesting at the contamination of water in their village outside Colombo, killing three people.

Sri Lanka's Muslim leaders closed down a new mosque in Colombo on Monday after attacks by a Buddhist mob revived simmering religious tensions and sparked U.S. concern.

The Sri Lanka Muslim Council said it had agreed to shut its Grandpass mosque and move to an older place of worship which the government had earlier earmarked for demolition as part of the city's development.

New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra, already under pressure over a global botulism scare, is facing fresh trouble over milk powder in Sri Lanka allegedly mixed with a farm chemical.

The company said Saturday it had completed a recall of two batches of milk powder under Sri Lankan government orders because of allegations it contained traces of chemical DCD.

Sri Lankan police deployed commandos and imposed a curfew on a Colombo neighborhood Saturday after a Buddhist-led mob attacked a mosque, wounding four people and reviving simmering religious tensions, officials said.

Two police constables guarding the disputed mosque in Colombo's Grandpass area were among those wounded and hospitalized, Colombo National Hospital spokeswoman Pushpa Soysa said. "They had been hit by stones and also had cut injuries from falling glass debris," Soysa told Agence France Presse. "We have two constables and two Muslim men admitted following the attack." Residents said temple bells summoned the faithful who went over to the neighboring mosque and started pelting stones. Several homes in the area were also damaged, residents said.

Families of some of the more than 50 sailors and fishermen held hostage by Somali pirates begged for their release Thursday, with some imprisoned now for more than two years.

"We are in desperate condition living with little hope to see our beloved soon," said the message from families of the crew of the MV Albedo, a Malaysian-flagged container ship with 15 sailors still held, from countries including Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.