Anti- Muslim attacks

In its response to the allegations of misuse of social media platforms FaceBook and WhatsApp leading to anti-Muslim violence in Sri Lanka the Facebook, Inc says that “it deplores the misuse of the platform and apologizes for, the very real human rights impacts that resulted”. The full report is attached as a PDF. Overview. Beginning […]

Image (edited) courtesy of www.demdigest.org. The anti-democracy virus infecting law enforcement officials in Sri Lanka today appears to have proceeded belligerently to the point that an attorney-at-law was arrested this week in circumstances so outrageous that it has drawn the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) out of hibernation to express its ‘concern.’ Pointing out […]

  Image: An indefinite, nationwide curfew has been imposed in Sri Lanka, where over 200 people have tested positive for coronavirus (AFP Photo/Ishara S. KODIKARA). (AFP•April 12, 2020) Sri Lanka made cremations compulsory for coronavirus victims on Sunday, ignoring protests from the country’s minority Muslims who say it goes against Islamic tradition. Of the seven […]

(UCAN ) Catholics in Sri Lanka have protested after a stone was allegedly thrown at a statue of St. Sebastian at a church where more than 100 people died in the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks. Police and soldiers were deployed to Katuwapitiya on Aug. 6 when about 100 protesters gathered outside St. Sebastian’s Church to demand […]

The Easter Sunday attacks compelled local Muslims to engage in self – introspection of the unfolding wave of radicalization and Arabization of their community. That is a welcome development in an otherwise heinous carnage. Especially so since, until the serial monstrosity on the Easter Sunday, a vocal group of Muslims were defending the on-going transformation […]

Background: The Easter Sunday terrorist attacks have drastically changed Sri Lanka’s social and political fabric. Over the existing ethnic polarization, Sri Lanka now faces polarization on the grounds of religion. On 21st April 2019, 08 suicide bombers led explosions in Sri Lanka killing 252 people and injuring hundreds. Two Catholic churches, one Zion church, and […]

Rough translation of comments by the Asgiriya Mahanayake: “We got to know some good news. That in the future, Chamal Rajapaksa will become President. This is in fact cause for happiness. We didn’t know this before. I call upon Mayantha Dissanayake as well to join that side to build and protect this country. The Muslims […]

Image; Mazahina, left, pictured with her husband, was arrested over a pattern on one of her dresses which was wrongly believed to resemble the dharmachakra, a Buddhist symbol [Lisa Fuller/Al Jazeera] by Lisa Fuller & Rukshana Rizwie . Hasalaka, Sri Lanka – On May 17, police in central Sri Lanka arrested Abdul Raheem Mazahina, a soft-spoken 47-year-old grandmother, because […]

Image: A shop owner in Minuwangoda, Sri Lanka after his shop was set on fire by Sinhalese mobs. Colombo, 12 June 2019 (The Delegation of the European Union (EU) issues the following statement in agreement with the embassies of France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Romania and the UK High Commission, as well as the embassies of […]

Anurangi Singh & Aanya Wipulasena. The emerging but problematic trend of arresting persons, typically belonging to one ethnic group in particular, and then calling for evidence against them, during this ‘volatile’ time is worrying and makes a mockery of the justice process, experts say. Several high profile cases – against Dr. Seigu Shihabdeen Mohamed Shafi,(gynecologist […]

Image: Muslim ministers speaking at a press conference, announcing their resignation. ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka’s Muslim ministers have resigned protesting rising hate and harassment of their community, despite helping security forces apprehend Islamist extremists who carried out suicide bombings. At least nine ministers and deputies will resign but will remain in the backbenches, they said. […]

Image: The central market in Minuwangoda in western Sri Lanka following the riots on May 13 [Rukshana Rizwie/Al Jazeera] Muslims live in fear after wave of attacks is blamed on Buddhist hardliners in the wake of Easter Sunday bombings. by Lisa Fuller & Rukshana Rizwie Kottaramulla, Sri Lanka – The stench of turpentine overpowered Jiffriya Ameer as […]

  Sri Lanka has encountered a second security failure by allowing the unruly violent mobs to attack Muslim mosques and ordinary Muslim citizens particularly in the North Western Province and Gampaha District. This should have been an ‘anticipated backlash’ to the Easter Carnage inflicted by the IS terrorists three weeks before. However neither the law […]

There is much good sense in the assertion by Sri Lanka’s Catholic Church this Friday that despicable communal violence by organised mobs against Muslims in the North Western Province and Minuwangoda a few days earlier was not only politically instigated but also a deliberate attempt to turn public focus away from the shock and horror […]

Statement by the United Nations in Sri Lanka on the prevailing situation in the country. 2019 May 14 (Colombo, Sri Lanka) – The United Nations in Sri Lanka is concerned about emerging incidents of communal violence and tension in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks. The United Nations calls on the Government and […]

Image:  Digana after mob attacks. Associated Press/Pradeep Pathiran . Even as I write these words, Kandy is burning. Muslims, their homes and their properties are being targeted in the name of Buddhism, within shouting distance of the Temple of the Tooth. If the custodians of the Tooth Relic, the chief prelates of Malwatte and Asgiriya, look […]

Image: Anti- Muslim mobs took over the streets in Teldeniya. Statement by Tamil Civil Society condemning violence against Muslim community.  March 6, 2018.  We strongly condemn the violence being unleashed against the Muslim people in Kandy this week and in Ampara earlier last week. Initial reports from Ampara and Kandy make clear that the police by inaction were complicit […]

Image: Ampara mosque was attacked by Sinhala Buddhist mob. Javid Yusuf. The anti-Muslim hate campaign which surfaced from around 2012 seems to be continuing unabated, erupting in different parts of the country at regular intervals. Taking advantage of the democratic space created by the change in administration after January 2015, these hatemongers have manifested themselves […]

Image: A food out let in Ampara, Eastern province was attacked on 22nd May 2017. Sri Lanka police have arrested five people including a member of a hardline Buddhist organization for instigating religious violence against Muslims and a Muslim for defaming Buddhism, police said on Sunday. The arrests come a week after diplomats condemned violence […]