Buddhist extremists giving minorities a hard time in Sri Lanka

Islam Mohamed                             

Sri Lanka suffers from growing sectarian incitement, mainly orchestrated by Buddhist extremists.

These extremists lobby for excluding minorities in the country, including Hindus and Muslims, who collectively male up a fifth of the population.

The Bodu Bala Sena is led by an extremist Buddhist clergyman, Galagoda Athjananasara, who is notorious for his violent rhetoric and is responsible for numerous racist crimes against religious minorities.

He was also arrested several times, including in 2017, when the Police Organized Crimes Prevention Division accused him of attacking a police officer after several weeks of chases.

Athjananasara was then released on bail and then arrested again on other charges and sentenced to six years in prison.

He was, however, released on May 23, 2019, after receiving a presidential pardon due to pressure from the Buddhist movement.

Athjananasara was convicted of inciting religious hatred among the community.

He is also known to have close ties to the extremist Buddhist monk in Myanmar, Ashinwerathu, who sparked a wave of ethnic cleansing that displaced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya and killed thousands of them.

Videos spread on the Internet showing the amount of violations practiced by the extremist cleric.

In one of them, he is filmed storming a police station and assaulting officers.

The restraint shown by the officers against this monk demonstrated his power and influence, thanks to his strong following on the streets.

Athjananasara heads a working group whose goal is to draft a law under the name ‘One Country, One Law’.

The legislation has raised the concerns of religious minorities who fear that their personal status laws will change based on pressures from this extremist organization.

The Bodu Bala Sina organization led sectarian attacks on mosques, homes and shops.

These attacks left a large number of people dead.

The organization also organizes popular campaigns to prevent the wearing of Islamic clothes and prevent the slaughter of cattle and sheep.

It calls for the adoption of cremation, instead of the burial of people.

Although the government allowed the burial of the bodies of members of the Muslim minority after an intervention from Pakistan, Sri Lankan Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, retracted this matter after the wrath of Buddhist militants, led by the Bodu Bala Sina organization.