Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday said the Sri Lankan government was ready to introduce new law to curb religious intolerance.
Mr. Wickremesinghe made the statement amid growing apprehension among sections over recent attacks on Muslim establishments in different parts of the country. Since April, more than 20 attacks targeting Muslim establishments have been reported. Muslim parliamentarians and Ministers have also sought an appointment with the Prime Minister to discuss the apparent rise in hate crimes targeting the community.
On May 31, Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission wrote to President Maithripala Sirisena, expressing “grave concern” over acts of violence targeting the minority community, which the Commission said had “aggravated” in recent days.
No meaningful action
Pointing to communal clashes in 2014 in the coastal town of Aluthgama, which claimed at least three lives, the Commission observed that no meaningful action had been taken since. Such expressions of hate and violence targeting a specific community amounted to crimes under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Act and the Penal Code of Sri Lanka, the Commission said.
The Sri Lankan police on Sunday announced the arrest of “a key figure” from a hardline Buddhist organisation suspected to have instigated the anti-Muslim attacks. The 32-year-old man belongs to the radical Bodu Bala Sena, or Buddhist Power Force, and is the first suspect to be arrested in this connection. The outfit has in the past been linked to anti-Muslim attacks.
The police are investigating 16 “major incidents” of arson since April that targeted Muslim homes, businesses, mosques and a cemetery, news agency AFP reported. According to police spokesman Priyantha Jayakody, the detained suspect was a close associate of BBS’s monk-leader Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, who has remained underground since late May.
