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Rauff Hakeem slams Iranaitivu solution calling it ‘harmful and sadistic’
Leader of Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and Samagi Jana Balawegaya parliamentarian Rauff Hakeem[/caption]
Do you think the decision to bury the Covid-19 dead on the island of Iranaitivu provides a solution to the problem?
The issue of taking the dead bodies to Iranaitivu is an instance of giving by one hand and taking from the other. We have the relief of getting buried after all. But it is going to heap more expenses on the people. The dead have to be given their dignity. Maybe the families would want to visit the grave site later. We are being denied these rights. This is not second to what the government wanted to do earlier by wanting to pack us all off to Maldives. It is very distressing to see that this government is continuing with this distasteful and reprehensible policy and they are not willing to step back. There is a deliberate intransigence and the government has diabolically hoodwinked their own population into believing that the burying of Covid-19 victims is harmful to the environment and the health of the others and used government media and private media who are their pied pipers for this purpose. This was done from last April in order to create a very harmful polarisation with an eye on getting the votes of the majority community based on unnecessary fear psychosis. It was done after the Easter Sunday Attacks and they took it to another level with the Covid-19 situation.
This so-called experts committee in my opinion has absolutely no scientific evidence to show that burying is harmful when following other safety guidelines. When pressure was mounted in Geneva with the UNHRC resolution embodying this particular issue and the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) very specifically took this issue up with a variety of other countries also looking at this as a harmful policy marginalising a section of the population, the government had to do something. Having withdrawn the gazette, they are using another excuse in order to maintain that their original decision had some basis. I see this as a very harmful and sadistic way of heaping more trauma on a community that has suffered. This has not even helped in the fight against the Covid-19 virus and its spread as Muslims are traumatised that they don’t want to go to hospitals fearing that they might get cremated.
Do you think that Covid-19 burials should be allowed in any location in the country?
Every other country is allowing it. You can have basic safety guidelines to which we will agree. Professor Jennifer Perera’s expert committee, which is full of very qualified virologists and epidemiologists, has given a report and offered certain guidelines. Why are new conditions being put in place? This is typically an attitudinal problem with a very racist minded group which is calling themselves an expert committee. This is a part of the government cheer squad who has been given some position in the expert committee who is now hell bent on trying to prove that they were right all along. They have been proven to be pseudoscientists. They tried to maintain this policy at whatever cost in order to intentionally deny our fundamental right. This scar is going to remain deep in the psyche of Muslims for generations to come.
What if a portion of the population opposes the burial of Covid-19 victims in any part of the country?
This government and their media bandwagon which created this mindset is responsible for creating this phobia and they will have to reverse it but they are not willingly doing it. They don’t want to withdraw their unscientific and baseless thinking. We have stomached all this in our desperation to get our burial rights. It could even be that the government themselves will put people up to protest. This is what they were trying to do and they did that after the Easter Sunday Attacks. They instigated people and deliberately used media outlets to spread fear among the people. It was a hellhole for Muslims everywhere. Polarisation was created deliberately. This is an extension of that.
Do you think the OIC countries should support Sri Lanka at the UNHRC?
I don’t want to say that OIC countries should support or oppose Sri Lanka. It’s up to them to decide. With this kind of deliberate intransigence, their capitals will think twice before extending support. OIC countries stood for what is right. We are the only country that has been following mandatory cremations and they knew that it was a deliberate racist policy though they did not call it that. The government expected them to support a resolution which also embodies this very element. All the resident ambassadors and high commissioners of the member countries wrote a collective letter to the President and the Foreign Office. The Foreign Ministry did not even have the courtesy to reply to that letter. Now they are pleading to those countries to support them. It is up to them whether to support Sri Lanka at UNHRC or not based on their own convictions on the contents of the matter.
Do you think the decision would be reversed when the UNHRC sessions in Geneva conclude?
You never know with this government. If they do so, they’ll be doing it at their own peril. It will not just be sadism, they would have insulted the intelligence of their friends who believed them for what they did which was done with assurances. We were told very clearly that the OIC member countries were given an assurance in this regard with no less than the Foreign Minister himself. To renege on a matter of this nature will certainly be problematic and that kind of dishonesty on a diplomatic level is not going to bring us any goodwill.
Are Muslim political leaders and minority political parties using these issues to divide the country?
It is not us, it is the draconian policy which is based on any rational scientific reasoning that divides the country. World renowned virologist Prof. Malik Peiris from Hong Kong University and a long list of people have poo-pooed on this policy. But this government is living in denial. They did it for political reasons.
What are your initial impressions of the Easter Attacks PCoI report?
The PCoI report has an overreach of some of the issues. The Easter attack was the work of a cult and a group of mad men that was disowned by the entire community. Somebody wanted to use them for a collateral purpose. The PCoI report is silent about many things. It is still an enigma as to how this could have happened. There is also talk about a mole within Zahran’s camp. What happened to the mole is still a mystery. There is too much of a politicisation of the report. This very regime used these proceedings to do their electioneering through live telecasting and propaganda. The report is a squib compared to the hype that was created and that is why people are complaining. Now they are trying to hoodwink the poor cardinal.
Do you think that Madrasas should be regulated the way that the PCoI report has recommended?
Madrasa schools need regulation and reforms and lots of groups have looked at this issue. We welcome some government oversight within certain limits. They can have some supervision about the content and not be too imposing on religious matters. Responsible religious scholars from among the Muslims can be appointed to revisit some of the areas with doubts. This can be done without the government interfering in religious matters without doing it in an intrusive manner. Scholars should be appointed from the community to look at the controversial issues in a way that does not compromise religious principles. The basic tenets of a religion should not be compromised for uniformity and there is no uniformity in religious belief.
The report had also recommended that political parties should not be registered with names on the basis of religion or ethnicity. What do you think about this?
They are only looking for scapegoats. Every conceivable thing that is happening within the Muslim community is seen as a cause for the attack. But this type of radicalisation has been in all communities. Convenient scapegoats from former President Maithripala Sirisena downwards have been identified. There must have of course been some apathy and complacency from various parties that resulted in the attack. I would say that there was a lot of infighting and unnecessary possessiveness of information among the intelligence agencies. There is a lot of reform that is needed within the intelligence structure. The sharing information did not take place, the Directorate of Military Intelligence should have been kept in the know. The State Intelligence Service Director was looking for Methodist churches in the morning of the attack following misleading information which was a deliberate attempt to divert the attention from Catholic churches. There has been a force behind giving of such conflicting information.
The commission had sat through day and night and put a lot of effort to go through the evidence. But there has been a selective reading of evidence that was politically motivated to support the narrative that helped the government to polarise the Sinhala vote. The recommendation to bring charges against Ven. Galagodaththe Gnanasara Thero is an attempt to balance out. When they have a credibility problem they look into a balancing act and I am not at all impressed by that. His rhetoric and outburst are not helpful towards coexistence in the country. I think we must recommend better hate speech laws in this country instead.
Do you think a legal ban should be imposed on the wearing of the face-veil?
As far as the Islamic faith is concerned, both men and women have certain religious obligations to cover certain parts of the body. But the face does not fall into that. The injunctions as far as the Quran is concerned is very clear. But there are some who have gone to interpret the Quran in a much stricter sense. In my opinion, the burqa and the niqab is a cultural practice coming from Arabs based on geographical factors and there is a difference of opinion with regards to this matter. But cultural issues should not be legislated unnecessarily. The community should be allowed to bring pressure. If a set of people believes that it is un-Islamic to expose their faces, they will feel a lot of trauma. If you feel that your neighbour is threatened by your attire, you must always try and make the neighbor comfortable as you are living in a multi-ethinic country. Islam is flexible in that way. Some European countries have made such impositions in order to maintain uniformity. This might have revulsing effects. It is best left to be self regulated by the community. We have ourselves been talking as much as possible to convince various denominations that may have a hardline view. You must have the basic trust in the community to self regulate and take into confidence and not to hurt their cultural sensitivities. I feel that Sri Lanka is being made into a testing ground for other interested countries to impose such a ban.
What reforms do you recommend should be brought to the MMDA?
MMDA reforms have been taken place by an expert committee and it has been debated for a long time. No sensible person would want these progressive reforms to not take place. Whatever the Justice Minister has presented to the cabinet with the exception of the face veil ban is welcome. The Muslim community also should try and look inwards and see what went wrong. The community itself has initiated some of the changes already. We have all fully agreed that the marriageable age of a woman must be raised to 18 and most of the Muslim countries have done so. Women Qazis should be there as well. This kind of discrimination shouldn’t exist. With the levels of education, you see that in universities the female students who enter are almost twice as the men and this is true for Muslim girls too. This must be encouraged. There are dogmatic and introverted so-called theologians who are trying to block such reforms who I feel have been silenced now. The overwhelming support for the recognition of women’s rights in a more purposive manner has to be accommodated.