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Sri Lanka’s Muslims at risk: International community urged to act

13 Oct 2019

Easwaran Rutnam The international community has been urged to ensure Sri Lanka’s Muslim community is protected and not demonised, especially after the Easter Sunday attacks. An international organisation said that Sri Lanka’s international partners have limited leverage on the issue of anti-Muslim violence – in part because anti-Muslim prejudices continue to distort the domestic and foreign policies of most of the world’s powerful states. “But foreign governments and UN agencies can and should continue to highlight the issue in international fora and urge the Government to enforce the law equitably and effectively,” the International Crisis Group (ICG) said. The ICG recently released a report on Sri Lanka analysing the political and social fallout of the horrific ISIS-inspired Easter Sunday bombings and suggesting ways of containing the damage and rebuilding social cohesion. Senior Analyst and ICG Sri Lanka Project Director Alan Keenan said that the Government had a window of opportunity to break the pattern of impunity for violence against religious minorities – in this case Muslims, but also evangelical Christians – when they came to power in 2015. He says the Government initially succeeded in reining in the violence somewhat and in policing tensions more effectively. But the absence of prosecutions of any of those known to be involved in planning and carrying out violent attacks eventually encouraged even worse violence, for example the happenings in the Kandy District in March 2018. “At this point, particularly after the hardening of sentiments after the Easter bombings, it is hard to see any government taking the tough action they need to send the message that violence against Muslims is not cost-free. But if the Sri Lankan State continues to fail to protect Muslims from mob violence and systematic hate speech, tensions and violence will almost certainly get worse and risk long-term damage to a country that has already suffered untold misery from decades of war and terror,” he said. He says Sri Lanka’s political and religious elites need to take the issue seriously and put the long-term interests of the country over short-term political benefits that come from encouraging, or failing to act against, anti-minority violence and hate. “Public faith that the law will be applied in an even-handed way regardless of the religion or ethnicity of the victims or accused – this is very low for quite understandable reasons. The tradition of political interference in criminal investigations and prosecutions remains strong, as does ethnic and religious bias in the levels of protection different communities receive from the Police and in which crimes are prosecuted. The lack of fairness in the system contributed directly to the ethnic tensions that led to Sri Lanka’s three decades of war and separatist terrorism, and it risks contributing to a deepening cycle of mistrust and violence between Sinhala Buddhists and Muslims,” he said. ‘Muslim-majority countries, OIC can assist’ The report on Sri Lanka by the ICG is based on extensive interviews with government officials, business people, politicians, diplomats, lawyers, and journalists, and includes five years of research on anti-Muslim aggression. “The arrest and successful prosecution of BBS Chief Gnanasara in two separate cases in 2018 showed that it was, in fact, politically possible to take strong legal action even against well-known monks, if the evidence of crimes is there. While Gnanasara was prosecuted and jailed for contempt of court and criminal intimidation, and not violence and threats against Muslims or Christians, his conviction and jailing was nonetheless a major victory for the rule of law. This makes President Sirisena’s pardon of Gnanasara in May this year a particularly disturbing and counterproductive decision,” Keenan said. Keenan said the move by the President undermined the judiciary’s authority and the faith of people in all communities that the rule of law means something for those with political connections. “Gnanasara’s provocative actions since then – agitating against both Muslims and Hindus at different times – have contributed to enflaming tensions further,” he said. Keenan says the international community can continue to assist government investigations into the April attacks and the jihadi networks behind them, while also supporting initiatives to address the tensions and misunderstandings that have encouraged violence against Muslims, which in turn contributed to the willingness of some Sri Lankan Muslims to turn to violence. “They should be careful not to support any efforts at ‘deradicalisation’ or ‘preventing violent extremism’ that contribute to the demonisation of the Muslim community as a whole, and they should not endorse or contribute to the formulation of any new counterterrorism laws that don’t include strong and effective safeguards for basic human rights, which has been abused for decades in the previous struggles against terrorism by the Sri Lankan State,” he added. He also noted that Muslim-majority countries, both directly and through the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), have considerable political and economic power they could use – but it must be used very carefully and wisely. “It is important to avoid any actions that could contribute the sense of siege that many Sinhala-Buddhist nationalists feel and that encourage the idea that Sri Lankan Muslims are part of a powerful international Muslim community that threatens to destroy Sinhala-Buddhist culture and heritage,” he said. He says the OIC and individual Muslim-majority countries can and should continue to raise the issue of the protection of Muslims and all religious minorities at the highest levels and make clear that full co-operation between their governments and Sri Lanka depends on the equitable treatment of Sri Lanka’s Muslims.

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