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Colombo: Facing a new wave of hate attacks, the Muslim community in Sri
Lanka has appealed to President Mahinda Rajapaksa to act against
extremist Buddhists who have been leading campaigns to inculcate
fear and hatred against Muslims, according to a report in Sri
Lanka news portal Colombo Page.
"These groups have been using the traditional media, social media,
public meetings, posters, leaflets, and the circulation of rumors
and misinformation insulting Muslims to inculcate a sense of fear
and hatred of Muslims among Sinhalese," N.M. Ameen, Head of the
Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, said in a letter to the President.
"They are using abusive language
when referring to our religious practices and publicly calling for
a boycott of businesses run by Muslims", he added.
Ameen urged the Sri Lankan President to intervene to
stop harassment against Muslims and their businesses. "We see no
substantive reduction in either the incidents of harassment of
members of our community or the campaign by the extremist groups."
Last week, a hardline Buddhist group known as "Bodu Bala Sena", or
Buddhist Force, called for the demolition of a 10th century mosque
in Kuragala.
The call for destroying the ancient mosque comes
shortly after the group campaigned against halal food in Sri
Lanka, forcing Muslims to abandon halal logo to help ease tension
with the Buddhist majority.
The Muslim appeal to the president for
protection is not the first. Over the past months, the Muslim
Council of Sri Lanka has called on the President to consider their
requests to stem the rising tide of anti-Muslim extremism in the
country.
Muslims have urged the president to publicly condemn the
hate campaign of the Buddhist extremists.
They have also called
for defending equal rights for all citizens in the country as well
as instructing the police to take necessary action to stop
incidents of harassment against minorities and their businesses.
The Muslim calls followed an earlier letter from the Jeddah-based
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) expressing concerns over
increasing reports of anti-Muslim ethnic tensions.
Sri Lanka has
been thrown into tension following a string of serious incidents
involving extremist Buddhist provocations against Muslims.
In
June, some 200 demonstrators led by several dozen Buddhist monks
converged on a small Islamic center in Colombo’s suburb of
Dehiwala.
Throwing stones and rotten meat over the mosque gate,
protestors shouted slogans demanding the closure of the Muslim
worship place.
Last April, a number of Buddhist monks disrupted
Muslim prayer services in the village of Dambulla.
The attackers
claimed that the mosque, built in 1962, was illegal. Weeks later,
monks drafted a threatening letter aimed at Muslims in the nearby
town of Kurunegala, demanding Islamic prayer services there be
halted.
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