Sri Lanka: ‘State officials participated in over 50 attacks against minorities’
- Last Updated on 10 August 2016
- By Indika Gamage
The United Nations heard that Sri Lanka state officials in have been actively involved in action targeting religious minorities in Buddhist majority Sri Lanka.
Over two hundred and seventy incidents against Christians and Muslims have been documented even after a new government that promised religious tolerance was elected in 2015, a UN body that monitors state action to curtail racial discrimination, was told in Geneva.
Over 200 incidents
A report to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) said that 132 incidents have been documented against Christian minorities and 141 incidents against Muslim minorities in Sri Lanka, despite the governments stated commitment to ensure ‘that all ethnic communities have the right to their chosen faith without hindrance’.
High-level police officials such as the Senior Superintendent of Police and the Assistant Superintendent of Police have been directly involved in a number of incidents, said the report to CERD by National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL), The Centre for Human Rights and development (CHRD) and Minority Rights Group International (MRG).
CERD is having its 90th session in Geneva from the 2nd to 26th of August.
© JDS
