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Sri Lanka stokes Muslim and Christian ire with COVID burial rules
Rajapaksa’s forced cremations of minority victims worsen human rights record
MARWAAN MACAN-MARKAR, Asia regional correspondent
COLOMBO — Predominantly Buddhist Sri Lanka’s ultranationalist government is forcing families of the country’s Muslim and Christian minorities to abandon their faith-based burial rites for relatives who die of COVID-19 — consequently inviting fresh international scrutiny of the nation’s already troubled human rights record.
As the country’s death toll from the pandemic inches toward 200, the government of the hawkish President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is sticking to a policy backed by hard-line allies from the majority Sinhala-Buddhists, the political constituency that helped Rajapaksa secure two thumping electoral mandates over the past year. The official policy is for COVID-19 victims to be swiftly cremated. It has sent religious minorities already grieving for lost kin into deeper anguish.
The youngest victim was a 20-day-old Muslim baby who was forcibly cremated against the parents’ wishes. An estimated 80 Muslims have died of the coronavirus, with their surviving family members suffering the same indignity. The pandemic has infected close to 40,000 people since the first case was detected on the Indian Ocean island early this year.
The policy “has led to so much agony within the community at a time when they have to grieve for someone who has died,” said Shreen Saroor, a leading Muslim women’s rights activist. “The relatives are caught in a dilemma of having to sin and having so much guilt for being part of the sin because of the cremation.”
The anti-burial measures endorsed by Rajapaksa, who enjoys autocratic powers following a constitutional amendment, have been defended on two grounds that have made Sri Lanka an outlier in the global response to the deadly pandemic. One rationale is that burying COVID victims could result in the virus spreading in the soil and contaminating the country’s water table. The other: Muslims will use the dead bodies in graves as a “biological weapon.”
Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, left, and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. The Rajapaksa government’s forced cremations appear to have touched off a sense of solidarity in a deeply polarized nation. © Reuters
Sri Lanka’s stance flies in the face of the international consensus among medical scientists and virologists regarding the last rites of COVID victims. The World Health Organization, the Geneva-based U.N. body, has shaped international opinion with guidelines that state the choice of cremation or burial of a COVID victim is a cultural decision. Over 180 of its members have endorsed this.
Not surprisingly, there are emerging signs that Sri Lanka will pay a diplomatic price for Rajapaksa’s efforts to weaponize COVID. Colombo-based embassies from the world’s Muslim countries “are monitoring the burial ban closely and gathering information,” said a diplomatic source from an Asian mission in the Sri Lankan capital.
The embassies have taken a cue from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a Saudi Arabia-based 57-member bloc that has issued three statements condemning Sri Lanka’s forced cremation policy.
Likewise, Western diplomatic missions have stood behind statements issued by U.N. officials about the Rajapaksa government hounding religious minorities in their hour of grief. “I fear that not allowing burials is having a negative effect on social cohesion and, more importantly, could also adversely impact the measures for containing the spread of the virus as it may discourage people to access medical care when they have symptoms or history of contact,” wrote Hanaa Singer, the U.N. Resident Coordinator in Sri Lanka, in a letter to the Rajapaksa government in November.
The international scrutiny Sri Lanka is now under adds to the diplomatic pressure it is expected to face in early 2021, when its postwar record will be in the spotlight at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. “The members of the OIC have traditionally backed Sri Lanka or abstained when there were resolutions critical of the country at the UNHRC,” said Hilmy Ahamed, vice president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, a civil society network. “But Sri Lanka may not be assured of such support in Geneva next year because of the enforced cremations.”
The nearly 30-year civil war, which ended in May 2009, pitted government troops against the separatist Tamil Tigers. The conflict’s grim numbers include more than 100,000 people killed and over 23,000 missing, according to estimates.
For years, an international push for accountability — including in regard to grisly accounts of alleged war crimes committed by government troops and the separatists — has cast a shadow over Sri Lanka. Now the public backlash against the enforced cremations has laid bare a new layer of pain to the still unhealed wounds of Sri Lanka’s fragile, postwar peace.
The protests that have spread locally as well as in Western cities suggest the government’s forced cremations have kindled a sense of solidarity in a deeply polarized country. The participants come from across the country’s religious communities — Buddhists, Hindus, Catholics, other Christians and Muslims. Their banners decry the country for being a graveyard for human rights.
A family member of a soldier who died in Sri Lanka’s civil war cries. The country, still grieving from its long conflict, is now dealing with a new layer of pain inflicted in the name of caution. © Reuters
Symbols of the interreligious solidarity that has taken shape against Rajapaksa are appearing. One is a small white cloth that protesters have begun to tie to the poles that surround the main cemetery in Colombo, where the body of the 20-day-old Muslim baby was forcefully cremated. The white cloths symbolize the white shrouds that the bodies of dead Muslims are buried in. White is also the color of the clothing people wear at non-Muslim funerals.
Some demonstrators wear strips of white cloth around a wrist. The idea of the white-cloth protests was conceived by a Christian and Hindu, both in their 20s.
“This issue has grown beyond Muslim circles,” said Ruki Fernando, a prominent Catholic human rights activist. “There is more solidarity and consciousness, and this discontent will add to the fire the government may face at the U.N. in Geneva.”
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PCoI on Easter Sunday attacks:
By Shamindra Ferdinando
Attorney General Dappula de Livera, PC is not bound by recommendations made by the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (P CoI) into the 2019 Easter Sunday carnage, or presidential directives in that regard, according to authoritative sources.
They said that the AG couldn’t under any circumstances initiate legal proceedings until he had received the full PCoI report.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa received the PCoI report on Feb 1. The President’s Office delivered a set of PCoI reports to Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena on Feb 23, a day after the report was presented to the cabinet of ministers. The Island raised the matter with relevant authorities in the wake of a section of the media reporting the PCoI recommending punitive measures against former President Maithripala Sirisena, Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando, IGP Pujitha Jayasundera, Chief of State Intelligence Senior DIG Nilantha Jayawardena, Chief of National Intelligence retired DIG Sisira Mendis and All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC) leader and Samagi Jana Balavegaya MP Rishad Bathiudeen et al over the Easter Sunday carnage.
Sources pointed out that due to the inordinate delay in sharing the PCoI report with the AG, the department hadn’t been able to take preliminary measures required to initiate the proceedings. Sources said that a team of officers would take at least six weeks or more to examine the report before tangible measures could be taken.
With the AG scheduled to retire on May 24, 2021, even if the AG Department received the P CoI it would be quite a tough task to initiate proceedings ahead of retirement, sources said. However, in terms of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution enacted in last October, both the AG and the IGP could receive extensions beyond 60 at the President’s discretion.
Dappula de Livera received an Acting appointment as the AG a week after the Easter Sunday carnage whereas his predecessor Jayantha Jayasuriya, PC, was elevated to Chief Justice.
Responding to another query, sources said that the Attorney General two weeks ago requested Secretary to the President for a copy of the P CoI. However, the AG was yet to receive one, sources said. In spite of the AG not receiving a P CoI copy, the AG had instructed the IGP to obtain a copy of the report when he requested the police to complete investigations into the Easter Sunday carnage. The AG issued specific instructions after having examined police files pertaining to the investigations.
The IGP, too, hadn’t received a copy so far though some sections of the report were in the public domain.
Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage displayed at a live political programme on Derana a copy of the P CoI report he received at the cabinet meeting earlier in the day.
Sources said that the Attorney General’s Department couldn’t decide on a course of action in respect of the Easter carnage on the basis of a section of the report. In terms of the Commission of Inquiry Act (Section 24), the AG enjoyed significant powers/authority in respect of investigations; sources said adding that the Department urgently required both the P CoI report and police investigations report. The Attorney General’s Department has raised the delay in receiving a P CoI report amidst the Catholic Church attacking the government over the same issue.
Sources said that ministerial committee appointed to study the P CoI report couldn’t decide on how to proceed with the recommendations and the matter was entirely in the hands of the AG. Sources pointed out that the delay on the part of the government to release the report had received the attention of sections of the international media, including the New York Times. Public Security Minister retired Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera having met Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith at the Bishop’s House on Dec 8, 2020 said that the AG would get a copy of the P CoI report once the President received it. Minister Weerasekera said that the CID had handed over the relevant files after having completed investigations into eight blasts. Referring to the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) report on the Easter Sunday carnage, the former Navy Chief of Staff said that all such documents would have to be brought to one place and considered before initiating legal proceedings. Acknowledging that there could be delays, lawmaker Weerasekera said that on the instructions of the Attorney General a 12-member team of lawyers was working on the case. The minister vowed to expose the mastermind behind the Easter Sunday attacks. Investigations continued while some of those wanted were overseas, the minister said.
The minister acknowledged that the Attorney General couldn’t proceed without the P CoI report. Minister Weerasekera reiterated that once the President received the P CoI report, it would be sent to the Attorney General. The minister said that there were documents two to three feet high that needed scrutiny. The minister assured comprehensive investigation. The minister said that investigations pertaining to eight blasts had been completed and the reports handed over to the AG. However, the Attorney General had found shortcomings in those investigations.
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By Saman Indrajith
The Presidential Commission of Inquiry on the Easter Sunday bombings had failed to identify the mastermind of , the JVP said yesterday.
Addressing the media at the party headquarters in Pelawatte, JVP Propaganda Secretary MP Vijitha Herath said that the PCoI report had levelled accusations against former President Maithripala Sirisena, former IGP and head of intelligence for their dereliction of duty, shirking of responsibilities and not taking action to prevent the attacks and negligence. There were reference to the causes of the terror attacks and actions to be taken to avoid such attacks and the influence of extremist organisations. “However, there is no mention of the mastermind of the attacks, the handlers of the attackers and those whose interests the carnage served. It is also not mentioned whether there has been any foreign or local organisation behind those attacks. As per the PCoI report the attack took place as a result of culmination of extremism.
“According to the PCoI the extremist activities were a result of the prevailing political situation then. The entire nation was waiting to see who was responsible and who masterminded those attacks. The PCoI has failed to identify the true culprits responsible for the terror attacks. The report says that the leader of the suicide cadres killed himself in the attacks and it was a puzzle. That means those who are actually responsible for the attacks are still at large. The report does not provide exact details of the sources of the attacks. The PCoI had sittings for one year and five months. It summoned various persons and got their statements but it has failed to shed any light on the terror attacks. Everybody knows that the top leaders of the government and heads of security and intelligence establishments failed in their duties. Ranil Wickremesinghe was the second in command and he too is bound by the responsibility but the PCoI report fails to identify him as one of the persons against whom legal action should be instituted. The PCoI has treated Wickremesinghe and former President Maithripala Sirisena differently. We are not telling that this report is a total failure but we cannot accept this as a complete report. The PCoI handed over its report to the President on Feb 1. After 23 days it was sent to Parliament. Now, a copy of the report is there in the parliamentary library for the perusal of MPs.”
Herath said that the PCoI did not have powers to take punitive action. “It only has powers to name those responsible and recommend action to be taken against those named.
