SRI LANKA BLOCKS SOCIAL MEDIA TO CURB MOB ATTACKS ON MUSLIMS
Sri Lanka barred social
messaging networks including Facebook on Wednesday to stem violence against
minority Muslims after mob attacks continued despite the imposition of
emergency on the Buddhist-majority island.
Tension has been
growing between the two communities in Sri Lanka over the past year, with some
hardline Buddhist groups accusing Muslims of forcing people to convert to Islam
and vandalizing Buddhist archaeological sites. Muslims deny this.
Some Buddhist
nationalists have also protested against the presence in Sri Lanka of Muslim
Rohingya asylum seekers from mostly Buddhist Myanmar, where Buddhist
nationalism has also been on the rise.
Police declared a
curfew until 4 p.m. (1130 GMT) Thursday in the central highlands district of
Kandy, the epicenter of the violence since Sunday in the wake of the death of a
Buddhist youth in an altercation with a group of Muslims.
Buddhist mobs
attacked mosques and businesses belonging to Muslims overnight, residents told
Reuters on Wednesday, even after President Maithripala Sirisena decreed an
emergency for seven days to control the violence.
Police spokesman
Ruwan Gunasekara said there had been several disturbances throughout Tuesday
night in the Kandy area, renowned for its tea plantations and scenic hilly
beauty.
Sri Lanka's Special Task Force and Police officers stand guard near a burnt house after a clash between two communities in Digana, central district of Kandy March 6, 2018. REUTERS |
“The police arrested
seven people. Three police officers were injured in the incidents,” he told
Reuters. There was no information about how many civilians had been wounded, he
said.
A severed head of a
youth was found in a mainly Muslim district of the capital Colombo, adding to
tensions, residents said. Police said they were investigating.
Muslims in Colombo
said they feared for the safety of relatives living in Kandy.
FACEBOOK POSTINGS
Mohamed Khan, a
71-year-old worker in a soap factory in Colombo, said his relatives in Kandy
were in hiding. “They say the police and military are...not taking any action,”
he said.
Some of the violence
has been instigated by Facebook postings that threatened more attacks on
Muslims, the government said. On Wednesday, it said Facebook, Viber and Whatsapp
would be blocked across Sri Lanka for three days.
Analysts say
Muslim-owned businesses were being targeted because many Sinhalese believe the
minority holds disproportionate economic power.
Sri Lanka is still
healing from a 26-year civil war with Tamil separatist rebels that was plagued
by atrocities and ended in 2009.
Buddhist Sinhalese
comprise around 70 percent of the South Asian nation’s 21 million population,
ethnic Tamils - who are mainly Hindu - about 13 percent, and Muslims around 9
percent.
U.N. human rights
chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said he was alarmed by the recurring episodes of
violence against ethnic and religious minorities in Sri Lanka and wanted
accountability.
“There should be no
impunity, either for the incitement that led to the attacks, or the attacks
themselves,” he said in a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The U.S. State
Department issued a security alert warning of the possibility of further unrest
in Kandy, also famous for a temple said to contain the tooth of Buddha.
Tourism, is one of
the foreign exchange mainstays of Sri Lanka’s $81 billion economy, could take a
serious hit from the violence as Kandy is a prime destination for foreign
travelers.
A government
minister said the violence in Kandy had been whipped up by people from outside
the area. “There is an organized conspiracy behind these incidents,” Sarath
Amunugama, a senior minister, told reporters in Colombo.
Kandy is located in
the heart of the Indian Ocean island nation’s hilly tea-growing region but a
trader said the emergency was not likely to affect global tea markets in the
near term.
“The emergency is
only for 10 days. This will delay shipments, but won’t have any impact on
global prices. Kenya and India have ample supplies to substitute. If supplies
remain disrupted for more than a month, then prices could go up,” said a tea
broker in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata.
Sri Lanka is the
world’s third biggest tea exporter.
SOURCE: REUTERS
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