SRI LANKA DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY AFTER BUDDHIST-MUSLIM CLASH
Sri Lanka Tuesday declared a
nationwide state of emergency to quell anti-Muslim riots that have killed at
least two people and damaged dozens of mosques and homes, a minister said.
“The cabinet of ministers
decided on tough measures, including a 10-day nationwide state of emergency,”
Minister of City Planning Rauff Hakeem said as police imposed a curfew in the
riot-hit central district of Kandy.
Tension has been
growing between the two communities in Sri Lanka over the past year, with some hard-line Buddhist groups accusing Muslims of forcing people to convert to Islam
and vandalizing Buddhist archaeological sites.
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.
“At a special cabinet
meeting, it was decided to declare a state of emergency for 10 days to prevent
the spread of communal riots,” government spokesman Dayasiri Jayasekara told .
He said some people
were instigating violence through Facebook and warned of tough action against
them.
The unrest in the
Indian Ocean island’s central district of Kandy began on Sunday after the
funeral of a truck driver from the majority Sinhalese Buddhist community who
died days after he was involved in an altercation with four Muslims, the
government has said.
It was not clear why
the initial altercation occurred but after the driver’s funeral on Monday, a
Sinhalese mob attacked Muslim shops, police said. The body of a Muslim youth
was found in a burnt-out house early on Tuesday, police said.
Muslims make up about
9 percent of Sri Lanka’s 21 million people. Buddhists make up about 70 percent
and ethnic Tamils, most of whom are Hindus, about 13 percent.
The government sent
troops and elite police to the area on Monday and imposed a curfew. A curfew
was reimposed in two districts of Kandy on Tuesday, police said.
The government ended
a 26-year civil war in 2009 with the defeat of Tamil separatist rebels. Muslim
communities were occasionally caught up in that violence but on the whole,
Muslims managed to stay out of the war.
SOURCE: AFP/REUTERS
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