Sri Lanka: And now they have come for the Muslims

By Dr Kumar David | South Asia Analysis Group

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It is alarming, what is happening to the Muslims in Sri Lanka. There is a 50:50 chance it will blow up into unrest and instability – I will explain anon why I have hedged my bets. However, there is a disease these events have exposed about which there can be no doubt. This is a deep animosity towards Muslims, which remained buried during the civil war against the Tamils, and has now broken out into the open. Explicit expressions proliferate on the web and in the media – even international sites like Youtube are used for an outpouring of hate mail. Here are two printable quotes from the web to convey the gist of it – I cannot quote more juicy examples littered with obscene expletives, or because they are in Sinhala.

Quote 1: “My Muslim brothers. Plz remember this is not a islamic republic where ‘sharia’ law is practised…
Sri-lanka is a majority sinhala country where 74% of the population are sinhalese.. YOU HAVE MORETHAN ENOUGH PREVILAGES HERE. NO PANIC PLZ….WE WILL NEVER LET YOU TO EAT INTO OUR HERITAGE AND OUR RELIGION..” 

‘90,000 war widows in North, East Lanka’

P.K.Balachandran | Express News Service ............................................................................................................................................................................................. There are up to 90,000 war widows in the Tamil-speaking Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka, according to the latest report of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office on Human Rights and Democracy. 

The report for 2011 released by Foreign Secretary William Hague on Monday noted that disappearances and abductions continued in 2011 with a sharp rise in the number of disappearances towards the end of the year.