Speaking to the BBC, the senior Buddhist monk who led the protest against a mosque in Dambulla has stated that footage from the protest has been “technically manipulated”.
The footage showed a mob of 2,000 Sinhala protestors, led by the monk Inamaluwe Sumangala thero, violently attacking a long-standing mosque in the area while security forces stood by. It also showed a monk disrobing and exposing himself in front of the mosque, expressing his outrage that the mosque had been built in the area.
The monk told the BBC that,
See our earlier post: Monks and the mob in Dambulla (23 April 2012)
The footage showed a mob of 2,000 Sinhala protestors, led by the monk Inamaluwe Sumangala thero, violently attacking a long-standing mosque in the area while security forces stood by. It also showed a monk disrobing and exposing himself in front of the mosque, expressing his outrage that the mosque had been built in the area.
 Screenshot from News 1st TV, showing a Buddhist monk exposing himself in front of Dambulla mosque |
The monk told the BBC that,
"Videos that portrayed the protest as violent were technically manipulated."After the airing of the Channel 4 documentary “Sri Lanka’s Killings Fields”, senior Sri Lankan government officials were also quick to claim that the footage was “fake”, despite evidence to the contrary.
See our earlier post: Monks and the mob in Dambulla (23 April 2012)
