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An editorial by the New Straits Times raises concern over the discriminatory legislation adopted by the Sri Lankan government, warning that the burqa ban and closure of over a thousand madrasahs, highlight that Sri Lanka “races to be another genocidal Myanmar”.
In their piece, they highlight how Muslim and Christians launched legal challenges against the government’s draconian policy of forced cremations which violated religious liberty and noted the Supreme Court’s dismissal without calling for evidence.
The piece further criticises the ban on the burqa, highlight criticism from human rights activists who describe the measure as part “of an ongoing attack on Sri Lanka's Muslim community”. This was further supported, they note, by the Sri Lankan Public Security Minister Sarath Weerasekara spurious claim that such garments were garments are a sign of religious extremism.
The New Straits Times goes on to explain that the “LTTE may have not come to life if the then Jayewardene government did not send the army into Jaffna, thereby forcing Tamils to take up arms”.
“Even in the then-Ceylon of the 1970s, anti-terrorism was an excuse for ethnic cleansing”, they note.
The piece further highlights the work of A. Sivanandan who maintained that:
"The violence of the violated is never a matter of choice, but a symptom of choicelessness”
Read the full piece here.
