Responding to a question posed by UK Shadow Minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Ruth Jones, about Sri Lankan forced, Minister for Asia at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development, Nigel Adams, expressed the UK's repeated concern over minority rights in Sri Lanka.
Nigel maintained that the "UK's High Commissioner to Sri Lanka has also raised concerns about mandatory cremations several times with the Sri Lankan Government, most recently on 8 January". This includes a direct conversation between The Minister of State for South Asia and the Minister responsible for Human Rights, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon and Sri Lankan High Commissioner.
The policy, which makes cremation for all COVID-19 deaths compulsory, was neither prescribed by WHO guidelines nor does it consider the fact that cremation of the dead is strictly forbidden by Islamic law. As a result, it has been widely condemned by the local civil society and international rights groups as discriminatory and as infringing on Muslims’ human rights.
Read the full responses by UK government officials here.
