The nationalist government of Sri Lanka announced in March after the outbreak of the corona pandemic that the bodies of all deceased corona victims were to be cremated. The reason was the assumption that the groundwater could be contaminated with the virus by burying the corona deaths.
The directive immediately met with opposition from the Muslim minority in Sri Lanka – cremation is prohibited in Islam. Moreover, the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa would also deprive Muslims of a fundamental right without good epidemiological reasons. All over the world, corona deaths are simply buried. WHO guidelines permit both cremation and burial for covid-19.
Tourist paradise
The Maldives, Sri Lanka’s Muslim neighbor, came to the rescue this week. Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid revealed that his government had received a ‘special request’ from Rajapaksa to bury his Muslim corona dead on the islands of the tourist paradise.
According to critics, the cremation order of strong man Rajapaksa should mainly be seen as a form of ‘Muslims bullying’. Sri Lanka was relatively mildly affected by the pandemic, with 34 thousand infections and oOfficially only 154 dead. Ahmed Shaheed, special UN human rights rapporteur for freedom of religion, said on Wednesday that the oekaze especially reinforces the ‘marginalization’ of Muslims in Sri Lanka.
Paasaanslagen
Relations between the Buddhist majority in Sri Lanka and the ancient Muslim minority (10 percent of its 21 million inhabitants) have deteriorated in recent years. Buddhist nationalists accuse Muslims of wanting to Islamize Sri Lanka and regularly organize street violence against Muslims. The tensions increased dramatically since the Easter attacks in April 2019, when at least 300 people died in attacks on churches and hotels by suicide bombers affiliated with Islamic State.
The plan for the export funerals is causing outrage in the Maldives. The government is involved in Islamophobia, it buzzes on social media. Sri Lankan Muslims do not see the plan either. “We oppose,” said Rauff Hakeem of the Muslim Congress, quoted by Al Jazeera, ‘against any attempt by our government this offer (from the Maldives, red.) to deny us the right to live and be buried with dignity in our beloved homeland. ‘
–
