Sri Lanka arrests 10 for anti-Muslim violence as towns smoulder
KANDY, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - Police in Sri Lanka said on Thursday it had arrested the suspected leader and nine others suspects behind a wave of anti-Muslim attacks by Sinhalese Buddhist hardliners in a central highlands region this week.
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President Maithripala Sirisena decreed a state of emergency in Kandy on Wednesday but crowds carried out more attacks targeting mosques and businesses belonging to Muslims overnight, residents told Reuters. Police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said all 10 people arrested belonged to hardline Buddhist group. He named the suspected leader as Amith Jeewan Weerasinghe and said he belonged to a group called Mahason Balakaya.
He said? this group had published videos of hate speech directed against Muslims.
Most of Sri Lanka’s Muslims live in the east and centre of the island and make up about 9 percent of its 21 million people. Buddhists make up about 70 percent and ethnic Tamils, most of whom are Hindus, about 13 percent.
Residents in Kandy district said the death of a Buddhist youth after an altercation with a group of Muslims had triggered the violence.
Two days after the death, a large crowd of Buddhists brought a symbolic coffin to protest against the death of the driver in Digana town where most of the shops are either owned or rented by Muslims, residents said.
But a crowd set fire to his car and beat him up before he could escape.
NATIONALISTS
Some Buddhist nationalists have protested against the presence in Sri Lanka of Muslim Rohingya asylum-seekers from mostly Buddhist Myanmar, where Buddhist nationalism has also been on the rise.“An upsurge of attacks against Muslims by Sinhala Buddhist militants in Sri Lanka has raised fears of a new round of communal violence,” the International Crisis Group said in a report.
On Thursday, shops were still smouldering in Katugasthota town where also mobs went on a rampage picking on the small stores and eateries run by Muslims. Groceries were strewn on the street.
But he said the curfew would be re-imposed in Kandy as a measure of precaution.
President Sirisena appointed Public Administration minister Ranjith Madduma Bandara as the new law and order minister, a portfolio temporarily held by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe after public criticism over government’s inaction to curb violence.
The Tourism Ministry said it did not expect any major impact of the seven-day emergency on the $4 billion industry.
“For tourists, this is not the ideal situation,” Henry Venturini, a 51-year old Italian tourist told Reuters. “There was nobody on the street when we went out in the evening.”
Sri Lanka was for decades plagued by war between government forces and Tamil separatists. The government defeated the rebels in 2009.
EU ambassadors said in a statement that the latest attacks were “very worrying” and it is important that the government bring the perpetrators to justice.
Additional reporting by Shihar Aneez in Colombo; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani and Shihar Aneez; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky
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