Attacks on Religious Places and Discuss the Broader Context of Such Attacks

Attacks on Places of Religious Worship in Post-War Sri Lanka Centre For Policy Alternatives March 2013 Attacks on Places of Religious Worship in Post-War Sri Lanka Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2013 The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) is an independent, non-partisan organization that focuses primarily on issues of governance and conflict resolution. Formed in 1996 in the firm belief that the vital contribution of civil society to the public policy debate is in need of strengthening, CPA is committed to programmes of research and advocacy through which public policy is critiqued, alternatives identified and disseminated. Address : 24/2 28th Lane, off Flower Road, Colombo 7, Sri Lanka Telephone : +94 (11) 2565304/5/6 Fax : +94 (11) 4714460 Web : www.cpalanka.org Facebook : www.facebook.com/cpasl Twitter : www.twitter.com/cpasl | @cpasl Email : [email protected] Page 2 Attacks on Places of Religious Worship in Post-War Sri Lanka Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2013 Table of Contents Abbreviations 4 Executive Summary 5 Map 13 Introduction 14 Background and Context 19 Religious Tensions Post-War 25 Attacks against Christian Places of Worship 34 List of Attacks on Christian Places of Worship 35 Trends in Attacks and Related Incidents 40 Other Perceptions of Threat and Insecurity 42 Response to Attacks 47 Attacks against Muslim Religious Places 50 List of Attacks on Muslim Places of Worship 51 Trends in Attacks and Related Incidents 53 Other Perceptions of Threat and Insecurity 55 Response to Attacks 63 Attacks against Buddhist Places of Worship 68 List of Attacks on Buddhist Places of Worship 69 Trends in Attacks and Related Incidents 71 Other Perceptions of Threat and Insecurity 74 Response to Attacks 77 Attacks against Hindu Places of Worship 79 List of Attacks on Hindu Places of Worship 80 Trends in Attacks and Related Incidents 81 Other Perceptions of Threat and Insecurity 83 Responses to Attacks 91 Conclusion 94 Annex 98 Legal Framework Governing Places of Religious Worship 98 Page 3 Attacks on Places of Religious Worship in Post-War Sri Lanka Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2013 Abbreviations ACBC All Ceylon Buddhist Congress ACJU All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama AOG Assembly of God BBS Bodu Bala Sena CPA Centre for Policy Alternatives GA Government Agent HSZ High Security Zone JHU Jathika Hela Urumaya LLRC Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission LTTE Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam NCEASL National Christian Evangelical Alliance Sri Lanka NGO Non-Governmental Organisations NPA National Plan of Action to Implement the Recommendations of LLRC SLFP Sri Lanka Freedom Alliance SLMC Sri Lanka Muslim Congress TNA Tamil National Alliance UDA Urban Development Authority UNP United National Party UPFA United People’s Freedom Alliance Page 4 Attacks on Places of Religious Worship in Post-War Sri Lanka Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2013 Executive Summary Following the end of the thirty-year old civil war in Sri Lanka, there were expectations that the post-war period would usher in peace, development and reconciliation. The last three and a half years have witnessed a several positive developments including resettlement of people and rehabilitation of infrastructure. Nonetheless there are a range of problems and policy gaps that have hindered the transition from war to sustainable peace. A key post- war challenge is that of violence against religious sites and members of religious communities. There have been a number of incidents including mob attacks on places of worship; robberies and vandalism of religious places; the killing of clergy; protests against religious communities and hate speech on the internet and in the media. Even while the post-war period has allowed for religious communities to re-build places of worship damaged and destroyed in the war-affected areas and greater freedom of movement to access religious sites, these acts of violence have created and intensified insecurity and vulnerability. Almost all representatives of all religions interviewed for this report expressed the fear that their faith and religious and ethno-cultural identity is under direct and indirect attack. There have been some high profile cases such as the attack on the Mosque in Dambulla in April 2012; other incidents, however have received little or no media attention. This has resulted in a limited understanding of the scale and nature of these incidents, and also made it easier for the authorities and others to deny the scale of the problem. The focus of the report is to record incidents of attacks on religious places and discuss the broader context of such attacks. For the purpose of identifying such incidents the report defines an attack on a religious place as being physical violence towards a religious place in current use, such that the building is damaged in some way, items within the building are stolen or damaged, and/or persons in the religious place, injured or killed. This includes theft of religious symbols such as statues from a place of worship and vandalism. A religious place is taken to mean temples, kovils, mosques, churches, as well as prayer centres and shrines of the four main religions and their denominations that are being actively used. The definition is intentionally narrow so as to identify a key indicator which is measurable so as to make the documentation more practicable. Challenges to identifying attacks: It needs to be acknowledged that attacks on religion occur at multiple levels and in various forms, and that which is claimed as an attack on religion varies widely and may have more to do with perceptions rather than a verifiable incident or development. For instance, it is impossible to classify the increase in population of another religious community as an attack on another religion. The definition does not include incidents which do not lead to damages or injuries in the list. For example, protests Page 5 Attacks on Places of Religious Worship in Post-War Sri Lanka Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2013 outside places of religious worship have not been included but have been referenced in the context section of the chapters, especially in cases where the protests preceded an attack. Multiple attacks on a single place of worship have been counted as one incident and not listed as separate attacks. The lists of attacks in this report are not exhaustive. At the outset it needs to be noted that in general the documentation of attacks on religious places, symbols and persons is highly limited and in some cases there is little or no coverage of individual attacks on particular groups, such as the Evangelical churches in the media. While some religious communities compile lists of incidents, others lack the organisational capacity to do so. The lack of consistent documentation, the lack of information in the public realm and the cautiousness of religious and civil society groups to engage on this issue were key obstacles in the compiling of this report. This report attempts to address this information gap so as to provide a more comprehensive picture of the ground situation and thereby raise public awareness and increase the understanding of policy makers on this issue. The report collates information from a variety of scattered sources to build a more cohesive picture of religious violence post-war. It covers incidents from May 20th 2009 to January 31st 2013. However, it needs to be noted that while the report was being edited over February 2013 a series of incidents were reported particularly on Muslim religious places and also Evangelical churches. Targets and Trends of Attacks: There are 65 cases of attacks on places of religious worship listed in this report. The report does not provide a list of attacks during the war and hence it is difficult to assert that there is sharp increase or decrease of attacks in the post-war period. Nonetheless it is clear from the list that all religious communities are facing various forms of violence. The majority of these cases are from the Christian community (35 cases) and mostly against non-traditional churches. There are 10 cases of attacks on Buddhist temples, the same number of attacks on Hindu places of worship and 9 cases of attacks on Muslim religious places. Direct attacks have been reported from all provinces of Sri Lanka, making clear that the threat is not restricted to particular areas. Most of the reported incidents were from the Western province (16), followed by the Eastern province (12), the Southern province (11) and the North-Western province (9). While the numbers do provide some sense of the scale of the violence, it is important to make distinctions in terms of the nature of violence in each of these incidents. These attacks can be categorized into three main types: inter-communal attacks, intra-religious violence, and robbery. There are other incidents that fall outside these categories, including those related to possible personal or political disputes, development activity and others where the motives and perpetrators remain unknown. Page 6 Attacks on Places of Religious Worship in Post-War Sri Lanka Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2013 In terms of inter-communal attacks the vast bulk of incidents where perpetrators have been identified, are instances of Sinhala Buddhist attacks on other religious communities’ places of worship. Sinhala-Buddhist groups have been implicated in several cases of religious violence and intimidation against minority religions including three mob attacks on Muslim places of worship and several at Christian (largely Evangelical) churches. In 18 of the cases listed alleged perpetrators of the attacks included Buddhist groups and in some cases Buddhist monks claiming to protect and uphold Buddhism. There is at least 1 case of inter-communal violence involving non-Sinhala communities, which took place in Batticaloa. While in the majority of cases the perpetrators have not been prosecuted and in a number of cases are unidentified (such as in robberies), in others there are allegations of the groups and individuals believed to be responsible.

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