Less than a week after Swiss residents decided in a referendum to ban the wearing of the burqa in the country, Sri Lanka also announced a similar move, as part of a “national struggle against religious extremism.”
The island’s national security minister, Sarath Virskara, has announced that he has signed an order banning the wearing of the burqa in the country, subject to cabinet approval. The minister said the cabinet was expected to approve the order, which also includes the closure of more than 1,000 Muslim schools operating under the direction of the Ministry of Education.
“The burqa is a threat to national security. It is a sign of extremism that is not local and has only recently reached us. We will certainly ban it,” the minister said. Despite the minister’s confident approach, the law is subject to the approval of two – thirds of the state’s parliament, and may run into difficulties.
Sri Lanka, where the majority of the population is Buddhist, is home to a nine-percent Muslim minority. In recent years there has been a deterioration in relations between Muslims and their Buddhist neighbors, due to the infiltration of an ideology of radical Islam and due to the extremism of the Buddhist majority, which supports a strict and separatist interpretation of Buddha teachings.
In 2019, ISIS carried out a coordinated terrorist attack against the Christian minority in the country. The attack killed 269 people and injured more than five hundred, after armed terrorists stormed churches full of worshipers during Easter. The attack has exacerbated tensions between Buddhists and Muslims in the country and a wave of attacks against the Muslim minority.