Aluthgama anti Muslim violence: Vital questions that need be answered

''There are a number of vital questions, not limited to who organized the mobs; who provided them the weaponry, powerful flashlights and fuel for the burning and in some cases the intoxicants; who provided them who provided the lorries and vans to loot entire households of furniture, and warehouses and shops of goods; who pointed out Muslim houses and other properties, that need to be inquired into and answered. It is also imperative to examine the role of the police and the STF, especially given the eye-witness accounts of these State forces watching and not taking action to stop the rioting and looting.''

One month after the anti-muslim violence in Aluthgama-Statement by Secretariat for Muslims

June 16, 2014

An eye witness account of anti Muslim violence in Aluthgama by a member of Parliament

Burned ( Dinouk Kolambage)

''I witnessed what happened. After the procession when the rioting began I called the police stations that administer the areas. When I called the Matugama police station, they told me that the OIC was not in. The Welipanna police told me that they had only one vehicle and didn’t have personnel.
 Other police stations were silent. When all this happened the police were made to act deaf and blind. The Police have consistently acted deaf and blind to the actions of Gnanasara Thera leading up to this violence'' -  UNP MP PalithaThewarapperum

Sri Lanka Muslim leader warns of radicalisation after riots

Refugees of Aluthgama (Vikalpa)

AFP / Sri Lanka's most senior Muslim politician Friday warned that his government's failure to restrain Buddhist monks accused of sparking religious hate attacks will foment Islamic extremism and threaten security. Justice Minister Rauf Hakeem said he had been under intense pressure from supporters to quit President Mahinda Rajapakse's coalition after it failed to prevent last month's deadly religious violence.

Denying responsibility for Alutgama violence will not suffice

Gota: Denying responsibility

 Jehan Perera

Addressing members of the national advisory committee to the Ministry of National Languages and Social Integration, Minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara gave substance to the conviction of those who believe in the prospects for peaceful coexistence and harmony within Sri Lanka's multi ethnic and multi religious society. He said that a majority of MPs of the government were opposed of the actions of the extremist groups that had engaged in anti-Muslim activities.

Aluthgama anti-Muslim riots:The conduct of Police, STF and even Doctors were questionable

A gun shot in Aluthgama

Fact -Finding Mission Report by a Womens Collective to Areas in South Sri Lanka That Were Affected by Anti-Muslim Violence.

On the 15th of June 2014 ethnic riots took place in Aluthgama following a rally organized by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), a Buddhist fundamentalist organization. Even though the police and state officials had been informed of the potential of the rally to turn violent, no steps were taken to stop the same, instead a large number of police and Special Task Forces (STF) personnel were deployed in the area.

Fathima Thahir,the Family Owned Provision Store in Battaramulla and a Rock Flung in the Dark.

D.B.S.Jeyaraj

Fathima Thahir is a Muslim woman in her forties who manages a small provision store owned by her family in the Colombo suburb of Battaramulla. The store “Fathima Stores”was named after her by her father who founded it in 1949 long before Battaramulla experienced the current scale of urban development.”Fathima Stores” on 192 Main Street is the only Muslim owned shop in the vicinity and is well-known for selling bulath/vettrilai/betel.

U.N. Chief Urges Sri Lanka to Protect Muslims Under Attack

Sri Lanka Muslims protest

Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS  (IPS) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on the Sri Lankan government to “take necessary measures” to prevent any further attacks against minority Muslims in the country. He said the secretary-general recalls the Human Rights Council resolution of March 2014, which urges the government of Sri Lanka to investigate alleged attacks on members of religious minority groups and to take steps to prevent such attacks in the future.

Govt. ‘blatantly misinformed’ UNHRC about Aluthgama clashes: Muslim Council

Manisha Gunasekera lied to UN

◾Council fires letter to External Affairs Minister

◾Alleges Govt. informed Council in Geneva that violence was instigated by Muslims

◾Govt. statement in Geneva similar to versions propagated by ‘anti Muslim interests’

◾Geneva statement missed golden opportunity to stand against hate speech, violence: Council

Dharisha Bastians

Sri Lanka: Victor Ivan reveals Gota's relations to Bodu Bala Sena

Ivan

With the defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa being blamed following the calamity in Aluthgama and Beruwala, it seems that he had informed Gnanasara Thera of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) to call a media briefing and distance him from the organisation, advisor of the Ravaya newspaper - senior journalist Victor Ivan  says.

“Armed mobs attacked opposition M.P.'s vehicle with 16 Muslims while police simply looked on”-

''Mobs armed with swords and sand bottles, and so forth were on road sides about a kilometre from the Aluthgama fair while police was looking on. I drove the vehicle. There were five small kids, two pregnant women, three mothers, a girl, a boy and altogether there were 16. A police mobile was driven ahead of my van. Police was looking on as mobs armed with swords and clubs and so forth, attacked. The police mobile stopped at the place where the attack was taking place. The mobs also attacked my vehicle.'' -
Member of Parliament, Palitha Thevarapperuma

Army spokesman's attack on opposition MP Mangala Samaraweera: The Army getting involved in politics

Harim Peiris

Late last week we witnessed the scenario where the Army spokesman, a brigadier in rank, made the unusual claim that current UNP spokesman and former Rajapakse Administration Foreign Minister, MP Mangala Samaraweera had compromised national security by alleging at a press conference, that state intelligence agencies or at least some intelligence chiefs, were supporting the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and that the Aluthgama and Beruwela anti Muslim violence was in fact an organized operation with state intelligence backing.

Sri Lanka: How long Muslim leaders can control the passions of their youth and whether external Islamic forces will seek to intervene remains to be seen

An extremist Buddhist group has taken steps to expel Muslims from the island kingdom, silencing dissent through propaganda and intimidation.

After three Sri Lankan Muslims were killed and thousands more were forced to shelter in mosques and schools, many having lost everything in the worst communal violence in decades, the minister of Public Relations, Mervyn Silva, went on TV and offered to marry a Muslim woman to make up for it.

Three letter from Sri Lanka Muslim Council to IGP, to FM and to JHU

''The report presented by Ms. Manisha Gunasekera, Deputy Permanent Representative gives figures of casualties that are ridiculous to say the least. She, like the Inspector General of Police is implying that the Muslims were the cause of the violence as they have cast the first stone when the procession was allowed to go through a Muslim village. We have video evidence to the contrary, which we could present to you if you wish.''

Sri Lanka: Aluthgama post mortems, suspicious - SLMC

Blood in the mosque, Aluthgama

The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress says that the post mortem reports of those killed in the Beruwala and Aluthgama clashes are highly suspicious. Speaking to the BBC yesterday, SLMC General Secretary M.T. Hasan Ali has said that post mortem reports of victims shot dead, cite the reason for death as being stabbed by a knife. Ali has added that he had no faith in police investigations. Ali said that upon visiting the Balapitiya hospital, he saw that all persons admitted had faced gunshots. The SLMC urges President Mahinda Rajapaksa to appoint a presidential commission to probe into the clash

SLM

Sri Lanka: Aluthgama Violence Scares Schoolchildren

(File photo)

The incidents that took place recently in Aluthgama and Beruwela have definitely had an adverse psychological impact on youth who were affected and displaced due to the violence. The clear drop in student attendance in Muslim schools in the affected area is a sign of fear among the community even though the government claims that the situation in the area has been brought back to normalcy.

Zonal Education Director of the Kalutara Zonal Education Office Priyani Mudalige added that they declared the reopening of the schools in the affected area, last Monday.

Sri Lankan Muslims describe brutal communal violence

World Socialist Web Site reporters this week visited the Sri Lanka coastal town of Aluthgama, 60 kilometres from Colombo, where Buddhist extremist thugs have attacked the Muslim community. The communal violence was whipped up by an anti-Muslim meeting organised by Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Brigade, in Aluthgama on June 15. BBS secretary Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, a Buddhist monk, made a venomous speech against Muslims, declaring it would be the “end of them if any of them laid a finger on any Sinhalese.” After the meeting, mobs went on the rampage, looting and burning Muslim-owned houses and businesses, killing two Muslims and a Tamil, and injuring around 60 people. The thugs continued their violence while security forces deployed by the government looked the other way.

Sri Lanka call to arrest reporter ( for covering Aluthgama violence)

Dinuk Kolambage

The Australian  

AS journalists around the world reel over lengthy prison sentences handed down to three Al Jazeera reporters in Egypt, a media freedom controversy has erupted in Sri Lanka after the editor of the Daily News called for the arrest of a local Al Jazeera journalist for reporting on inter-religious riots.   In a series of Twitter rants, the state-owned newspaper’s editor, Rajpal Abeynayake, accused Al Jazeera’s Colombo stringer, Dinouk Colombage, of inciting ­religious tensions by reporting on Buddhist-Muslim clashes last week in southwest Aluthgama in which four people died and about 80 more were injured.

UNP makes fresh charges against Govt. over Aluthgama clashes

Muslims in Sri Lanka (Reuters)

Chamitha Kuruppu

The United National Party claims the Government has distorted evidence of the two murders and incidents related to the Aluthgama and Beruwala riots, and alleged there is a plot to divide the communities while trying to damage the long-term friendship with Middle Eastern countries. “There is a conspiracy taking place and it is the Government that is behind the ongoing violence in the country. It is not the United States or Saudi Arabia or any other international force that is behind these unfortunate incidents,” UNP MP Mangala Samaraweera charged yesterday at a media briefing.

"US Embassy In Colombo Was Behind Anti-Muslim Violence" -- Editor, Gota's War

Veteran political commentator C.A.Chandraprema's analysis of the Aluthgama clash has given rise to the speculation that the US Embassy in Colombo was behind the whole incident and they exactly knew what was happening in Aluthgama! "The US Embassy should explain to the world how the BBS including the thug Gnanasara were given visas for a tour of the USA about a year ago, long after they had begun this anti-Muslim hate campaign. By the time they went to the USA, they had begun surrounding Muslim business houses, the attack on Fashion Bug in Pepiliyana had taken place and the BBS had declared themselves to be ‘unofficial policemen’ and had begun this process of taking the law into their own hands.

Private Sector Urges The Govt To Take Action Against Hate-mongers

Sri Lanka's National Chamber Commerce and several other organizations representing the private sector of the country have issued a statement strongly condemning communal violence in Beruwala, Aluthgama, Dharga Town and several other areas in the country. National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka, Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka (FCCISL), Chamber of Young Lankan Entrepreneurs (COYLE),  International Chamber of Commerce Sri Lanka (ICCSL), Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF), National Chamber of Exporters of Sri Lanka, the Ceylon National Chamber of Industries and the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) have jointly issued the statement condemning communal violence.