EMERGENCY IN SRI LANKA
Despite the state of emergency and a heavy deployment of troops in riot-hit scenic Kandy district, home to famous tea plantations and Buddhist relics communal violence between majority Sinhala Buddhists and minority Muslims has not subsided. This is the first time since August 2011, that a state of emergency has been in force in the Indian Ocean’s island nation. The government has ordered an Internet blackout, blocking of social media websites including Facebook and WhatsApp, after police discovered that mobs of Sinhalese rioters were using social media to coordinate attacks on Muslim establishments. A worried President Maithripala Sirisena has divested the law and order portfolio from Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The Sinhalese Buddhists have long harboured anti-Muslim feeling, buying the myth that their population growth is slowing and that of the minority community’s is increasing because they do not practise birth control, marry four times, and have a secret plan to make Sri Lanka a Muslim majority country. Fundamentalist Buddhist groups such as the Bodu Bala Sena and the Ravana Balaya, which promote the concept of “Sri Lanka for Sinhalese Buddhists,” exploit and propagate these myths.