COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s Muslim minorities have suffered consistent discrimination, harassment and violence since 2013, culminating in the adoption of government policies explicitly targeting them, human rights group Amnesty International has said.

It asserts to trace the development of anti-Muslim sentiment in Sri Lanka, “amid surging Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism”.

The document cites “series of mob attacks committed with impunity”, forced cremation of Muslim COVID-19 victims, ongoing proposals to ban ‘niqab’ (face veil) and ‘madrasas’ (religious schools) and other such “discriminatory” measures, as steps consistent with harassment and violence on the minority group.

“While anti-Muslim sentiment in Sri Lanka is nothing new, the situation has regressed sharply in recent years. Incidents of violence against Muslims, committed with the tacit approval of the authorities, have occurred with alarming frequency. This has been accompanied by the adoption by the current government of rhetoric and policies that have been openly hostile to Muslims,” said Amnesty International, deputy secretary-general Kyle Ward.

“The Sri Lankan authorities must break this alarming trend and uphold their duty to protect Muslims from further attacks, hold perpetrators accountable and end the use of government policies to target, harass and discriminate against the Muslim community.”

The report says incidents of violence towards Muslims have risen in frequency and intensity since 2013, with a series of flashpoints in which attackers and those responsible for hate speeches have enjoyed impunity for their actions.

This escalating hostility began with the anti-halal campaign when Sinhala Buddhist nationalist groups successfully lobbied to end the halal certification on food items, which marks foods permissible for consumption by Muslims in accordance with Islamic scripture and customs.

After months of protests by Buddhist groups, Islamic clerics in Sri Lanka in 2013 had announced the withdrawal of ‘halal’ certification in the interest of communal harmony.

However, the Amnesty report said the campaign gave rise to a number of attacks on mosques and Muslim businesses and there was lack of accountability on nabbing persons responsible for these acts, signalling to others that acts of violence against Muslims could be committed with impunity.

The following year, anti-Muslim riots in the southern coastal town of Aluthgama began after a Sinhala Buddhist nationalist group held a rally in the town, the non-governmental organisation said.

“Here too, perpetrators of violence enjoyed impunity and authorities failed to deliver justice to victims,” the report said.

Referring to the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks, the report said hostility towards Muslims increased markedly after the bombings which killed over 258 people.

The April 21, 2019 attacks were carried out by the local Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ), which has links to the ISIS, tearing through three churches and as many luxury hotels.

The deceased included 11 Indians and more than 500 people were injured.

The Amnesty report accused the current government, led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, of making the Muslim population a “target and scapegoat” to distract from political and economic issues.

“This was evident in the mandatory cremation policy on the disposal of the bodies of COVID-19 victims, which was implemented despite cremation being expressly forbidden in Islam, and a lack of scientific evidence to substantiate the claims that burying victims would further the spread of the disease.”

At the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in the island nation, authorities in May 2020 enforced a mandatory order to cremate the bodies of COVID-19 victims, denying minority communities, including Muslims, their religious rights.

The country had earlier come under intense criticism from rights groups, including the UNHRC, over the cremation order.

The order was reversed in February this year.

The Amnesty report criticised existing legislation in Sri Lanka “to target Muslims, including the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA),” which permits suspects to be detained without charge for up to 90 days, and without court representation.

This is in addition to the misuse of the ICCPR Act, a law intended to prohibit the propagation of racial or religious hatred, amounting to incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, it said.

Established in 1961, Amnesty International models its working on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and other international human rights instruments.

AUSTIN: A federal judge on Wednesday, October 6, 2021, ordered Texas to suspend the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S., calling it an “offensive deprivation” of a constitutional right by banning most abortions in the nation’s second-most populous state since September.

The order by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman is the first legal blow to the Texas law known as Senate Bill 8, which until now had withstood a wave of early challenges. In the weeks since the restrictions took effect, Texas abortion providers say the impact has been “exactly what we feared.” 

In a 113-page opinion, Pitman took Texas to task over the law, saying Republicans lawmakers had “contrived an unprecedented and transparent statutory scheme” to deny patients their constitutional right to an abortion. 

“From the moment S.B. 8 went into effect, women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution,” wrote Pitman, who was appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama.

“That other courts may find a way to avoid this conclusion is theirs to decide; this Court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right.”

But even with the law on hold, abortion services in Texas may not instantly resume because doctors still fear that they could be sued without a more permanent legal decision. Planned Parenthood said it was hopeful the order would allow clinics to resume abortion services as soon as possible.

Texas officials are likely to seek a swift reversal from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which previously allowed the restrictions to take effect. State officials did not immediately react to the ruling.

The lawsuit was brought by the Biden administration, which has said the restrictions were enacted in defiance of the U.S. Constitution.

“For more than a month now, Texans have been deprived of abortion access because of an unconstitutional law that never should have gone into effect. The relief granted by the court today is overdue, and we are grateful that the Department of Justice moved quickly to seek it,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. 

The law, signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in May, prohibits abortions once cardiac activity is detected, which is usually around six weeks, before some women even know they are pregnant. To enforce the law, Texas deputized private citizens to file lawsuits against violators, and has entitled them to at least $10,000 in damages if successful.

The Biden administration argued that Texas has waged an attack on a woman’s constitutional right to abortion under the GOP-engineered restrictions, which took effect Sept. 1.

Abortion providers say their fears have become reality in the short time the law has been in effect. Planned Parenthood says the number of patients from Texas at its clinics in the state decreased by nearly 80% in the two weeks after the law took effect.

Some providers have said that Texas clinics are now in danger of closing while neighboring states struggle to keep up with a surge of patients who must drive hundreds of miles. Other women, they say, are being forced to carry pregnancies to term.

Other states, mostly in the South, have passed similar laws that ban abortion within the early weeks of pregnancy, all of which judges have blocked. But Texas’ version has so far outmaneuvered the courts because it leaves enforcement to private citizens to file suits, not prosecutors, which critics say amounts to a bounty.

“This is not some kind of vigilante scheme,” said Will Thompson, counsel for the Texas Attorney General’s Office, while defending the law to Pitman last week. “This is a scheme that uses the normal, lawful process of justice in Texas.”

The Texas law is just one that has set up the biggest test of abortion rights in the U.S. in decades, and it is part of a broader push by Republicans nationwide to impose new restrictions on abortion.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court began a new term, which in December will include arguments in Mississippi’s bid to overturn 1973’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a woman’s right to an abortion.

Last month, the court did not rule on the constitutionality of the Texas law in allowing it to remain in place. But abortion providers took that 5-4 vote as an ominous sign about where the court might be heading on abortion after its conservative majority was fortified with three appointees of former President Donald Trump.

Ahead of the new Supreme Court term, Planned Parenthood on Friday released a report saying that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, 26 states are primed to ban abortion. This year alone, nearly 600 abortion restrictions have been introduced in statehouses nationwide, with more than 90 becoming law, according to Planned Parenthood.

Texas officials argued in court filings that even if the law were put on hold temporarily, providers could still face the threat of litigation over violations that might occur in the time between a permanent ruling.
At least one Texas abortion provider has admitted to violating the law and been sued — but not by abortion opponents. Former attorneys in Illinois and Arkansas say they sued a San Antonio doctor in hopes of getting a judge who would invalidate the law.

BUCHAREST: Romanian Prime Minister Florin Citu of the governing National Liberal Party was ousted Tuesday after a no-confidence motion in his government passed overwhelmingly, deepening an ongoing political crisis.

The motion censure was filed by the opposition Social Democrat Party (PSD) and supported by former coalition partner USR-Plus, and the far-right AUR party.

The motion passed with 281 votes; only 234 were needed.

The fall of the government caps a political crisis that began a month ago when Citu fired justice minister Stelian Ion of USR-Plus for not signing off on a regional development program.

USR-Plus called the move an “abusive revocation” and quit the three-party cabinet.

During the debates in parliament Tuesday ahead of the vote, Citu lashed out at USR-Plus, saying he had tolerated “a team of incompetents.”

President Klaus Iohannis will now consult lawmakers on appointing a new prime minister, while Citu may remain at the government’s helm for 45 days.

Citu could be reappointed if lawmakers fail twice to agree on a new premier.

Claudiu Tufis, an associate professor of political science at the University of Bucharest, told The Associated Press that he expects the outcome of Tuesday’s vote to be a Liberal cabinet with support from the Social Democrats.

“In parliament, but not in the cabinet,” he said.

USR-Plus have expressed a wish to restore the coalition with a different prime minister.

The Liberal-led government came to power following a parliamentary election last December.

The ongoing crisis could hamper Romania’s efforts to tackle an alarming surge of COVID-19 infections in the European Union nation of 19 million, which is currently putting the country’s hospitals under serious strain.

On Tuesday, Romania recorded its highest number of daily COVID-19 infections — 15,037 cases — since the pandemic started.