{"id":56415,"date":"2017-11-17T12:20:45","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T17:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=56415"},"modified":"2017-11-17T12:20:45","modified_gmt":"2017-11-17T17:20:45","slug":"british-practising-buddhist-naomi-coleman-who-was-detained-in-sri-lanka-for-having-a-buddha-tattoo-awarded-compensation-by-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=56415","title":{"rendered":"British Practising Buddhist Naomi Coleman Who was Detained in Sri Lanka For Having a Buddha Tattoo Awarded compensation By Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><br \/>\nA woman who was deported from Sri Lanka for having a tattoo of the Buddha on her arm has won compensation.<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong><br \/>\nNaomi Coleman, from Coventry, was detained for four days in April 2014.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><br \/>\nGranting her compensation of 800,000 Sri Lankan rupees &#8211; about \u00a34,000 &#8211; the country&#8217;s Supreme Court said her treatment was &#8220;scandalous and horrifying&#8221; and ruled her rights had been violated. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ms Coleman told the BBC Sinhala Service she was &#8220;overwhelmed&#8221; by the ruling.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Officers involved in her arrest were also ordered to pay her compensation.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Coleman, a mental health nurse, took legal action against the Sri Lankan authorities after her return to the UK.<\/p>\n<p>The court ruled there was &#8220;no legal basis&#8221; for her arrest and said she had been subject to &#8220;degrading treatment&#8221; by some officers and a prison guard.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, one guard had &#8220;made several lewd, obscene and disparaging remarks of a sexually-explicit nature&#8221; towards Ms Coleman, while some police officers had forced her to give them money.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8216;Really frightened&#8217;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Her lawyer JC Weliamuna told the BBC her deportation had been &#8220;contrary to the law governing immigration and emigration&#8221;<br \/>\n.<br \/>\nMs Coleman, who was arrested at Bandaranaike International Airport in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, said previously the detention had left her &#8220;really frightened&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>She told the BBC on Wednesday she was &#8220;shocked&#8221; and &#8220;emotional&#8221; on hearing the news.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Finally the court has actually seen it that I didn&#8217;t do anything wrong,&#8221; Ms Coleman said.<\/p>\n<p>Asked whether she would go back to Sri Lanka, she replied: &#8220;I&#8217;m not sure, I don&#8217;t know. Probably not.<br \/>\n&#8220;I&#8217;m very happy. I just wouldn&#8217;t want it to happen to anybody else.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After an order was made to have her deported, Ms Coleman spent a night in prison in Negombo and two nights in a detention centre while security checks were carried out.<\/p>\n<p>She said she told police she practised Buddhism and had attended meditation retreats and workshops in Thailand, India, Cambodia and Nepal.<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lankan authorities take strict action against perceived insults to Buddhism, which is the religion of most of the island&#8217;s Sinhalese population.<\/p>\n<p><em>Courtesy:BBC<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton56415\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D56415&amp;text=British%20Practising%20Buddhist%20Naomi%20Coleman%20Who%20was%20Detained%20in%20Sri%20Lanka%20For%20Having%20a%20Buddha%20Tattoo%20Awarded...%20&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A woman who was deported from Sri Lanka for having a tattoo of the Buddha on her arm has won compensation. Naomi Coleman, from Coventry, was detained for four days in April 2014. Granting her compensation of 800,000 Sri Lankan rupees &#8211; about \u00a34,000 &#8211; the country&#8217;s Supreme Court said her treatment was &#8220;scandalous and &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=56415\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;British Practising Buddhist Naomi Coleman Who was Detained in Sri Lanka For Having a Buddha Tattoo Awarded compensation By Supreme Court&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56415"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56416,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56415\/revisions\/56416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}