{"id":71146,"date":"2020-12-02T18:05:20","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T23:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=71146"},"modified":"2020-12-02T20:12:48","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T01:12:48","slug":"sri-lankas-supreme-court-dismisses-fundamental-rights-petitions-filed-by-muslim-civil-society-members-challenging-govt-regulations-stipulating-compulsory-cremation-of-all-covid-18-victims-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=71146","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka&#8217;s Supreme Court Dismisses Fundamental Rights Petitions Filed by Muslim Civil Society Members Challenging Govt Regulations  Stipulating Compulsory Cremation of all COVID -18 Victims Instead of Burial"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By<\/p>\n<p>Meera Srinivasan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka on Tuesday dismissed petitions, including those filed by Muslim civil society members, challenging government regulations mandating cremation for all COVID-19-related deaths.<\/p>\n<p>The gazette notification issued in April, a month after Sri Lanka detected its first local case of the coronavirus, set off concern among the island\u2019s Muslims \u2014 they make up about 10% of Sri Lanka\u2019s 21 million population \u2014 who sought a policy revision as the practice of cremations goes against their religious beliefs.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>However, despite the World Health Organization\u2019s guidelines saying victims could be \u201cburied or cremated\u201d, the government\u2019s COVID-19 regulations say bodies of \u201call COVID-19 victims will be cremated within 24 hours of the death\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, a government-appointed experts\u2019 committee too maintained that cremation was the only option to be made available in Sri Lanka for COVID-19 victims.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are very concerned, but we still hope that the President will do the right thing and direct authorities to let Muslim families bury COVID-19 victims in their families,\u201d N.M. Ameen, president of Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, told The Hindu.<\/p>\n<p>Critics have slammed the government for its \u201cdiscrimination\u201d against the minority community. From UN Rapporteurs to international human rights organisations, many have urged the Sri Lankan government to review the decision and respect the Muslim community\u2019s burial rights.<\/p>\n<p>The top court\u2019s decision comes amid a deadly second wave of COVID-19 in the island nation, that has rapidly increased the total number of cases to about 24,500 and that of victims to 122. The pandemic has spread to all districts of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Prison riots<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, following the prison riots near Colombo on Sunday, in which guards opened fire killing 11 inmates and injured over 100, authorities on Wednesday said eight of the 11 who died were found to be COVID-19 positive patients.<\/p>\n<p>Inmates at different prisons across the island \u2014 known to be overcrowded with prisoners thrice their capacity \u2014 have been demanding greater care and attention in the wake of over 1,000 inmates testing positive.<\/p>\n<p><em>Courtesy:The Hindu<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton71146\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D71146&amp;text=Sri%20Lanka%26%238217%3Bs%20Supreme%20Court%20Dismisses%20Fundamental%20Rights%20Petitions%20Filed%20by%20Muslim%20Civil%20Society%20Members...%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>By Meera Srinivasan The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka on Tuesday dismissed petitions, including those filed by Muslim civil society members, challenging government regulations mandating cremation for all COVID-19-related deaths. The gazette notification issued in April, a month after Sri Lanka detected its first local case of the coronavirus, set off concern among the island\u2019s &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=71146\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;Sri Lanka&#8217;s Supreme Court Dismisses Fundamental Rights Petitions Filed by Muslim Civil Society Members Challenging Govt Regulations  Stipulating Compulsory Cremation of all COVID -18 Victims Instead of Burial&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\/71146"}],"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=71146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71147,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71146\/revisions\/71147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}