{"id":84423,"date":"2024-07-24T00:18:45","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T04:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=84423"},"modified":"2024-07-24T20:31:11","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T00:31:11","slug":"sri-lanka-apologizes-for-the-gotabaya-rajapaksa-administration-enforcing-a-cremation-only-policy-for-victims-of-covid-19-pandemic-that-hurt-muslim-religious-sentiments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=84423","title":{"rendered":"Sri  Lanka Apologizes for  the Gotabaya Rajapaksa Administration Enforcing a \u201cCremation Only\u201d  Policy for Victims of Covid 19 Pandemic that Hurt   Muslim Religious Sentiments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><br \/>\nBy<\/p>\n<p>Meera  Srinivasan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> Sri Lanka on Tuesday apologised for enforcing a \u201ccremations only\u201d policy during the Covid-19 pandemic, going against the religious sentiments of Muslims, as well as expert views that burials were safe.<\/p>\n<p>Issuing a statement on Tuesday, the government said the Cabinet approved a joint proposal from a group of ministers \u201cto plead an apology on behalf of the government\u201d, from all communities affected by the compulsory cremation policy during the pandemic, when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was in office.<\/p>\n<p>The government cited two studies it commissioned later that showed burying the bodies of Covid-19 victims presented no risk of the virus spreading through the water table \u2013 the claim that authorities based their policy decision on.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration\u2019s policy, which disregarded prevalent opinion of scientists and global bodies \u2014 including the World Health Organization \u2014 that victims could be buried or cremated, caused much agony especially to Sri Lanka\u2019s Muslim community. They were prohibited from burying their relatives according to their religious beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>According to the official statement, a total of 276 Muslims who succumbed to the virus were cremated at that time, despite a persistent campaign from the Muslim community, which makes up about 10% of the country\u2019s 22-million population, and rights defenders. <\/p>\n<p>Some went to the Supreme Court in 2020, but the top court dismissed the petitions challenging the government\u2019s decision that was widely seen as unscientific and discriminatory. <\/p>\n<p> The policy, which came into effect in April 2020, was later reversed in February 2021, reportedly after an appeal made by then Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan who visited the island nation earlier that month.<\/p>\n<p><em>Courtesy:The Hindu<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton84423\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D84423&amp;text=Sri%20%20Lanka%20Apologizes%20for%20%20the%20Gotabaya%20Rajapaksa%20Administration%20Enforcing%20a%20%E2%80%9CCremation%20Only%E2%80%9D%20%20Policy%20for...%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 Sri Lanka on Tuesday apologised for enforcing a \u201ccremations only\u201d policy during the Covid-19 pandemic, going against the religious sentiments of Muslims, as well as expert views that burials were safe. Issuing a statement on Tuesday, the government said the Cabinet approved a joint proposal from a group of ministers \u201cto plead &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=84423\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;Sri  Lanka Apologizes for  the Gotabaya Rajapaksa Administration Enforcing a \u201cCremation Only\u201d  Policy for Victims of Covid 19 Pandemic that Hurt   Muslim Religious Sentiments&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\/84423"}],"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=84423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84424,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84423\/revisions\/84424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}