Local Issues

‘I am above communal considerations’ Select extracts from the Hansard of Minister Rishad Bathiudeen's speech in Parliament on August 8, 2012 “Sir, my electorate and I have been making media headlines in the past few weeks and I would like to make use of this opportunity to set out the real facts with regard to the events that took place …

  As we were saying last week, what makes for good press is the accusation that a government minister tried to bring pressure on a magistrate thereby compromising the independence of the judiciary. This was what the whole country was alerted to and what the entire judiciary from the Supreme Court downwards and the whole legal profession stopped work over. …

Ignored by the government, UNHCR, NGOs and Muslim Politicians   Muslim settlements in Mannar dates back to more than one thousand years.In her book “The Muslims of Sri Lanka” eminent historian Dr. Lorna Dewaraja explained that by 9th century Muslim settlements were established in the coastal areas including Mannar. Muslims in and around Mannar area were descendants of early Arab traders who …

The Dambulla mosque fracas engineered by the militant elements of Sri Lankan Buddhists, the reaction to it by local Muslim politicians and Muslim religious leaders, the former threatening to withdraw their inconsequential support to the government while the latter urging Muslim masses to pray to Allah to restore the status quo, and the conflicting messages from the nation’s prime minister …