Sir Lanka Dismisses Proposal to Make Buddhism State Religion
The controversial proposal to make Buddhism the official state religion never made it to parliament, sources reported recently, as it was dismissed by the Sri Lankan government before its hearing last Tuesday for unclear reasons.
The controversial proposal to make Buddhism the official state religion never made it to parliament, sources reported recently, as it was dismissed by the Sri Lankan government before its hearing last Tuesday for unclear reasons.
According to Glenn Penner of Voice of the Martyrs Canada, the amendment case scheduled to be presented to the Sri Lankan parliament on Oct. 4 was dropped because there was not sufficient support for the debate.
"What they would rather do is to avoid controversy and upsetting the international community at this time with the presidential elections at hand," Penner explained to Mission Network News (MNN). "The amendment did receive a great deal of publicity internationally, and the Sri Lankan government came under a great deal of heat for it, so they’re backing off very quickly."
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Another source, the Doha, Qatar-based Peninsula daily news agency, reported that the United States helped influence the Sri Lankan government’s decision to set aside the proposal.
The Peninsula wrote that a top U.S. State Department official told the Colombo-based Daily Mirror that the Sri Lankan government consented to the U.S. requests to put aside the controversial bill.
The U.S. official, who remains anonymous, informed the Sri Lankan reporter in Washington that the United States had extensive discussions with the Sri Lankan government and expressed the U.S. concerns over the amendment.
The petition by the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) – a Buddhist nationalist party consisting of Buddhist monks – proposed to make Buddhism the official state religion and would have prohibited conversion to any other religion than Buddhism. The most recent bill scheduled for presentation on Oct. 4 was the third of a series of proposals by JHU including two previous anti-conversion bills attempt.
According to the Colombo-based Island news agency, the JHU was unhappy with the Sri Lankan government’s decision to dismiss the case and on Oct. 4 accused the United States of interfering in Sri Lankan affairs by "shamelessly coercing the Sri Lankan government to shelve the Anti-Conversion bill."
The amendment could be reconsidered after the election date and, according to Mission Network News, "the JHU will likely not give up without a fight."
"Pray for the believers there, that they would not suffer retaliation for this setback of the Buddhist agenda," urged Penner. "There is concern, of course that, particularly in rural areas, Christians may suffer from some of the anger that Buddhists feel over being thwarted on this amendment."
