After Gota Assures No Closure, Court Orders Shutdown Of Dehiwala Mosque
March 4, 2014
Five days after Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Gotabaya Rajapaksa assured Muslim representatives he would not permit the closure of registered mosques, a court has ordered the shutdown of a mosque inDehiwala that has come under heavy pressure during the past few months.
Gotabaya
The Gangodawila Magistrate ordered the mosque to cease all religious activity today after the Kohuwela police filed a public nuisance case against the mosque.
The police claim the mosque exists illegally and is not registered and say they are acting on the instructions of the Ministry of Buddha Sasana and Religious Affairs. On 25 February Gotabaya Rajapaksa who met with Muslim businessmen and representatives at an event organised by Colombo Mayor AJM Muzammil took the issue up with a DIG and pledged the mosque would not be shut down, Latheef Farook wrote recently.
The US draft resolution on Sri Lanka that was circulated in Geneva on Monday (3) expressed alarm at the rapid rise in violence and discrimination on the basis of religion or belief, particularly against members of religious minority groups in Sri Lanka, including Hindus, Muslims and Christians. The draft resolution calls upon the Sri Lankan Government to investigate all attacks, by individuals and groups, on temples, mosques, and churches and to take steps to prevent future attacks; and calls on the Government of Sri Lanka to investigate and hold accountable perpetrators of attacks on places of worship, journalists, human rights defenders, members of religious minority groups, and other members of civil society.
It’s OK if there are drugs beyond A’pura – Gota
Tuesday, 04 March 2014
“Think nothing about the heroin racket beyond Anuradhapura, in Vavuniya, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Mannar, Jaffna. That is a strategy. Raids are not needed in those areas. Let it remain there. Then, there will be less problems,” said defence secretary Nandasena Gotabhaya Rajapaksa at the security council meeting recently. Other members of the council were very much surprised to hear his statement.
The council met, chaired by the defence secretary, to discuss measures to curb the narcotic drugs which are spreading in unprecedented proportions country wide. The meeting came in the light of severe international pressure to Sri Lanka take preventive measures.
Due to reasons best known to him only, the defence secretary is adopting a lackadaisical approach with regard to the drugs menace. He had chaired the meeting ex officio, and made no suggestion on how to curb the drugs. Instead, what he had done was to block the ongoing investigations and raids against the racketeers.
International anti-narcotic quarters believe Sri Lanka to have become the operational hub for drug racketeers in the South Asian and Southeast Asian regions. The lackadaisical approach of the government is due to its belief that the Sri Lankan economy will lose a massive amount of black money if the menace is curbed.
