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Sri Lankan government puts religious minorities under pressure

A law of antiterrorism prohibits Christians to express their religious beliefs.

According to the Human Right Watch (HRW) American news portal, Sri Lanka’s government should remove an anti-terrorism law, which puts pressure on religious minorities. According to this law, the country’s citizens can be condemned to two years of prison for causing “religious, racial or common disharmony”. 

The regulation allows the authorities to arrest and rehabilitate anyone who by words spoken or written or by signs or visible representations cause violence or religious, racial or common disharmony, or hostility between different communities or religious or racial groups”, states HRW.

It means that Christians in Sri Lanka have no right to express their religious beliefs on the social network. They can be arrested under any pretext. This January, a functionary of Human Rights of the UN warned that the prohibitions and the hate speech of the Sri Lankan government threaten the human rights of minorities.

In Sri Lanka, Christianity is treated as a foreign religion. The country is 52nd on the Open Doors’ world watch list of Christian persecution. Christians in the country are persecuted by the government, the community, family members and Islamist extremists.

Source: Portas Abertas

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