A group of Muslim families are launching a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee about Sri Lanka’s policy of enforced cremation of all those confirmed or suspected to have died with COVID-19, saying that it breaches their religious rights and is causing “untold misery.”
The case seeking interim relief is being brought on behalf of the families by the Muslim Council of Great Britain and with the support of the British law firm Bindmans.
The Sri Lankan government is allegedly enforcing hundreds of cremations, despite international and Sri Lankan medical experts saying that there is no evidence that COVID-19 is communicable from dead bodies.
The group of eight bringing the complaint acknowledge and accept in their claim that in battling the pandemic, “difficult decisions have to be taken which interfere with fundamental rights.”
However, they say that the government is mandating cremation without any regard for the wishes of families or their religious beliefs.
UN special rapporteurs have written twice to the Sri Lankan government — in April last year and last month — urging it to respect the wishes of those who seek burial, and to recognize that the disregard of Muslims’ feelings might lead them not comply with the cremations.
As many as 200 Muslims have allegedly been cremated in Sri Lanka.
A Sri Lankan expert committee last month accepted that burial is permissible, but the government has taken no action.
The applicants, all related to people who have been cremated, say that the procedures took place without their consent or approval.
In their joint submission seeking interim relief from the committee, the families say: “All of the cremations took place in a forced and arbitrarily expedited manner, denying family members any opportunity to respect their religious and cultural beliefs.”
The practice of burial — and the associated religious rituals and practices — are central tenets of the Islamic faith, a faith that is practiced by a persecuted minority in Sri Lanka, they say.
The claim says that on Jan. 1, the Sri Lanka Medical Association issued a statement confirming that COVID-19 dead could be buried as “the virus is unlikely to remain infectious within a dead body.”
Human rights advocates have said that the policy of the Sinhala Buddhist-majority government is part of an ongoing attack on Sri Lanka’s Muslim community, who make up 9 percent of the population.
Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was last year elected on a wave of anti-Muslim, hardline Buddhist sentiment, following the Easter suicide bombings by Islamist militants in churches and hotels in April last year, which left 267 people dead.
A case for discrimination has been lodged with the Sri Lankan Supreme Court, but the initial application was rejected. The case may be heard again next month.
As a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Sri Lanka is in theory expected to follow the rulings of the committee.
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