By M M Zuhair,
former MP

With only a few days more for the Presidential election due on 21/9, the matters that the Muslims of Sri Lanka are considering at civil society discussions and within the community as a whole, would be of immense relevance to all political and other leaders of the country.

Statistically Muslims constitute only 9.3% of the national population. They are a close second to the Sri Lankan Tamil strength of 11.1% according to the 2012 Census. The statistical difference is only 1.8% unlike the figures before the July 1983 racial riots. The anti-Tamil pogrom led to Tamils emigrating from the island in noticeably large numbers. It must be added that Tamil migration increased the statistical percentages of both Sinhala and Muslim population in the country but not their real numbers.

In terms of the real numbers who are likely to go to polls, placed at 75%, the number of votes cast by the Muslims would be around 1.2 million and Tamil votes around 1.4 million. The difference in the number of voters would be only around point 2 million or 200,000! The Upcountry Tamils, the third largest minority, who vote invariably independent of the Sri Lankan Tamils constitute 4.1% of the national population.

It has been pointed out that the majority Sinhala votes of 75% had split into four separate blocks and that it has been argued incorrectly that the minority votes can be the deciding factor, overlooking the reality that the minority votes are also divided based not only on ethno-religious differences but also on broader national and regional issues. It is in this backdrop, the significant differences in the Muslim voting patterns and what affects their decision making are being considered.

Muslims consider themselves, in terms of their role in the thirty year war, as the most patriotic amongst the minority ethno-religious communities in the island. However, within two years following the successful conclusion of the war against LTTE’s separatist struggle, the anti-Muslim hate campaigns that got launched most disturbingly from 2012, and the subsequent anti-Muslim riots from 2014 to 2018, had shocked and shaped Muslim perspectives.

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Easter Attacks and the Presidential Commission of Inquiry on the Easter Attacks attributed the hate campaigns and the anti-Muslim riots as having contributed to the despicable Easter Sunday attacks of 21/04/2019, condemned by the entire community and all others.

State sponsored Collective Punishment

The reprehensible anti-Muslim violence including attacks on over 50 mosques, which occurred during the seven years that preceded the Easter attacks of April 2019 and the State sponsored “collective punishment” of the entire community during the subsequent five years that followed it, not mentioning here the post-Easter counter attacks on the Muslims in the NC Province and attacks on another nearly 50 mosques, made the hitherto patriotic Muslims, the “second most victimised community” after the Christians, who obviously suffered the most.

The then political leaders and security establishments, as held by the Supreme Court failed to avert the attacks. On the contrary, Muslim community was “collectively punished” by the then political and security establishments for the crimes of a few criminals, disclosing thereby possible criminal intent in the then rulers’ failure, most inexplicably to avert the attacks, at a time when it was clearly preventable. These have affected the voting considerations of the Muslims.

The forthcoming elections will show that the country wants a change of government, a real democratic change that will oust the very same Cabinet of Ministers and the very same executive officials who together imposed the economic hardships and continued with the said “collective punishment”. It is the very same pohottuwa team that governed Sri Lanka under President Gotabaya Rajapakse (GR) as well as under President Ranil Wickremesinghe (RW).

Some Samples of Collective Punishment

Let us see some samples of this ‘collective punishment’ imposed on the Muslim community under cover of the Easter attacks and which continued under RW and consider how the Muslims are likely to vote on 21/9.

The Muslim community was accused falsely of indoctrinating and creating extremists through service oriented Muslim civil organisations, targeting in particular the Thouheed organisations, the Thabligh movement, the Jamathe-Islami and also the alleged followers of the respected Saudi intellectual Muhammad Ibnu Abdul-Wahab in an attempt to divert attention away from the post war Islamophobic majoritarian radicals.

False accusations were also made against a number of respected global Islamic scholars without any evidence, in an attempt to hide the Western handlers of Al Qaida, Osama bin Laden and the ISIL. On the contrary no accusations or actions were taken against Sinhala extremist entities which carried out hate campaigns, organised anti-Muslim riots and attacks on Mosques.

There were no Trials at Bar or equivalent prosecutions against the majoritarian radicals, or those who failed to avert the Easter attacks while several Trials at bar were initiated against Muslim offenders under the GR and RW governments.

Many Muslim civil organisations were discriminatorily banned by Gazette notifications without calling for explanations from any of the banned organisations. Seven Sinhala extremist organisations recommended to be banned by the Presidential Commission on Easter Attacks were never banned either by the GR or RW governments.

‘Peace TV’ featuring reputed Islamic scholar Dr Zakir Naik watched by Sri Lankan Muslims and widely seen throughout the world was taken off the air, without any explanation and not restored to date.

A non–Muslim female with no knowledge of running mosques was appointed by the Wickremesinghe government as Director of the Department of Muslim Affairs!

Mosques controlled by Buddhist Affairs Minister

Buddhist Affairs Minister controlled Mosque affairs without getting the Wickremesinghe government to appoint Ministers from the respective communities, already in the Cabinet to manage the religious affairs of the respective religions!

Education Ministry stopped the distribution of examination prescribed Islamic texts for Muslim schools alleging that Islamic texts need to be revised.

Aviation Minister inaugurated a direct flight between Colombo and the Israeli administrative capital Tel Aviv in February 2024, fourth month after Israel commenced massacring Palestinians, with an average slaughter of 160 civilian Palestinians per day, in the Israeli war of destruction of the host country Palestine, now entering its 12th month.

Then Minister of Foreign Employment sent Sri Lankans to the Israeli war zone in an explicit support of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territory. He refused to withdraw them notwithstanding agitation against the move. When the Supreme Court removed the Minister from his membership of Parliament, President Wickremesinghe appointed the same man as his advisor on Foreign Employment, trampling over Palestinian sentiments and Muslim feelings over Islam’s third holiest Mosque ‘Al Aqsa’ in “Occupied Palestinian Territory” .

Earlier the US Ambassador to Colombo (happily) announced at a Pathfinder Foundation meeting that Sri Lanka had deployed a vessel gifted by the US to the Sri Lankan Navy to fight the Yemeni Houthis at war with Israel!

Houthi destruction if any of the Sri Lankan vessel could have led to more anti-Muslim convulsions in Sri Lanka! RW displayed no sympathy to the Palestinians facing destruction at the hands of an extremist Israeli government. On the contrary, SJB leader Sajith Premadasa courageously named Israel as a “Terrorist State”!

Religious education interfered with

The Wickremesinghe government has continued the Rajapakse initiative of interfering in the religious education in Madhrasas, in violation of both national and international laws.

In addition a consignment of ‘Holy Quran with Tamil Translation’, a reprint of an earlier edition already available in Sri Lanka, gifted from Saudi Arabia had been kept blocked by the Sri Lankan authorities, for over six months from being cleared, though there is a report that the government last week, in the midst of the Presidential election campaign, permitted the Holy Quran consignment to be cleared.

There is no point in talking about the Saudi gifted ‘Houses for the Tsunami Victims’, now over grown by a jungle of trees, rats and rabbits. GR and RW had failed the tsunami victims of the East!

Large numbers of Sri Lankan muslims have been named by the government in an UN Act list of persons on the basis of allegation without any evidence of allegedly financing Al Qaeda/ISIL. It was republished under the RW government! Do those in the then governments believe that the listed muslims or any single person therein financed the named foreign terrorist organisations?

Many other instances of harassment by the authorities, without taking prompt decisions on pending matters including in the Attorney-General’s department, can be cited. Many international human rights organisations have highlighted some of these instances of State authorities’ harassment of minorities, particularly Muslims.

Many more instances of the “collective punishment” of the community by the GR and the RW governments do exist. Notwithstanding the efforts of a few local Muslim political brokers and tender dealers, 90% of the Muslim voters will not vote for RW or NR. They do not want to live under fears of racial riots!

Muslims were revenged upon

The next President must not make the costly blunder of seeing the Muslims as evil entities! He should know that Muslims played a patriotic role during the war but were revenged upon from 2012 by Norwegian brain-washed majoritarian radicals that led to several anti-Muslim riots, attacks on over fifty Mosques and the Easter attacks! RW had no apologies for appointing a foreigner, the Norwegian LTTE- Sri Lanka broker, as his climate advisor!

The list is endless! Only pseudo-nationalists can continue to side track the plight of the Northern Muslims, all 90,000 were driven out from the North by the LTTE or the sufferings of over a thousand Muslims who were killed by the LTTE in the East, including 147 killed in Kattankudy in a single night while at night prayers in three Mosques and another 75 from Kattankudy killed at Kurukkalmadam, even while agricultural lands were forcibly taken over after killing Muslim farmers, all because Muslims did not support separatism! The reward Muslims got in return was “collective punishment” from two successive governments led by GR represented now by NR and RW!