{"id":40450,"date":"2012-05-03T09:02:17","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T09:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=40450"},"modified":"2012-05-03T09:02:17","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T09:02:17","slug":"sri-lanka-muslims-call-for-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sri-lanka-muslims-call-for-protection\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka Muslims Call For Protection"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_40451\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/sri-lanka-muslims-call-for-protection\/sri-lankan-minister-of-justice-rauff-hakeem-speaks-during-a-press-conference-in-colombo-on-april-30-2012-photo-afp\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-40451\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-40451\" class=\" wp-image-40451 \" title=\"Sri Lankan Minister of Justice, Rauff Hakeem speaks during a press conference in Colombo on April 30 2012 PHOTO AFP\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Sri-Lankan-Minister-of-Justice-Rauff-Hakeem-speaks-during-a-press-conference-in-Colombo-on-April-30-2012-PHOTO-AFP.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"590\" height=\"329\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-40451\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sri Lankan Minister of Justice, Rauff Hakeem speaks during a press conference in Colombo on April 30, 2012. PHOTO\/ AFP<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>By\u00a0haveeru.com.mv &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka&#8217;s main Muslim party called on the government on Monday to protect religious minorities after protests by Buddhist monks demanding that a 60-year-old mosque be relocated.<\/p>\n<p>The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), which is a member of the ruling coalition, said it opposed shifting the mosque in Dambulla, 150 kilometres (93 miles) north of Colombo, saying this would be &#8220;disastrous&#8221; for the country.<\/p>\n<p>The monks argued that the mosque was inside temple land and should be demolished while the Muslims maintain that they have been offering prayers there since the mid 1940s.<\/p>\n<p>The government said in a statement last week that it had offered three alternate locations for the mosque and had also agreed to finance a new building, an offer firmly rejected by the SLMC.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We will not agree to any compromise of taking land elsewhere,&#8221; SLMC leader and Justice Minister Rauf Hakeem told reporters in Colombo. &#8220;We are very, very firm on that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said &#8220;extremist forces&#8221; were trying to create religious tensions in a country emerging from nearly four decades of ethnic strife which has cost an estimated 100,000 lives.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A strong government must protect the weaker minorities,&#8221; Hakeem said. &#8220;We appeal to the government to ensure that they do not allow xenophobic forces to hold the country hostage.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>More than two-thirds of the Indian Ocean island&#8217;s 20-million population are Buddhists while 7.5 percent are Muslims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-from-foreign-media"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - 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