Sri Lanka Proposes Burqa Ban

A burqa is a garment worn on top of the entire body and face and is utilized by some Muslim women. (Flickr)

Sri Lanka announced it will ban the burqa, a full-body veil that covers the face, while also closing nearly 1,000 Islamic schools, causing backlash from the country’s minority Muslim population. The government has faced accusations of employing questionable anti-terror laws to manage extremism, providing itself legal cover to confine suspects for as long as two years so as to “de-radicalize” them. 

Sri Lankan Minister of Public Security, Sarath Weerasekara, said that he had signed a document on March 12 asking the Sri Lankan cabinet to approve the burqa ban. Addressing a community of people at a Buddhist temple on March 13, Weerasekara declared, “The burqa has a direct impact on national security.” He went on to say, “In our early days, we had a lot of Muslim friends, but Muslim women and girls never wore the burqa,” concluding the statement by remarking, “It is a sign of religious extremism that came about recently. We will definitely ban it.”

The government initially banned burqas in 2019 as a temporary measure in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday bomb assaults on public property that killed more than 260. The people behind the attack belonged to two local Muslim groups that showed support to the Islamic State (ISIS). They attacked three hotels, two Roman Catholic parishes, and one Protestant church. 

In his statement, Weerasekara said that the government will boycott more than 1,000 madrassas, saying they have not legally registered themselves and fail to follow the national education policies and standards. 

The government’s decision to ban burqas and shut down schools follows a mandate to cremating those who died of COVID-19, going against the religious practices of Muslims who bury their dead. While the government reversed this order after strong criticism from the international community, the burqa ban has further disillusioned the minority Muslim population. 

According to Shreen Saroor, a Sri Lankan peace and women’s rights activist, the actions of the government came “at a time when the Muslim community has been constantly targeted.” In an interview with Al Jazeera, she further stated that the attitude of the government is “part of the Islamophobic reaction in Sri Lanka.”

Soon after the escalating outrage, government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella addressed the public at the Cabinet’s weekly media briefing and suggested that a ban was a serious decision requiring deliberation and agreement and that it would be done after consultation. In Sri Lanka, Muslims constitute only 10 percent of the country’s population. Within this 10 percent, only a fraction of women wear the burqa, making them a small proportion of the country’s 22 million people. Despite this, the government has banned the burqa on sweeping national security grounds.