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A 20-day-old Muslim baby was cremated on December 9 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, despite strong objections from his parents. The incident has caused outrage among Muslims in Sri Lanka. Apart from Sri Lanka, many other countries in the world have expressed their anger and condemnation in this regard.
Sri Lanka’s Muslim minority has been outraged by the government’s decision to burn the bodies of people of all races and creeds after their deaths in Corona. According to them, the government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is deliberately ignoring the religious sensibilities of Muslims.
108 Muslims who have died in Corona are known to have been forcibly burned in the country so far. The forcible cremation of a dead child named Sheikh on suspicion of having a crown has further fueled the anger of Muslims.
At the Colombo crematorium, where the boy was cremated, Muslims appeared in groups on Sunday and hung white ribbons on the door. Many Sri Lankan Muslims have protested by tying white ribbons to the walls of their doors and windows. The protests are happening on social media under the hashtag ‘Stop Fosed Cremation’.
Sri Lankan Muslim expatriates have also protested in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and many Middle Eastern countries. They were joined by Muslim and human rights activists from other countries. In a joint statement, four British MPs called on the British government to pressure Sri Lanka to lift its obligation to burn.
Furthermore, the OIC, a coalition of 57 Muslim countries, issued a third statement last week demanding the lifting of the obligation to burn Muslims.
Swelling of the Sheikh child
The controversy over the coronation of a son of a poor Muslim couple in Colombo who was forcibly cremated has yet to be resolved.
The boy’s driver, Baba Fahim, and his wife, Safina, said they were delighted with the birth of their son after six years of trying. On December 6, the baby was transferred to a Colombo hospital after falling ill.
Doctors tested antigens on the bodies of the three that night to identify the corona. Although Fahim and Safina Corona were identified as negative, their baby was reported as positive. Doctors forcibly left the baby overnight and sent the parents home.
Mohammad Fahim said: “My wife and I cried to be allowed to be with our son. They did not.
The following day, December 6, the father was informed by telephone that the child had died in Corona. Father Fahim still doesn’t want to admit that his son was actually a crown. According to him, when the husband and wife are negative, the child’s crown is positive.
It does not accept decisions based solely on antigen testing.
Not just the death of the child, the entire family is extremely angry at the way the 20-day-old baby was cremated despite their strong objections. Seeing the negative reaction at home and abroad, the hospital authorities are trying to explain that the decision to incinerate was made after the parents refused to take the child’s body.
Mohammad Fahim denied the hospital’s claim, saying the hospital was a “blatant lie” and that he had been called in and forced to sign a paper. He said they called him to the crematorium the moment before the cremation. But he did not enter. He said, ‘How can I see that my 20 day old baby is burning? No one else has to endure such hardships. ‘
Muslims don’t go to hospital out of fear
Ilmi Ahmed, vice president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, an alliance of Muslim organizations in Sri Lanka, said that the treatment of Muslims, regardless of WHO guidelines and expert opinion, was racist.
“Forcibly cremating the body of a 20-day-old boy has gone beyond the limits of all rudeness,” he said.
Ahmed added: “Muslims in Sri Lanka live in fear that their bodies will be cremated if they die in Corona.” Just because of that fear, many Muslims do not go to the hospital despite having corona symptoms, keeping it a secret. And secretly go to known doctors.
He said hundreds of phone calls come to his organization every day asking for help. They don’t understand what to do. They are asking for help.
Muslim organizations and the country’s Muslim political leaders have been in talks with the government to change the decision since the decision was made in April to cremate the dead, regardless of their race or religion. He is trying to convince the government that cremation is against the rules of Islam and is a sensitive issue for Muslims.
But the government doesn’t listen to him. The government does not follow World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines that burial for crown victims is completely safe and that burial and cremation are taking place in 190 countries.
Ilmi Ahmed said: “The government has repeatedly claimed that the decision was made on the advice of the technical committee. But we know that the person who heads that committee is a judicial medical officer. He is not a virologist. We wanted to reconstitute that technical committee with real experts. There is also an issue of ethics in medical science, we talk about community. No words are heard.
Ahmed added: “They have also suggested to the government that the bodies be buried in concrete coffins so that no infection spreads into the groundwater.” But they still didn’t listen.
The government argues that the expert committee has told the government that the groundwater level in Sri Lanka is not much deeper than the surface. As a result, burying a corona patient will contaminate the groundwater and increase the risk of infection.
The country’s Supreme Court has rejected all Muslim appeals to the court.
Fierce Buddhist nationalism
Ilmi Ahmed said they now fear the impact of the government’s stubborn behavior on Muslim youth. Young Muslims are seeing their parents, grandparents and uncles being burned without being buried. They are certainly not happy with it. Many may lean toward extremism.
The deputy chairman of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka believes that the decision to burn Muslims in Corona has something to do with the rise of “extremist Buddhist nationalism” in Sri Lanka.
He said: “The hard-line Buddhist religious leaders have now become influential in politics. Before the last elections, these Buddhist leaders openly said that Sri Lanka is a Buddhist state. Then the government will be a Buddhist government. They are talking about making a uniform law. They want to remove all the religious laws that Muslims have about marriage, property, and birth and death. They want a country, a law. The order to force Muslims to burn is also part of it.
Buried abroad
The news that the Sri Lankan government is now trying to bury the bodies of the Muslims killed in Corona in the Maldives has sparked fresh anger among Sri Lankan Muslims.
The Maldivian government is considering allowing the burial of Muslims who died in Corona, Sri Lanka, the AFP news agency reported.
Maldivian Foreign Minister Abdullah Shahid tweeted: “President Ibrahim Mohammed Solih is consulting with his ministers on cooperation with Sri Lanka on funerals for the Islamic religion.”
The Maldivian minister said the Maldivian government was considering it at the request of Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.
Ilmi Ahmed, leader of the Muslim community, said that some Muslim rights activists and various Muslim companies had started to communicate whether the bodies could be buried in Pakistan and Malaysia.
“We may be a minority, but like you, we are citizens of this country,” wrote Colombo journalist Munza Mushtaq on Twitter, drawing attention to the burial of President Gotabha abroad. So please allow us to bury in this country. ‘
Ilmi Ahmed admits that Muslims are reluctant to take bodies abroad and bury them in those countries.
The BBC’s Sinhalese language department has been trying for several days to talk to Sri Lankan health minister Pabitra Wanniaracchi, including government officials involved in controlling the crown, about the cremation of Muslim bodies. But there was no reply.
But another government minister, Kehelia Rambukwela, said Muslims were not being discriminated against. He maintains that “even Buddhists can complain that they are not fully committed to religion either.”
According to a recent tweet from the Prime Minister’s Office, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has asked his ministers and health officials to examine the possibility of burying in a high place where the water level is quite low.
Source: BBC
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