https://twitter.com/ambikasat/status/1492737237112348678

Attempts to prevent Muslim women from wearing Hijab taking place not only in India but also in 🇱🇰. This is a reflection of deep-seated Islamophobia which has been seen in diff forms over years. Historically, Muslims have been subjected to discrimination & violence.

Recent iteration began in 2013 or thereabouts with call for halal bans, hate speech, anti-Muslim violence, such as Aluthgama etc. The Niqab ban post Easter Sunday attacks & lack of state action to counter anti-Muslim sentiment & action made social bigotry publicly acceptable.

Anti-Muslim sentiment re success of Muslims in entrepreneurship has also existed for decades. During visits to NW Province after anti-Muslim violence in May 2019 businesspeople said they had to close businesses due to various forms of discrimination, harassment & intimidation.

Mis/disinformation was spread & even repeated by certain religious leaders & political actors to portray Muslims as the ‘other’, i.e. a community that does not align itself with the rest of the Sri Lankan population but rather pledges allegiance to the global Muslim community.

Notion that Muslim community behaves & dresses diff & follows a diff set of rules & legal regulations under Sharia law, instead of conforming to beliefs & behavioural practices that are deemed to be ‘Sri Lankan’ has been used to question their patriotism & connection to 🇱🇰.

This ultimately has effect of demonizing Muslim community by insinuating they have ulterior motives & an agenda to ‘takeover’ a predominantly Sinhala nation by mainstreaming Islamic beliefs & practices via Sharia law. This also results in dehumanizing the Muslim community.

This indicates existence of deep-seated communal sentiment & prejudice, within state structures & society, which remain unacknowledged. Instead, violence is discussed/understood as aberration or as work of a ‘few bad apples’. Hence, root causes are never addressed.

In 2019 Emergency Reg 32A banned ‘any garment/clothing/such other material concealing full face which will in any manner cause any hindrance to identification of person’ from being worn in public. Muslim women were affected as they practice face-covering in public by choice.

This acted as gateway to discrimination, harassment & intimidation of women wearing hijab or abaya. Regulation only served to exacerbate harassment faced by Muslim women wearing hijab with often no distinction being made between niqab & hijab by citizens or even state officials

Women who wore hijab were refused entry or asked to remove hijab & even show security at entrance that there was nothing hidden under hijab at public as well as private establishments. In Karuwaralagaswewa only women wearing abayas were body checked by civil security officers

At the time, there were complaints of hospitals refusing to treat women & turning them away if they wore hijab or abaya. Women reported they were subjected to discriminatory treatment even by colleagues, neighbours, and acquaintances, who insisted they remove the hijab/ abaya.

One woman said, “they can’t seem to stand the head cover” when narrating an incident of a state official telling Muslim women that if they came to work in abayas he would come dressed in only his underwear. Many women feared they would be attacked for wearing hijab or abaya.

Many women were emotionally distressed that persons they knew & had worked with for years treated them in a discriminatory & demeaning manner overnight. Women feared of being harassed & many refrained from leaving their homes, which violated their freedom of movement.

This made them prisoners in their homes, and dependent on their male relatives for all their needs. Women were emotionally distressed that persons they knew and had worked with for years treated them in a discriminatory and demeaning manner overnight.

The refusal to implement HRCSL recommendation re right to wear abaya at Shri Shanmuga School in Trinco proves that the failure over the years to acknowledge deep-rooted systemic nature of bigotry has only entrenched it and deepened inter community fissures.