Ahead the scheduled official visit of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to Sri Lanka next week, the Amnesty International wrote to Pakistan Premier urging him to raise the issue of forced cremations of COVID-19 victims at the highest levels possible during his visit in solidarity with a minority community who has been stripped of any means of recourse.
"We urge you to call upon the Government of Sri Lanka to stop forced cremations and to bring to an end discrimination faced by the
Muslim community in Sri Lanka," wrote Julie Verhaar, Acting Secretary General of Amnesty International.
The global human rights advocacy body said that it is particularly concerned that the Government has implemented a policy of mandatory cremations for people who have died or are suspected as having died from COVID-19.
"This is despite Ministry of Health guidelines originally permitting both burials and cremations, and guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO), Government-appointed expert groups, and other expert bodies, sanctioning both cremations and burials for COVID-19 victims. The Government of Sri Lanka has yet to provide credible reasoning behind this seemingly arbitrary policy which continues to cause the Muslim community immeasurable grief," the letter said.
The letter also added that since burials are an essential part of a person’s last rites according to Islamic principles, forced cremations are an unjust
and unnecessary infringement of the religious rights of Muslims. UN experts have referred to the forced cremation policy as a human rights violation that is “based on discrimination, aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism amounting to persecution of Muslims and other minorities in the country”.
The forced cremation of Muslim victims of COVID-19 is in contravention of both domestic legislation and international human rights law and practice. The Constitution of Sri Lanka, particularly Articles 10 and 12, expressly protects the freedom of religion, and from discrimination based on religion. Furthermore, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Sri Lanka has acceded, clearly sets out that every person has the freedom to follow religious practices, the letter said.
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