Gajalakshmi Paramasivam
29
April 2019
Burqa Ban violates Sri Lankan Constitution
Article
14 (1) (e ) of the Sri Lankan constitution states:
[Every citizen is entitled to – the freedom,
either by himself or in association with others, and either in public or in
private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice
and teaching]
As per latest reports:
[Sri
Lanka's President Maithripala Sirisena has banned face coverings, invoking
emergency law his office said, effectively outlawing attire like niqab and
burqa following suicide attacks on churches and hotels on Easter Sunday.
President Sirisena said the regulation will
come into effect from April 29.
Any face coverings which can be a threat to
national or public security, and make it difficult to identify persons will be
banned, the statement said.]
Economy Next article - Sri
Lanka bans burqa, niqab face coverings under emergency law.
This
is highly reactive and is likely to push Muslim women into radicalization. It
is disrespectful of the female relates of the bombers who gave evidence against
their male relatives.
As
per the above report :
[The office of Prime Minister Wickremesinghe
said in a statement earlier in the day, he had asked the Justice Minister to
prepare laws after consulting the Muslim community since Sri Lanka's main
organization had passed a resolution endorsing such a ban. ]
The most affected by
the ban are Muslim women. Where is their voice in this? Are they not being ‘told’?
Shame on the men of Sri Lanka, including Muslim men.
In the name of
emergency are we damaging the belief based support from these women? The lead
woman against minorities – Ms Pauline Hanson demonstrated how such undue
advantage by wearing the burqa to the Senate.
One has to be extremely cautious in
meddling with fundamental freedoms and human rights. The right to practice one’s
belief is a birth right. A law that in any way damages this would seriously
damage the rights of the causal forces of such law. By using the law for a
lower purpose, the parliamentarians have weakened the support of law that would
come to them by all those who practice Equal Opportunity laws with faith. Now
all of them are the opposition of the Sri Lankan Parliamentarians. It is for
these reasons that supermajority such as two thirds majority is needed to alter
fundamental rights of the citizen. I do not know whether this new law was
processed as per these principles. If not and someone gets unjustly punished by
an over-enthusiastic law enforcement officer
- the karmic return to the Parliamentarians would be exponential in
value. Sri Lankan Parliamentarians are already suffering due to their previous
excess – including through the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
In Democracy – the laws that facilitate the People to regulate themselves need to be
more than the laws that Parliamentarians use to regulate the people top-down.
India has not banned the burqa despite
the terrorism experiences that Indians have gone through. That shows respect
for the People and their personal rights.
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