PoliticsSri Lanka stokes Muslim and Christian ire with COVID burial rules
Rajapaksa's forced cremations of minority victims worsen human rights record
A demonstrator at a cemetery in Colombo on Dec. 23 holds a placard decrying the government's mandatory cremation of COVID-19 victims. © Getty Images
MARWAAN MACAN-MARKAR, Asia regional correspondent
December 25, 2020 16:54 JST
COLOMBO -- Predominantly Buddhist Sri Lanka's ultranationalist government is forcing families of the country's Muslim and Christian minorities to abandon their faith-based burial rites for relatives who die of COVID-19 -- consequently inviting fresh international scrutiny of the nation's already troubled human rights record.