Sri Lanka COVID-19: Open Letter to Ahmed Shaheed Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief
Posted on April 15th, 2020

This refers to your letter addressed to the Sri Lankan President H E Gotabaya Rajapakse. It is unfortunate that you have been misinformed leading to you writing to a country’s President and exposing your ignorance. In Sri Lanka 7 COVID-19 deaths of which 3 are Muslim. Other than these 3 Muslims, all other Muslims have been burying their dead and are continuing to do so. You are writing to a country’s President on behalf of 3 COVID-19 Muslims completely ignoring the rest of the victims. This is not what is expected of a Special Rapporteur.

Freedoms and Rights of one stops where freedoms and rights of others are violated. This is the golden rule. If demands for rights or special privileges violates the rights of others, it cannot be allowed.

No Special Rapporteur can only address minority issues ignoring or compromising on national issues. Promotion & protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms cannot come at the sacrifice or compromise of others. Special privileges are not rights or freedoms.

The COVID-19 virus is nothing anyone can firmly make final conclusions about. All are testing or experimenting and making adverse, contradictory or confusing statements across the globe. This confusion and uncertainty cannot impact on the general population and cause greater chaos by ignorance. In such scenarios it is prudent to take the worst case scenario & adopt the most extreme measures. The Government is beholden to ensure the safety of the living and future which cannot and should not be interpreted or promoted as disrespecting the dead.

The whole world is in chaos. The Western world inspite of all its infrastructure & technology is overwhelmed to handle the situation. The health authorities and staff in these countries cannot be questioned on how they are handling the abnormal situation they find themselves in. Anyone who is not facing the pressure are free to comment and criticize but only those in the thick of things know the ordeal they are going through. So, let us not patronize the health services of any country & their decision making at this juncture. They are spending sleepless nights fighting to save lives and they are not able to follow any book at this juncture except to do the right thing and no one can reprimand them for this.

If you listen to the first Sri Lankan COVID-19 patient who recovered and has returned home, he will reveal how well he was looked after with the hospital doctor even bringing him porridge made at his home.

Officials in the UN can throw all the dictums and terms on the table because they are not facing any of the pressures that doctors, nurses and others facing the COVID-19 are undergoing. They can preach you should have done it this way, should have not done it this way” which is all that UN officials generally like to patronize countries with. But would they handle the situation any better?

So, tell us if the tube wells, water systems, agriculture etc in Sri Lanka get contaminated from burying dead covid-19 bodies – what is your solution, what can you personally do to address this? WHO has given only general guidelines. It is not a rule that all countries have to follow. In Ecuador covid-19 dead bodies are lying on the roads, what is UN/WHO guideline for this and what is your solution?

In a national crisis none of individual or community freedoms come to play. The nation must face the problem as One Nation and One People. Therefore, in a national crisis it is no time to be thinking exclusively as a majority or minority or making demands of a minority or majority or demanding rights as an exclusive community. Privileges are not rights. In a national crisis the country’s decision makers take decisions considering every person as ONE AND THE SAME CITIZEN and not compartmentalizing them. Therefore, it is very strange that people who refer to themselves as Special Rapporteurs are writing to promote the interests of only one community. This is very wrong and unfair by others who are no less victims.

When the Government declares a lockdown or curfew – it doesn’t say the lockdown is applicable to majority, minority or a community. It says the curfew is applicable to ALL and when it is applicable to ALL – ALL must obey and follow the orders given.

When the Government sets up quarantine centres or hospitals – the government is not treating anyone or any community differently. All are patients, all are given the same food, all are given medication equally and free too. This is nothing that the Western world is even doing. Patients who have no insurance or cannot pay or are old are not even admitted to hospital. Sri Lanka, though a third world stands way above in terms of delivery for covid-19 situation than most countries of the first world.

You can quote all the Articles under the Conventions but can you handle a COVID-19 situation simply quoting clauses? Can you protect people from contamination and disease by quoting Articles & Conventions? Please be realistic and practical.

You seem to be confused in your hurry to address a Country’s President  

Muslims have been burying their dead in the past and Muslims are continuing to bury their dead. How?

Any Muslim who has died other than from COVID-19 are having their dead buried. EVEN NOW. Did you not know this?

IT IS ONLY the 3 COVID-19 DEAD MUSLIMS who were cremated.

So you are writing to the President of Sri Lanka representing 3 COVID-19 dead when all other dead Muslims are getting buried.

Hope you are not embarrassed by this.

But you should seriously take stock of facts before addressing a letter to the President of a country.

Then the other factor is that you are totally ignoring the fact that all of the 7 COVID-19 dead had the same method adopted in disposing of their dead bodies. Therefore, if you as Special Rapporteur speaking on behalf of the 3 Muslims, you should also be speaking on behalf of the other 4 COVID-19 dead too. Out of this 4 – 2 are Catholics and Catholics also bury their dead. So why are you not speaking a word on behalf of the Catholics?

Last of all, in noticing your name – Ahmed Shaheed, it is prudent to remind you that you cannot be the judge of your own case. As a Muslim there is a major conflict of interest arising clearly evident by the nature of your reply. In such a situation, it is only fair that you recuse yourself from making statements.

However, now that you have gone so far as to even write to a country’s President, please note that Muslims have buried their dead and are continuing to bury their dead and only exception is COVID-19 dead which is applicable to not only Muslims but all citizens of Sri Lanka. The Government is making no exceptions to the rule of cremating all COVID-19 dead.

You have written on behalf of 3 dead COVID-19 Muslim victims ignoring the sensitivities of the families of the other 4 COVID-19 dead who were also denied fulfilling the funeral rites for their dead.

Is it fair for you to be sending a letter to the head of State on behalf of only 3 victims of Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 deaths COMPLETELY ignoring the sensitivities of the other 4 COVID-19 dead victims without realizing that non-Covid-19 dead Muslims are burying their dead?

Shenali D Waduge

https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/respect-burial-rights-stop-hate-speech-against-muslims-un-tells-gota/

7 Responses to “Sri Lanka COVID-19: Open Letter to Ahmed Shaheed Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief”

  1. Ancient Sinhalaya Says:

    All the problems the world facing today is due to population explosion plus religions of conveniences which don’t
    regard sins as sins and encourage two legged creatures to sin. A few decades ago the world population was less than a billion. Today 7+ billions and still growing. Mussies are responsible a lot for this vast numbers. Wherever
    they go in the world, initially in all fours of course, and then start breeding programme to wrestle
    control. This dirty, disgusting, subhuman trick worked in the olden days since people didn’t know until they multiplied and multiplied and turned up on their doorsteps to murder them. Today, in this connected world the
    dirty trick won’t work since people straightaway find out what is the breeders up to and start to fight back. The
    dirty, disgusting, subhuman trick was used to turn old Buddhist iran, afganisthan, pakisthan, bangladesh,
    malaysia and indonesia to turn mussie countries within a few hundred years of their arrival in those countries
    with their baby machine wives. Buddhism disappeared from India since it didn’t fit the society with caste system
    and animal sacrifices etc. etc and people quickly reverted back to religions of conveniences. Then invading
    mussies killed all the Buddhist monks and set fire to Buddhist universities (a world first) and uprooted the only
    true religion on the planet from its birth place.

    Thanks to this mass breeding divided Sinhalese politicians had to lick the backsides of the mussies for their votes
    and the mussies landed powerful ministries and promoted even more mass breeding. Today every town in Sri
    Lanka is awash with mussie menace and now mussies know they have enough numbers and driving nail after nail
    to Mother Lanka, Sinhalese race and Buddhism’s coffin. Anti Buddhist, anti Sri Lanka, anti Sinhalese, Mother Lanka
    dismembering, minority worshiping GooandPee aka UNPatriotic_rats party lying, thieving, murderous (Sinhalese
    Buddhists only) along with its sidekick jaathidhrohee vermins’ party aka jvpers are responsible for making
    Sinhalese pariahs in their own country.

    People used to worship rivers, mountains, trees, gods IN THE OLDEN DAYS IN THE ABSENCE OF SCIENCE.
    Science has proven beyond anybody’s doubt (honest people only) how we came to be being (Darwin’s Theory of Evolution) plus millions of other creatures (his book, The Tree of Life, explains all that). Today, those are science facts and not science fiction.Just like The Buddha explained over 2,500 years ago. Then NASA showed the world, that the earth’s size is a grain of sand in the vast vast vast universe (just like The Buddha explained) where distances are measured in light years. The Sun is 20 million miles from us. Planets over billion light years away! Light year is the distance light travel at a speed of 186,000 miles per second in a year. But people still believe in myths! In the 21st century! We in the grain of sand going round the sun and moon goes round the grain of sand.
    We all know (honest and people only with brains, the reason for this is gravity) there is no secret about it thanks
    to science.

    World War I, gods no show.
    World War II, gods no show.
    Spanish flu which killed nearly 30 million, gods no show.
    Now Covid19 which could kill millions, gods no show. People dying in god’s backyard. Still no show. No emails,
    no message through those so called messenger etc. etc.
    7+ billion people on the planet, no one has ever seen one yet, except in books and www. Why? They are all man made! Myths!

    All the crimes (sins) any two legged creature can do under the sun:
    1 killing
    2 stealing
    3 sexual misconduct (e.g. third party/hurt party make a hole in the guilty party?)
    4 lying
    5 drug/alcohol abuse (e.g. drug or alcohol over the limit mow down people or for 72 you know what I mean)

    Every country’s penal code under the sun:
    1 killing is punishable (two legged only? It’s so convenient. Because other creatures don’t matter. Our food!)
    2 stealing is punishable
    3 sexual misconduct is punishable
    4 lying is punishable
    5 drug/alcohol abuse is punishable

    Buddhism’s Five Precepts:
    1 do not kill
    2 do not steal
    3 refrain from sexual misconduct
    4 do not lie
    5 refrain from drug/alcohol abuse

    It is obvious Buddhism’s Five Precepts is the ‘handbook’ for the two legged creatures how to conduct their lives.
    Instead people follow religions of conveniences which don’t regard sins as sins. Today, this so called might two
    legged creatures are running scared of an invisible killer. I think it is the curse of these poor creatures who pay
    for their lives in billions to fill greedy, selfish, uncaring, crafty, lying, thieving two legged creatures. We all know
    there are gems of people who are kind, honest, unselfish, caring in the world. But they are far and few between
    and can not make a difference. We all know (honest only) our distant relative chimp isn’t a meat eater. If you
    look at your teeth and then a cat’s/dog’s/lion’s etc teeth they look different and this tells you what sort of diet
    we should be eating. What’s more animals have diseases and they pass these on to the two legged creatures
    (their revenge!). Also they generate a lot of green house gases to pollute the planet in addition to the jungles
    being cleared to rear them.

    Two legged creatures have been the worst kind on this planet and Covid19 is nature striking back. Science has
    shown when people curse it sends energy in a wave form. Not someone keeping track with a notepad/notebook
    writing those like those religions of conveniences made you to believe. When these energies accumulate it can seriously damage the culprit. Justice served! Ditta Dhamma Vedaniya Kamma as The Buddha preached. Billions
    of animals who give their lives on daily basis to fill meat mongers’ stomachs cursing the two legged culprits.
    Surely it must have some effect! Don’t know if people remember Sri Lankan mass murderer (Sinhalese Buddhists
    only) LK porisada R@ killed 1000s of its own people with unimaginable torture and 100s of victims curse the traitor.
    It was blown into smithereens by its own terras whom he mollycoddled. Or the traitor alugosuwa barrelman hitler
    mala paharan of catholic tigers of tamil drealam who killed 1000s of men, women, even Buddhist monks, tri
    forces personnel and police. Ditta Dhamma Vedaniya Kamma followed it and destroyed it. Most two legged
    creatures reluctant to accept these truths since they are religions of conveniences which turn a blind eye to
    committing sins.

    To escape from future disasters:
    Be kind to nature

    Be kind to animals (they aren’t your food, they too have a right to life. Human rights, yes of course. Animal
    rights? what? You mad or what? That’s the attitude of most two legged creatures!

    Stop having too many children to ‘steal’ countries (new breeds need a lot of resources and they generate a lot of pollution too)

    Live in the 21st century and listen to science, listen to The Buddha’s teaching, not to fake gods

    Stop being too greedy, too selfish, too uncaring and be honest.

  2. Nihal Perera Says:

    This dumb-ass UN rapporteur, who is a Muslim himself is focusing only on Sri Lanka, while turning a blind eye to many COVID affected dead Muslims being buried or cremated on daily basis in Italy, Spain, UK, US, and some Middle Eastern Muslim countries like Iran, Turkey, etc.

    Why doesn’t he blame those countries that do not allow, not even close relatives of the dead to attend or perform last rites of any religions let along Islam? No Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, are complaining that they couldn’t perform the last rites according to their religions on their dead family members or friends.

    Why the hell only Muslims in Sri Lanka feels that they are being discriminated when it comes to death caused by a global pandemic? What about their brothers and sisters in other countries being buried or cremated without any religious rituals? I don’t see any Christians, Buddhists, or Hindus are crying foul and blaming the government for not allowing any rituals on dead family members.

    Clearly this is another attempt to create racial and ethnic harmony in SL by the Muslim politicians and their supporters, backed by these idiotic UN officials, in order to promote their agendas.

    SL should NEVER give into these ridiculous demands by any minority groups in spite of their relentless efforts to thrash Sri Lanka in the international arena.

  3. dingiri bandara Says:

    Religion is a state of mind. As Dalai Lama once said,” THE BEST RELIGION IS THE ONE THAT MAKE YOU A BETTER PERSON”
    All religious practices and other customs were not the ideas of the persons after who the religions were started , after their passing away by those who took the leadership. As practiced today the Pope can change any practice by a Papa edict and a Muslim Mulla can issue a Fatwa change any practice or create new practice.
    We need to practice the faths in order nor create problems for the majority.

  4. jay-ran Says:

    Many Many Muslims all over THINKS THAT THEIR LIFE AFTER DEATH IS RESOLVED BY THEIR SO CALLED GOD, “ONLY IF THEY ARE BURIED!!! IF NOT WHAT WILL HAPPEN?????????”
    THIS DIRTY MUSLIM MAN LIKE MANY OTHER MUSLIMS THINKS THAT THEY SHOULD BE BURIED WHETHER THEIR DEATH IS DUE ‘CORONA VIRUS’ OR ‘ELSE”!!!!
    WHAT A FOOLISH AND IDIOTIC THINKING IS THIS?????
    HOW CAN AN IDIOT LIKE HIM WRITE A LETTER AGAINST THE CREMATION OF THE 3 DEAD CORONA VIRUS AFFECTED MUSLIMS??
    Does this IDIOTIC, ILLITERATE, LOW STANDARD KNOWLEDGEABLE, PANDIT, DOESN’T KNOW THAT OUR Rt Hon PRESIDENT OF SRI LANKA HAS TAKEN HUNDREDS & HUNDREDS OF MEASURES IRRESPECTIVE OF CASTE,CREED,RELIGION OR POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS ,TO SERVE THE AFFECTED ALL SRI LANKANS WITH MONEY,FOOD,SHELTER Etc Etc Etc????????????????????????
    IN MY OPINION, HE SHOULD BE ARRESTED & SENT TO JAIL!!!

  5. jay-ran Says:

    Another thing that I need to REMIND THIS LOW BLOODED FOOL!!!
    SEE HAW INDIA TREATED THE IDIOTIC MUSLIMS ATTENDED A MUSLIM MOSQUE “DISREGARDING THE TOTAL CLOSE DOWN OF THE ENTIRE COUNTRY”?????
    A TREATMENT LIKE THAT MUST BE GIVEN TO THIS FOOL TOO!!!

  6. jay-ran Says:

    Oh I forgot ANOTHER IMPORTANT MATTER!!!
    ALL HUMAN BEINGS SHOULD UNDERSTAND & KEEP IN MIND THAT AFTER THE DEATH OF ANY ONE:
    (1) WHETHER BURIED OR (2) CREMATED EITHER DUE TO CORONA VIRUS OR OTHERWISE, DEPENDS ON:

    (1) WHAT GOOD WORK ONE DID
    (2) WHAT BAD SIN FULL ACTS ONE DID???.
    THAT IS THE GOSPEL TRUTH!!!

  7. Ratanapala Says:

    Corvid burials – Dust to dust, Ashes to ashes!

    In the end, what matters is not the sensitivities of some followers of medieval religions but the safety of the general population now and in the future. The world has yet to understand the full implications of this new Coronavirus which causes Corvid-19. Are we to take chances and say sorry later if by chance the virus has other means of infecting as well as mutating into more virulent forms. If that happens, just as much as now, no God will come to help. It will be up to the people and their government to look after the situation.

    Sri Lanka Government has taken a firm decision on how to dispose of infected dead bodies. Let it remain so for the good of the many now and in the future.

    In the Abrahamic religions they say – Dust to dust, ashes to ashes! Our bodies are just what we took from Mother Earth, in other words – our physical form is just Topsoil. Whether you burn or bury in the end worms convert the remains to topsoil!

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