{"id":71712,"date":"2017-11-17T13:09:12","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T20:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=71712"},"modified":"2017-11-17T13:09:12","modified_gmt":"2017-11-17T20:09:12","slug":"woman-with-buddha-tattoo-abused-on-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/11\/17\/woman-with-buddha-tattoo-abused-on-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman with Buddha tattoo abused on Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy The Daily Mirror<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The British woman who was deported from Sri Lanka for having a tattoo of Buddha on her arm said\u00a0she had to leave Facebook after being abused by extremists, the BBC reported today.<\/p>\n

The 41-year-old Naomi Coleman\u00a0from Coventry won compensation on Wednesday after being detained in the country for four days, in April 2014.<\/p>\n

Ms Coleman, a Buddhist herself, said she will not return to Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Following her deportation, she says she received online messages telling her she should die and burn in hell.<\/p>\n

“I have never experienced anything like this with Buddhism.\u00a0They mostly seemed to be sent from Buddhist extremists in Sri Lanka. They were writing that I should die and burn in hell.\u00a0I came completely off Facebook for a few weeks and have now changed my name on social media. To me, this is not the Buddhist way. Buddhism is about compassion and understanding,\u201dshe said.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the\u00a0Supreme Court said Ms.\u00a0Coleman’s treatment while she was in custody was “scandalous and horrifying” and awarded her compensation of 800,000 Sri Lankan rupees – about \u00a34,000.<\/p>\n

It said there was “no legal basis” for her arrest and she had been subject to “degrading treatment” by some officers and a prison guard.<\/p>\n

Ms Coleman, who has been a Buddhist for about 10 years, has travelled widely and continues to go to retreats in Thailand and Nepal.<\/p>\n

She said she was “overwhelmed” by the ruling but would not be returning to Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

“It’s a shame – it’s a beautiful country and most of the people are very welcoming.\u00a0However, it seems there is a small percentage of people who want to cause trouble for me. I’m not sure if it’s because I am a woman travelling alone. But, at the moment, I wouldn’t feel safe going back,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy The Daily Mirror The British woman who was deported from Sri Lanka for having a tattoo of Buddha on her arm said\u00a0she had to leave Facebook after being abused by extremists, the BBC reported today. The 41-year-old Naomi Coleman\u00a0from Coventry won compensation on Wednesday after being detained in the country for four days, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buddhism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}