{"id":79389,"date":"2018-07-18T06:24:47","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T13:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=79389"},"modified":"2018-07-18T06:24:47","modified_gmt":"2018-07-18T13:24:47","slug":"most-buddhist-majority-nations-have-capital-punishment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/07\/18\/most-buddhist-majority-nations-have-capital-punishment\/","title":{"rendered":"Most Buddhist majority nations have capital punishment."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

In Thailand death sentence is imposed on 35 crimes including murder and drug trafficking. It\u2019s the same in Myanmar with a smaller number of offences carrying the death penalty. Although no one was actually put to death since 1988, the option is open and available as no policy restriction exists against it. Vietnam has a very effective death penalty that is regularly carried out. As a result narcotics offences, treason and corruption are under control. China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and North Korea are other Buddhist majority nations with the death penalty. South Korea has declared a presidential moratorium against death penalty in 1998 mainly due to its changing religious outlook. Christians are the most influential in South Korea and it is expected to become a Christian majority nation within a decade.<\/p>\n

Laos has not officially abolished the death penalty though due to severe pressure has acceded to Amnesty International to abolish it. Given its extreme poverty, Laos has been unable to make its own decisions independently. Cambodia is the only ASEAN country along with Christian Philippines to abolish death penalty. This is mainly due to poverty and resultant pressure from Western donors. Bhutan has also abolished death penalty as it is severely influenced by India.<\/p>\n

The case for Sri Lanka is complicated. Although Sri Lanka has a nominal Buddhist majority, it never followed any Buddhist majority nation on policy matters. Colombo always followed the Christian West on all policy matters. This is due to complete economic, legal, attitudinal and governance dependence on the Christian West. All elected national leaders, except two, either have been educated under very strong Christian schooling or have very close and influential Christian family members. The only two exceptions are presidents Jayawardene and Sirisena. However, they too were strongly pro-western. Except USA, almost all Christian majority nations oppose the death penalty.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, when Sri Lanka was governed by Buddhist kings, death penalty was very much active. Spearing, body slitting, hanging, severing the head and other means were used to put criminals to death.<\/p>\n

Although Sri Lankan government doesn\u2019t carry out the death penalty, at least 150 persons, mostly Buddhist women, are condemned to death every year. They are housemaids exported to the Middle East and come home in coffins every year. Part of their foreign currency earnings go to pay for narcotics imports. There are extra judicial executions in Sri Lanka since 1971 that have killed tens of thousands.<\/p>\n

Post-war Sri Lanka is a narcotics hub. Since 2009, there are multiple narcotics entry points. The north is now the most used narcotics entry point. A President, a Prime Minister, a police chief, ministers, MPs and lesser politicians have been associated with drug dealers. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely Sri Lanka will execute them. Nothing less than the capital punishment deters drug dealers. Unfortunately, most victims of narcotics are Buddhists while most drug dealers are Muslims, Hindus and Christians in that order. Yet, strangely, some Buddhists don\u2019t care enough. They must answer a simple question, honestly, if they can \u2013 what would ancient Buddhist kings, national heroes like Anagarika Dharmapala and the most Buddhist national leader Sirima Bandaranaike choose if faced with the drug menace and capital punishment?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Dilrook Kannangara In Thailand death sentence is imposed on 35 crimes including murder and drug trafficking. It\u2019s the same in Myanmar with a smaller number of offences carrying the death penalty. Although no one was actually put to death since 1988, the option is open and available as no policy restriction exists against it. Vietnam […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79389","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=79389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}