Sri Lanka, ranked as Lonely Planet’s number one travel destination in 2019, has recently come under enhanced scrutiny in a landmark United Nations Human Rights Council resolution, which addressed the failure of successive Sri Lankan governments to provide accountability and justice to victims of the three decade long civil conflict. Despite this backdrop, Sri Lanka’s cabinet went ahead with approving plans to ban the wearing of full face veils across the island. Condemned as a breach of human rights and incompatible with international law by many, there are concerns that this proposal could be passed, as the governing People’s Freedom Alliance coalition holds a majority in parliament. Should this come to fruition, following the likes of France and Belgium, the niqab and the burqa will be outlawed entirely, potentially affecting Muslim women who choose to wear these garments voluntarily.
The question now is, will parliament take international claims of discriminatory practice into account or will it further risk Sri Lanka’s international reputation?
SIMMERING ETHNIC TENSIONS
In order to understand the reasoning behind such a proposal, we have to look at the wider context of the religious demographics in Sri Lanka and the long-standing tensions between these different communities. According to the 2012 population census, Buddhists make up 70.2 percent of the population in Sri Lanka, the majority of Buddhists being Sinhalese. Some argue this has partially led to the manifestation of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism as a key ideology that has subtly dominated the political realm since the wake of the civil war. While much of this was previously targeted towards the Tamil minority (11.2 percent, 2012 census), post-2009 the Muslim minority (10 percent, 2012 census) has increasingly become the focal point of violence, hate speech, and economic boycotts by stringent Sinhalese Buddhist groups such as the Bodu Bala Sena. Tensions peaked when a small extremist Islamist group, National Thowheed Jamath (NTJ), undertook indiscriminate suicide bombings of hotels and churches in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday in 2019, killing 269 innocent civilians. Based in eastern Sri Lanka, the group is thought to have international links and strong influences of Wahhabism, the official religious doctrine in Saudi Arabia. In 2018, NTJ came into the limelight when it was accused of attacking Buddhist statues in the Kegalle district. The aftermath of these attacks have resulted in the increased marginalisation of the Muslim community of Sri Lanka. This is despite the attacks perpetrated by only a handful of radicalised youth from predominantly middle-class families. In fact, residents of Kattankudy, a predominantly Muslim town, had protested against the NTJ and its associated practices in an attempt to warn the government of these hard-line groups.
WHY THIS POLICY?
This is not the first time the Sri Lankan government has enacted a policy banning full face veils. As part of the response to the Easter Sunday attacks, a previous coalition government implemented a temporary ban in the name of “national security”. This was revoked five months later after the state of emergency was no longer present. Fast forward to 2021 and the present government justified the current proposed ban in the same manner. The Minister of National Security said that the face veil is a "sign of religious extremism".
The often-stated argument for national security in relation to restrictions on face veils is that they present a physical security threat. There are claims that veils hinder identification, particularly in places like Sri Lanka where all residents and citizens have to carry a picture ID. Beyond this, it is often argued by officials that veils could be used to conceal weapons. Former Latvian president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, said in 2016 that "anybody could be under a veil… you could carry a rocket launcher under your veil," when Latvia was contemplating banning the veil as well.
Given Sri Lanka’s turbulent history with religious divides, it is perhaps understandable why such an argument would be made to instil the ban. However, it must be asked whether national security interests will really be protected should this successfully pass through parliament, or whether this is a strategic move to advance a growing Islamophobic agenda.
IMPLICATIONS ON NATIONAL SECURITY
In a 2019 study from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, researchers found that banning the face veil in some European countries positively correlated with increased terrorist activity rather than combatting extremism. The study draws on the idea of the “securitisation of Islam,” which formulates Islam as a direct security threat that requires measures separate to the usual legal and political process. This methodology can be found in the likes of France, which was the first European country to ban the full-face veil in 2011. The analysis of the study found that veil restrictions “lead to the generation of resentment among Muslim communities and heighten the likelihood that some within those communities will engage in violence against governments deemed to be acting unfairly towards them”. In Sri Lanka, as the ban comes as part of a wave of measures including temporary forced cremations during the COVID-19 pandemic, which directly conflicts with Islamic burial rites, the outcome of this study presents a reality that is far too close to home.
IMPLICATIONS ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION
Arguments in favour of banning the burqa tend to be rooted in the oppression of women and restrictions on agency. For women who are required by their communities to wear the burqa, it may prevent them from exercising their free will. It is also certainly true that many modern Muslim women in Sri Lanka choose not to wear the burqa for this reason. However, this line of argument has also been heavily criticised, as it enables states to dictate how women are allowed to manifest their religion. In Sri Lanka, this policy could act as more of a vehicle for the ever-growing targeted victimisation and provocation of the Muslim minority.
Last month, the International Commission of Jurists condemned the proposal and publicly concurred with Ahmed Shaheed labelling the proposal as discriminatory and a direct violation of the right to freedom of religion. Sri Lanka is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which codifies the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion in article 18. It is further stated in article 4 that any measures contrary to the obligations instilled by the ICCPR are only valid if they do not involve discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, sex, language, religion, or social origin. To enact a policy, despite not explicitly using the terms “niqab” and “burqa,” which directly prohibits some Muslim women from exercising their right to manifest their religion seems to contradict the ICCPR in its entirety.
The proposal of the face veil ban comes at a time when Sri Lanka is already in the international spotlight for concerns over the state of human rights. In attempting to counter radicalisation, policies like this may ironically further inflame ethnic tensions and tarnish the country’s reputation.
Leela is a recent LLB graduate from King’s College London. She currently works in the legal charity sector and has a keen interest in women’s rights, discrimination and privacy.