Sri Lanka: The new climate of fear

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There’s a new climate of fear in Sri Lanka. This time it’s the Muslim community who are fearful of the future. The Easter bomb attacks in Sri Lanka - targeting churches and international hotels - horrified the island. It’s suffered civil war but never known jihadi violence. But the attacks also intensified a creeping campaign by the Sinhala Buddhist majority against the Muslim community - with Muslims murdered, their businesses burned or boycotted. Jill McGivering investigates the growing climate of fear now driving many Muslims to emigrate and casting a shadow over those left behind.

Producer: Caroline Finnigan

(Image: Muslim boy on a bicycle in Kattankudy, Sri Lanka. Credit: Allison Joyce/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	We have been getting constant phone threats, intimidation.
0:18.0	They were basically threatening to kill us, set our house on fire if we don't stop politics.
0:26.0	Some of the threats are for me as well.
0:29.0	In fact, I happened to overhear one of the threats and it was very chilling because not only did they threaten us with death.
0:37.0	They were in fact threatening sexual violence on me too.
0:42.0	This lady had gone to this girl. on me too.
0:42.8	This lady had gone to this grocery store and they were very nice to her but they said we can
0:48.3	not serve you anymore because we've been told by some group not to serve Muslims.
0:54.0	It was their decision to call the office and say,
0:56.0	you know what, we want to move.
1:00.0	I do feel sad that I have to leave as much as I would like to see Sri Lanka as a
1:05.8	progressive country I feel like it's becoming regressive as an educated person I
1:10.1	cannot take that.
1:11.1	I'm Jill McEverering and in this edition of assignment on the BBC World Service
1:17.0	I'm in Sri Lanka where Muslims are deciding whether to stay or leave following the Easter bombings.
1:23.5	When I think about the Easter bombings, I think the thing that stayed in my mind
1:35.8	is that really eerie footage, the security camera footage of a young man with a rucksack on
1:40.5	his back, we know now full of explosives, and is casually walking towards a church,
1:45.2	he packs a little girl on the head, and he walks right inside where all the people are
1:49.0	worshipping.
1:50.9	I'm in that church now, it's St Sebastian's in Nogombo and of the more than 250 people
1:57.4	who were killed in the Easter bombings almost half died here.
	...

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