Sri Lanka: Buddhist monk jailed for ‘insulting Islam’
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: A Buddhist monk, Galagodaatte Gnanasaram, viewed as a close ally of ousted Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has been jailed in the island nation for allegedly “insulting Islam,” the media reported on Friday.
The monk, who leads a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist group, was convicted on Thursday for his 2016 remarks and sentenced to nine months in prison for allegedly insulting Islam and inciting religious hatred.
Interestingly, despite his alleged anti-Muslim stance, he was invited to and attended the Saudi National Day event in Colombo in September 2022.
Sri Lanka rarely convicts Buddhist monks, but this marked the second time that Gnanasara, who was repeatedly accused of hate crimes and anti-Muslim violence, has been jailed.
The sentence, handed down by the Colombo Magistrate’s Court, came after a presidential pardon he received in 2019 for a six-year sentence related to intimidation and contempt of court.
Gnanasara was arrested in December 2024 for remarks he made during a 2016 media conference, where he allegedly made derogatory remarks against Islam.
On Thursday, the court said that all citizens, regardless of religion, are entitled to the freedom of belief under the Constitution.
He was also directed to pay a fine of 1,500 Sri Lankan rupees (USD 5), or face an additional month of imprisonment, the court’s ruling added.
Gnanasara has filed an appeal against the sentence. The court rejected a request from his lawyers to free him on bail until a final judgment was made on the appeal.
He was a trusted ally of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was forced to resign and flee abroad following mass protests over the island nation’s economic crisis in 2022.
During Rajapaksa’s presidency, Gnanasara was appointed head of a presidential task force on legal reforms aimed at protecting religious harmony.
After Rajapaksa’s exit, however, the monk was jailed last year for a similar charge related to hate speech against the country’s Muslim minority but was granted bail while appealing his four-year sentence.
In 2018, he was sentenced to six years for contempt of court and intimidating the wife of a political cartoonist who is widely believed to have disappeared.
However, he only served nine months of that sentence because he received a pardon from Maithripala Sirisena who was the country’s President at the time.
