SRI LANKA The Mulleriyawa Incident While the police say religious groups have no authority to make arrests, it is clear that the religious groups themselves have a different opinion. Ven. Itthakande Saddhatissa Thero of Ravana Balaya speaking to The Sunday Leader claimed that the Jehovah’s Witnesses visited homes while the men were out and only women were there, distributing leaflets about their cause. They would then tell the residents of that area to make a decision and they would revisit them on the next trip. This group had visited the “Buddhist” village of Visthapura and had gone to Buddhist houses trying to convert them. “These are Christian extremists,” Ven. Saddhatissa Thero said, adding that he had spoken to a Christian priest who said the same. The residents of the village had complained to the Ravana Balaya and asked them to intervene. It was the wording that Saddhatissa Thero used which was most interesting, however. He said that the Ravana Balaya and villagers “arrested and questioned” the Jehovah’s Witnesses, asking them why they were going to Buddhist houses. The group had then said they were trying to spread Jesus’ message, and the monk had told them to take Christ’s message to Christians instead of trying to spread it amongst Buddhists. Saddhatissa Thero then said that the police eventually released the group of Jehovah’s Witnesses as “there is no law against conversion” and they “had no powers to take legal action”. Meanwhile the Jehovah’s Witnesses released an official statement on the incident. “An incident occurred in Mulleriyawa when a group of misinformed Buddhist monks brought some of our members to the police station for having conversed with their neighbours and having introduced the International journal known as “Awake!” to any persons who showed interest in our message,” the statement signed by Jehovah’s Witnesses’ media spokesman Manjula Fernando said. No charges were laid against them by the police, it was added. “Jehovah’s Witnesses are a Christian religion well known worldwide and in Asia. We have been an integral part of Sri Lankan life for over 100 years. We are well known for our Ministry wherein we peacefully take a message of good news from the Bible to whoever is willing to hear,” the statement added. The statement went on to note that all members of Jehovah’s Witnesses were volunteers, and the religion was not commercial in any way. What was interesting about the incident, however, was that Saddhatissa Thero himself acknowledged that converting to another religion was not an illegal act. Yet, he had moved to detain the group of Jehovah’s Witnesses, exercising a power which he later noted even the police did not have.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 06:49:40 +0000
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