Christian congregations in Sri Lanka are at a loss for words after recent violence by monks and radical Buddhists. Christians renew their appeal to the government to defend religious freedom. The Christian community is in shock after an attack on a Protestant church on December 9 in Weeraketiya in the Hambantota district of southern Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n
A crowd of about a thousand people in a state of mass religious hysteria, including many Buddhist monks, stormed the building and injured Pastor Pradeep. The crowd destroyed the church, sacred furnishings, various objects and parked cars. The attackers broke through a police cordon. The day before the attack, a group of Buddhists and monks had visited the pastor and warned him that if he did not have permission from the Buddhist clergy, he could not hold Christian services in Weeraketiya or the church would be destroyed. The pastor refused them, citing his constitutional rights, and the attack ensued.<\/p>\n
In 2012, the various Christian denominations in Sri Lanka reported around 50 cases of Christians being attacked by Buddhists. Over 70 % of the 20.4 million inhabitants of Sri Lanka are Buddhists, most of them belonging to the dominant ethnic group, the Sinhalese. Christians make up an estimated 8.4 % of the population, of which 40 % belong to the ethnic minority Tamils.<\/p>\n
Among the violent Buddhist groups is the Buddhist Power Force (\"Bodu Bala Sena\") which recently asked their followers to \"defend the country from Muslims and Christians\". Another movement is the powerful political party, Jathika Hela Urumaya (\"National Liberation Front\"), which consists of Buddhist monks and works with the coalition government. The party has already proven to be highly violent. In 1958, a militant member of the party assassinated Prime Minister S. Bandaranaike.<\/p>\n
Source: Fides<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The number of violent clashes is growing and creating fear among Christians. The need for real improvements in religious rights is urgent.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"gamle_kategorier":[],"land":[83],"class_list":["post-1656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ikke-kategoriseret","land-sri-lanka","infinite-scroll-item","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n