DDHK News, Sri Lanka - Sri Lankan Muslim legislators asked President Mahinda Rajapakse to protect Muslims from attacks by Buddhist extremists.
Sri Lanka's Muslim Council, the umbrella organization for Muslim groups, said 16 of the 18 Muslim parliamentarians asked the president to intervene and stop the attacks.
"Muslim MPs want His Excellency's attention to the continued campaign of hatred, intimidation and threats against Muslims, carried out by some extremist Buddhist elements," the lawmaker said in a joint letter.
The letter was sent after police on Monday formed a new unit to investigate hate crimes after attacks by Buddhist monks on churches and mosques last year raised concerns about religious freedom.
Buddhist nationalist groups accuse religious minorities of having undue political and economic influence on the island.
Videos posted on YouTube show a mob led by Buddhist monks throwing stones and destroying a Christian prayer center in southern Sri Lanka in January this year and attacking a mosque while police are watching.
Senior Buddhist monks have also been caught on video threatening violence against their moderate counterparts who support tolerance.
The country emerged from nearly four decades of ethnic warfare that according to UN estimates resulted in at least 100 deaths between 1972 and 2009.
Tamil rebels are fighting to establish a separate state for the ethnic minority Tamils, who are Hindu, on the mainly Sinhalese island.
Seventy percent of Sri Lanka's 20 million people are Sinhalese Buddhists, while Muslims, the second largest religious group, make up just under 10 percent.
Rajapakse, who is Buddhist, warned monks in January last year not to incite religious violence.
However, police broke up protests denouncing religious extremism last year, sparking opposition accusations that the government tacitly supports acts of violence. (ANTARA / Al Arabiya). *
