{"id":1321,"date":"2026-05-15T18:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/?p=1321"},"modified":"2026-05-15T18:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:59:11","slug":"89-religious-freedom-violation-incidents-reported-in-sri-lanka-within-12-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/2026\/05\/15\/89-religious-freedom-violation-incidents-reported-in-sri-lanka-within-12-months\/","title":{"rendered":"89 Religious Freedom Violation Incidents Reported in Sri Lanka Within 12 Months"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A total of 89 incidents related to religious identity-based attacks and violations have been reported in Sri Lanka during the 12-month period from November 2024 to October 2025, according to the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<p>The organization revealed that Christians and Hindus were the most targeted religious communities during this period.<\/p>\n<p>These findings were included in a research report titled <em>\u201cRights at the Crossroads: A Legal Analysis of Religious Attacks in Sri Lanka\u201d<\/em>, released on Thursday (14) by the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<h3>Religious Freedom Violations and Discrimination<\/h3>\n<p>According to the report, 29 incidents involving violations of freedom of religion and belief were recorded during the relevant period.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, 19 incidents of discrimination were also documented. Most of these incidents reportedly involved demands for places of worship to be formally registered with authorities.<\/p>\n<p>The report further stated that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>15 incidents involved threats and intimidation<\/li>\n<li>5 incidents involved damage to public property<\/li>\n<li>4 incidents involved physical violence<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Christians and Hindus Most Targeted<\/h3>\n<p>The report highlighted that Christians and Hindus were the primary victims of religiously motivated attacks.<\/p>\n<p>According to the data:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>58 incidents targeted Christians<\/li>\n<li>22 incidents targeted Hindus<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, when considering attacks carried out through social media platforms, Muslims were identified as the most frequently targeted group.<\/p>\n<p>The report stated that 15 online hate-related incidents targeting Muslims had been recorded during the same period.<\/p>\n<h3>Alleged Involvement of State Actors<\/h3>\n<p>The report also pointed out that state actors were allegedly involved in a considerable number of these incidents and violations.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, 36 incidents were said to have involved the participation or intervention of the Sri Lanka Police.<\/p>\n<p>It further noted that other government officials and local government institutions had also contributed to restrictions on religious freedom in certain cases.<\/p>\n<p>However, the report clarified that incidents involving physical violence and property damage were mainly carried out by individuals rather than state institutions.<\/p>\n<h3>Districts With Highest Number of Incidents<\/h3>\n<p>District-wise data showed that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Gampaha District recorded the highest number of incidents with 15 cases<\/li>\n<li>Kilinochchi District recorded 12 incidents<\/li>\n<li>Trincomalee District recorded 11 incidents<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Recommendations to the Government<\/h3>\n<p>In light of the increasing number of religion-based violations and tensions, the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka urged the government to introduce stronger preventive measures.<\/p>\n<p>The report recommended:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Establishing early warning systems to detect rising religious tensions online<\/li>\n<li>Monitoring social media platforms more effectively<\/li>\n<li>Increasing public awareness regarding legal protections and religious rights<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The organization stressed that such steps are necessary to reduce religious violence, prevent hate-based incidents, and strengthen religious harmony within Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A total of 89 incidents related to religious identity-based attacks and violations have been reported in Sri Lanka during the 12-month period from November 2024 to October 2025, according to the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka. The organization revealed that Christians and Hindus were the most targeted religious communities during this period. These &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1323,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321\/revisions\/1323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}