Muslim women in Sri Lanka shun veils out of fear

Govt bans women from covering their faces in public

Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (left) and President Maithripala Sirisena at a public event yesterday. Many Sri Lankans believe a rift between both leaders has undermined national security. A Sri Lankan Muslim woman and a man being ch
A Sri Lankan Muslim woman and a man being checked at a security checkpoint in Colombo on Tuesday. Tight security has been imposed with thousands of troops deployed since the April 21 attacks where militant suicide bombers killed more than 250 people with their coordinated strikes on six churches and hotels. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (left) and President Maithripala Sirisena at a public event yesterday. Many Sri Lankans believe a rift between both leaders has undermined national security. A Sri Lankan Muslim woman and a man being ch
Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (left) and President Maithripala Sirisena at a public event yesterday. Many Sri Lankans believe a rift between both leaders has undermined national security. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

COLOMBO/NEW DELHI • Religious tensions and a government ban on covering the face since the Easter Sunday suicide attacks have forced conservative Muslim women in Sri Lanka to shun veils, head scarves and long robes in public.

Muslims in the South Asian nation have felt they are a target ever since militant suicide bombers killed more than 250 people with their coordinated strikes on six churches and hotels.

Many women said they stopped wearing niqab face veils, hijab scarves and abaya robes straight after the attacks, which have been claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group.

On Monday, the Sri Lanka government banned women from covering their faces in public, bringing it into line with a number of European countries, including France, Denmark and Belgium.

Sri Lanka's population of 21 million is a patchwork of ethnicities and religions, dominated by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority. Muslims constitute about 10 per cent of the population while Christians are the fourth-largest religious group.

"I have stopped wearing the abaya and hijab in the last few days because of the comments and looks I was getting," said one Muslim widow, asking not to be named.

"I will start wearing them when the situation is calmer and people are less paranoid," she said. "The hijab has not been banned, but people look suspiciously when they see me in it."

Dr Mareena Thaha Reffai, a Muslim preacher and head of a women's organisation, said it was better to comply with the ban than to trigger a religious dispute. "This is not the time to argue about rights. 250 people have died, 500 wounded," she said. "Let emotions go down. Let us talk about this (ban) leisurely."

Dr Reffai did not believe there was any rationale for the ban when none of the suicide bombers concealed their identity as they blew up Christian worshippers at three Easter services and foreign tourists as they queued for breakfast at three Colombo hotels.

Tight security has been imposed with thousands of troops deployed since the April 21 attacks.

The country's Roman Catholic leader, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, would not weigh in on the ban though he said that some in the Islamic community had called for it.

Top Buddhist monk Omalpe Sobitha welcomed the niqab ban. "When people cover their faces, we don't know who is behind that veil," he said. "Even criminals could use these clothing to conceal their identity, so it is a good move to ban this."

Most Sri Lankan Muslim women practise a liberal form of Islam and do not cover their faces in public.

A Muslim housewife in her 70s said she never covered her face and had no issue with the ban. "As Sri Lankan Muslims became more educated, they shed the purdah," she said, referring to the practice of secluding women from public observation.

Sri Lanka's council of Islamic clerics had appealed to Muslim women days before the government ban not to cover their faces.

"We strongly appeal to our sisters to be mindful of the critical emergency situation now prevalent in our country," the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama said in a statement.

"We advise that in the prevailing situation, our sisters should not hinder the security forces in their efforts to maintain national security by wearing the face cover."

Several Muslims felt the dress code distracted from the bigger problem: the intelligence failure that led to the devastating attacks.

The government has admitted that it had prior warnings about the suicide bombers, but no top minister was told and no one took it seriously enough to avert the disaster.

Many Sri Lankans believe a rift between President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe - who appeared together at an outdoor commemorative event yesterday for a former president killed in a suicide bomb attack on May Day - has undermined national security.

Mr Sirisena told media a foreign mastermind may have planned the Easter Sunday bombings, telling the militant group to "leave my country alone".

Meanwhile, an Indian Hindu nationalist group allied with Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday called for a ban on veils to emulate Sri Lanka.

"We welcome this decision and demand Prime Minister Narendra Modi follow in Sri Lanka's footsteps and ban the burqa and niqab in India," the Mumbai-based Shiv Sena party wrote in an editorial in the Saamana newspaper.

The hardline Hindu group said the burqa had nothing to do with Islam and Indian Muslim women who wore it were only following the tradition of the Arab world, where women wear it outside to protect themselves from the sun.

The Ministry of Home Affairs declined to comment.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 02, 2019, with the headline Muslim women in Sri Lanka shun veils out of fear. Subscribe