The Hon. (Dr.) Ramanathan Archchuna
Hon. (Dr.) Ramanathan Archchuna stated that he had not made remarks against Muslims as a community and described Tamils and Muslims as closely linked Tamil-speaking communities of different faiths. He said his earlier comments related to a letter sent by a Muslim woman, which he would submit to the Speaker for review if disputed. He also accepted a proposed debate subject to live broadcast and apologized for any inappropriate Facebook post made in anger.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Thank you, Hon. Presiding Member.
¶ 02 In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, I begin. I have no racial bias or disrespect towards Muslims; I consider them my brothers. They are our blood—Tamil-speaking communities of two faiths: Tamils and Muslims. I never spoke against Muslims as a people. I spoke regarding a letter sent by a Muslim woman. If that letter is wrong, I will hand it to the Hon. Speaker to decide.
¶ 03 I welcome the invitation to debate—provided it is broadcast live; I will come anywhere. Again, I say here: Muslims are our blood—Tamil-speaking communities of two faiths. I have no statement against them. If, in anger, I posted anything inappropriate on Facebook, I ask forgiveness.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Tuesday, 8 April 2025 ·No. 1747715041076408 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
- Page · column
- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
- Permalink
/lk/speeches/15222
Cite as: The Hon. (Dr.) Ramanathan Archchuna. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 8 April 2025. No. 1747715041076408. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/15222