The Hon. Rauff Hakeem, Attorney-at-Law

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Speaker, my first supplementary question is this.

¶ 02 This episode arose from an entirely unscientific policy decision previously taken by the Government on the recommendation of an expert committee, that all those who died due to COVID-19 must be cremated. There was huge opposition to this decision. Subsequently, Ambassadors representing Islamic and Arab nations jointly appealed to the President through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to refrain from this course of action. Thereafter, this matter featured in the Geneva Human Rights Council Resolution against Sri Lanka. Operative Paragraph 8 of the Resolution adopted on 23 March 2021 states:

¶ 03 “Expresses further concern that the response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had an impact on freedom of religion or belief and exacerbated the prevailing marginalization of and discrimination against the Muslim community, and that cremations for those deceased from COVID-19 have prevented Muslims and members of other religions from practising their own burial religious rites, and has disproportionately affected religious minorities and exacerbated distress and tensions;”

¶ 04 Another unscientific decision was to bury COVID-19 victims in a faraway place in Oddamavadi, based on the incorrect premise that the virus could spread through groundwater.

¶ 05 Operative Paragraph 9 of the Resolution: “Calls upon the Government of Sri Lanka to ensure the prompt, thorough and impartial investigation and, if warranted, prosecution of all alleged crimes relating to human rights violations ...”

¶ 06 So, the Resolution calls for inquiry and accountability. But what has this Government done? It has appointed the then Director-General of Health Services as the current Secretary to the Ministry of Health, and Dr. Hasitha Tissera, a member of that Expert Committee involved in those decisions, as Acting Chief Epidemiologist. No inquiry has been conducted, despite the Human Rights Council specifically asking for inquiries and accountability for violation of the human rights of the affected communities.