The Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe
Wasantha Samarasinghe stated that the President had not spoken against any religion, but had warned against using religion to incite racism, and noted reports that complaints may be made to the CID over the matter. He linked this to the Amendment and education reforms before Parliament, saying the Government would continue providing relief and facilities to those in need under the “Rebuilding Sri Lanka” programme.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 I will conclude briefly, Hon. Presiding Member.
¶ 02 The President made no statement against any religion. He told those who use religion to stir up racism not to do so. Do not incite racism under cover of religion; keep both the robe and the habit with religion, but do not use them to stir up racism. That is what the President said. I hear they are going to the CID over this. Alas! If one lives according to the Dhamma, at least what he said should be understood.
¶ 03 Referring to the Amendment presented today and education reforms, and as we take measures as a country to move society forward under the “Rebuilding Sri Lanka” programme, we, as a Government, will continue to provide relief and facilities to the people who need them. With that, I conclude my speech.
¶ 04 Thank you very much, Hon. Presiding Member.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Tuesday, 20 January 2026 ·No. 23200 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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- not yet extracted — page/column anchors are not in the current dataset; the source PDF is the citable location.
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/lk/speeches/9074
Cite as: The Hon. Wasantha Samarasinghe. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 20 January 2026. No. 23200. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/9074