Belonging to the 25% minority in Sri Lanka comes with its trials and tribulations. Minority communities – Sri Lankan Tamils, Indian Tamils, Muslims, and Burghers, among others – are no strangers to discrimination. Ethnic and religious divides, social tension, and political manipulation are part and parcel of the island nation’s history and contribute to a complex and deeply rooted issue.
The relationship between the Sinhala majority and the country’s minorities is tainted with hostility and conflict despite many reconciliation efforts. The systems that emerged from the colonial era and the post-independence period have their roots in the armed conflict between the majoritarian government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), widely known as Tamil Tigers. Though tensions remain, 15 years after the end of the conflict between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities, the focus of racism and discrimination has shifted onto the Muslim community, with a notable rise of Islamophobia in Sri Lanka.
Muslims, accounting for only 9.7% of the population in Sri Lanka, have been singled out by Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalist groups as a threat to their culture and demographics. The Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), one such nationalist group, has led the charge in stirring anti-Muslim sentiments. The BSS portrays Sri Lankan Muslims as a threat to Buddhism by citing the community’s supposed high birth rates, alongside growing religious conversions and its economic success. Though this fear-mongering is framed as protecting Sri Lanka’s Sinhala-Buddhist heritage, it has resulted in physical violence.
Aluthgama Riots of 2014
On Poson Poya Day in 2014, Muslim youths allegedly assaulted a Buddhist monk and his driver in Dharga Town of the Kalutara district. Even though the police remanded three suspected individuals, the BBS started demonstrating against the minority community, launching rallies in Aluthgama, Beruwala, and Dharga Town, inciting riots. Four people were killed, 80 were injured, and at least 10,000, mostly Muslims, were displaced. Over 60 businesses and homes were engulfed in flames within just two days, and several mosques were damaged.
A speech by Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero, a Buddhist monk and the Secretary General of the BBS, widely circulated on social media, was perceived as the trigger for the violence. Using derogatory terms, he warned Muslims that if they lay even a single hand on a Sinhalese, it would mean the end of them all. Chastising the Sri Lankan government for allegedly ‘betraying the Sinhalese people,’ he left a snarky reminder to both the government and to minorities: the country still possessed a Sinhalese police and army.
As local mainstream media remained silent amidst the chaos and as telephone services were disconnected in the affected towns, social media and international media filled the vacuum. Local journalists tweeted from their personal accounts and #Aluthgama trended as people at the site of the attack updated real-time stories and documented the destruction.
The strategically timed YouTube video shared by Gnanasara Thero and the rapid use of #Aluthgama on social media propagated a whirlwind of hatred and misinformation about the Muslim community. The truth about what was happening in the predominantly Muslim areas of the Kalutara district was hazy.
Digana Riots of 2018
Four years following the Aluthgama riots, similar, if not worse, assaults occurred in Sri Lanka’s Ampara and Kandy districts.
Muslim-owned businesses were set ablaze yet again and a mosque in the East was attacked by Sinhalese mobs when a Muslim chef was accused of adding sterilization pills (known as ‘vanda pethi’ in Sinhala) to food sold to Sinhalese customers. The violence spread to the Kandy district in the following weeks when four Muslim youths assaulted a truck driver of Sinhalese ethnicity following a traffic accident.
Harmful content on social media played a key role, adding fuel to the fire. Beliefs and rumors about the Muslim community proliferated through memes, videos, and posts.
Amit Weerasinghe, leader of the Mahason Balakaya, urged his followers to gather at Digana, Kandy shortly before the riots, claiming that, “This town has come to belong only to Muslims, and this should’ve been addressed long ago.”
Buddhist monk Ampitiya Sumanarathana Thero, who possesses a large online following, warned the government about the discriminatory treatment of the Sinhala “majority race.” Dan Priyasad, Director of the Nawa Sinhale National Organisation, known for attacking a safe house in Sri Lanka where Rohingya Muslims were seeking refuge, also added fuel to the fire, urging his followers to “protect their race.”
Facebook posts inciting violence against Muslims, such as “Kill all Muslim infants, don’t let even one remain,” went unchecked for days.
With the uncontrollable wave of disinformation and hate speech, many networks were blocked to curtail the mobs. WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were shut off, frustrating social media users who turned to Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to bypass the block. The block was lifted 72 hours later.
Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist groups also reportedly used closed WhatsApp groups to organize the mobs. Sanjana Hattotuwa, social media analyst and researcher from the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) in Sri Lanka stated, “These groups are impossible to monitor unless you are part of them.’ “One group, “Protect the Sinhalese,” shared pictures of machetes and called for an attack on mosques.
Mob Violence Following the Easter Sunday Attacks in 2019
Exactly a year later, on Easter Sunday in 2019, eight explosives were detonated in coordinated attacks at hotels and churches across Sri Lanka, killing 253 people and injuring many more. Anticipating a surge in anti-Muslim violence, the government temporarily shut down social media platforms in an attempt to eliminate disinformation and incitement of violence.
Whilst some found this beneficial, many journalists and activists believed it made the events on the ground and the government’s response less transparent and heightened the sense of distrust towards state institutions due to this lack of transparency. Despite this shutdown, mob violence against Muslims persisted. Buddhists were apprehensive about the possibility of being targeted by jihadists and Muslims were viewed as “potential terrorists,” worsening the sense of anxiety and unease across the island.
A month later, a Facebook comment by a Muslim businessman, misinterpreted as calling for more attacks on Christians, incited more violence in Chilaw. Mobs destroyed hundreds of homes, stores, and mosques; Qurans and Madrasas, education institutions prioritizing Islamic sciences, were set ablaze while armed forces looked on. Muslim women were harassed in public spaces and told to remove their hijabs and niqabs, headscarves and face covers, respectively.
Attacks continued despite curfews, spurred on by disinformation and incitement to violence proliferated through WhatsApp groups. Politically-oriented groups routinely forwarded content without fact-checking, as it was mainly derived from trusted family and friends.
Content Moderation Gaps and Limitations
Despite the blatantly obvious hate speech that spread during these periods, Facebook found that the reported content did not violate their community guidelines and hate speech standards in most instances – unsurprising, as Meta previously faced criticisms for failing to tackle hate speech in countries like Myanmar and South Sudan.
However, in a statement, they revealed that they were in constant contact with the Sri Lankan government and other organizations to identify and remove harmful content, and officials confirmed that the platform was used to coordinate attacks in Digana (2018). Despite this, Meta only allocated two resource people to review content in the local languages. An independent inquiry into Facebook’s impact on human rights in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Cambodia led to the company apologizing for its role in inciting anti-Muslim violence. Meta has since increased investments in Sinhala and Tamil language experts to curb online harmful speech.
Nonetheless, disinformation continues to be widespread, and Muslims have remained the most targeted ethnic group in Sri Lanka. Content moderators on all social media platforms are generally not culturally and historically sensitive to the local contexts and may lack an understanding of complicated dynamics that would help them detect the subtleties of hate speech. While some harmful content is swiftly removed, some remain due to delayed responses.
This lag in response time often leads to the inexorable proliferation of false and harmful narratives before any action is taken. AI tools, on the other hand, have their limitations as they struggle to identify nuanced hate speech and derogatory terms with alternate spellings, symbols, or codes used to bypass filters.
Additionally, to effectively address this inclination towards Islamophobia in Sri Lanka, it’s important to hold local political and religious leaders who incite hatred and violence accountable using legal mechanisms. Clearly defined and enforced laws made to penalize hate speech and incitement to violence are crucial. Our system can benefit from the creation of an independent body to investigate such incidents. By creating and enforcing legal frameworks and improving platform accountability of big-tech companies in South Asia, there is hope for moving towards long-term peace and reconciliation.
(Angela Forman is the Co-Director and Head of Administration and Finance at Sisterhood Initiative, Sri Lanka, and has a strong passion for community psychology and building resilience within minority communities.)