A Sri Lankan court has sentenced a hardline Buddhist monk to nine months in prison for insulting Islam and inciting religious hatred. BBC News.
Galagodatte Gnanasara was found guilty at the Colombo Magistrate’s Court on Thursday (January 9) for a comment he made in 2016. In addition to the nine-month prison sentence, he was also fined 1,500 Sri Lankan rupees. If he fails to pay the fine, he will have to serve another month in prison.
Sri Lanka has no precedent for sentencing Buddhist monks. However, this is the second time that hardline monk Gnanasara has been sentenced. He was also sentenced to six years in prison in 2019, but was later pardoned by the president.
During his sentencing, the court said that according to the Sri Lankan constitution, all citizens, regardless of religion, have the right to practice their religion according to their beliefs.
Galagodatte Gnanasara is known as a close ally of the country’s ousted president Gotabaya Rajapaksa. During his rule, Gnanasara led a Sinhalese nationalist Buddhist party in Sri Lanka and was also the head of a special task force set up by the president to maintain religious harmony.
However, Gnanasara has been seen as playing a more active role in inciting hatred than religious harmony. Last year, a court sentenced Gnanasara to four years in prison for making hateful statements about the country’s Muslim minority. However, he was granted bail on appeal.
Earlier in 2018, a court sentenced Gnanasara to six years in prison for contempt of court and intimidating the wife of a missing political cartoonist. However, he did not have to serve more than nine months in prison after receiving a pardon from the then Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena.
Meanwhile, Gnanasara has already appealed against the new sentence. However, the judge rejected his bail application before the final verdict on the appeal.
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