COLOMBO — Sri Lanka will ban the wearing of the burqa and shut more than a thousand Islamic schools, a government minister said on Saturday, the latest actions affecting the country’s minority Muslim population.
Minister for public security Sarath Weerasekera told a news conference he had signed a paper on Friday for cabinet approval to ban the full-face covering worn by some Muslim women on “national security” grounds.
“In our early days Muslim women and girls never wore the burqa,” he said. “It is a sign of religious extremism that came about recently. We are definitelygoing to ban it.”
The wearing of the burqa in the majority-Buddhist nation was temporarily banne…
Keep on reading: Sri Lanka to ban burqa, shut many Islamic schools, says minister