|
Colombo: Buddhist mobs attacked several churches
in Sri Lanka during last month, threatening to kill a
pastor in the southern province of Hambanthota and
ransacking a 150-year-old Methodist church building in
the capital. On April 8, 2009 four Buddhist extremists
approached the home of pastor Pradeep Kumara in
Weeraketiya, Hambanthota district, calling for him to
come out and threatening to kill him. The pastor's wife,
at home alone with their two children, phoned him
immediately but by the time he returned, the men had
left.
Half an hour later, Kumar said, the leader of the group
phoned him and again threatened to kill him if he did
not leave the village by the following morning. Later
that night the group leader returned to the house and
threatened him. “My children were frightened,” Kumara
said. “I tried to reason with him to go away, but he
continued to bang on the door and threaten us.”
Police soon arrived on the scene and arrested the
instigator but released him the following day.
Subsequently the attacker gathered Buddhist monks and
other villagers together and asked them to sign a
petition against the church, Kumar said. Protestors then
warned the pastor's landlord that they would destroy the
house if he did not evict the pastor's family by the end
of the month. Fearing violence, Kumara said he canceled
Good Friday and Easter Sunday services and evacuated his
children to a safer location.
|
