Yearbook 2019
Sri Lanka. On Easter Day, Sri Lanka was shaken by a
terrorist attack in which over 250 people died and around
500 were injured in coordinated bomb attacks against three
churches and three hotels, respectively. Authorities
believed that the local Islamist extremist group National
Tawhid Jamaat (NTJ) was behind it. According to
CountryAAH, the Islamist group Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim (JMI) was also suspected. At
the same time, the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group
assumed responsibility for the attacks. In a video published
by the terror group, NTJ founder Mohamad Zahran Hashim, who
was reported to be one of the brains behind the terrorist
act.
He was also one of the suicide bombers who blew himself
to death at the Shangri-La Hotel. There lived the Danish
billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen and his wife Anne Holch
Povlsen, who lost three of their four children in the
attack. The fate of the family received a lot of attention
in Scandinavian media.
Shortly after the bombing, the security situation in Sri
Lanka was increased, while the state of emergency was
announced. President Maithripala Sirisena had criminalized
Islamist groups NTJ and JMI and 10,000 soldiers searched for
members of the groups. By the end of April, 100 people with
suspected connections to NTJ had been arrested according to
authorities. In addition, Sri Lanka expelled around 600
foreigners, of whom 200 were Muslim ministers. Also 140
people with connections to IS were sought by police.
In April, the country's national police chief Pujith
Jayasundara was also forced to resign following criticism
from President Sirisena.
Pujith Jayasundara in turn criticized the president in a
letter to the Supreme Court in June. However, the complaints
were dismissed by Sirisena, who also made sure that the head
of the intelligence service Sisira Mendis resigned after he
expressed dissatisfaction with the president in front of an
investigative committee.
According to analysts, the terrorist act exposed serious
communication shortcomings between President Sirisena and
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose relationship was
characterized by power struggles and conflicts last year.
Media stated that India had shared intelligence information
with warnings of impending attacks in Sri Lanka which are
never believed to have reached the government.
In the wake of the terrorist acts, the fear of new deeds
in Sri Lanka was great. Anti-Muslim currents increased, as
did concerns about the country's Muslim population being
attacked. In social media, hostility towards Muslims grew,
many of whom were subjected to hate crimes and organized
mobs. This is despite the fact that several non-extreme
Muslims, according to media, had warned Zahran Hashim for
several years.
In July, Sri Lanka's highest court sentenced the convicts
to four prisoners sentenced to death for drug offenses. The
reason was that the court wanted to investigate whether the
death penalty violated the constitution after President
Sirisena signed the death sentence for the four prisoners in
June. With the signature, Sirisena raised a moratorium on
the execution of the death penalty that has been held since
1976.
The state of emergency, which was announced after the
death on Easter Day, was lifted in August.
In the same month, Sri Lanka received harsh criticism
from both the United Nations and the United States after the
country appointed General Criminal Prosecutor General
Shavendra Silva as new army commander. Silva is suspected by
the UN and the United States of war crimes and crimes
against humanity as he led the government's forces in the
final phase of the Sri Lankan civil war. In protest of the
appointment, the United Nations announced in September that
soldiers from the Sri Lankan army were no longer welcome to
join the organization's peacekeeping forces.
In the November presidential election, the election was
mainly between the opposition's Gotabaya Rajapaksa from Sri
Lanka's Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and Sajith Premadasa from
the ruling United National Party (UNP). Gotabaya Rajapaksa
won with just over 52% of the vote. He was Minister of
Defense at the end of the Civil War in 2009 and is the
brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. After the end
of the year, Gotabaya Rajapaksa appointed his brother
Mahinda Rajapaksa as the country's prime minister.
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