Colombo, Oct 15 Hundreds of Buddhist monks marched to the gate of Sri Lanka’s presidential secretariat on Thursday, demanding the release of religious leader Galagodaatte Gnanasara, who is serving a jail sentence for contempt of court.
Gnanasara, who has led the Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force) since 2012, was at the forefront of a hardline Buddhist nationalist campaign that drew criticism for its rhetoric towards Sri Lanka’s Muslim minority.
He was sent back to prison last week after the Supreme Court overturned a presidential pardon granted to him in 2019 and ordered him to serve the remainder of a six-year jail term for intimidating the wife of a missing journalist.
The monks arrived at the Presidential Secretariat on Thursday, concluding a six-day protest march that began at the sacred Temple of the Tooth in Kandy.
“We asked the president’s secretary to come to us to hear us, no response,” protesting monk Ulapane Sumangala said.
The monks demanded Gnanasara’s release and permission for him to appear in court wearing his monk’s robes.
Earlier this month, monks protested after he was brought to court in civilian clothes.
As the march began in Kandy, a special committee appointed by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake met in Colombo to review rules governing the treatment of Buddhist monks in prison and procedures for taking them outside prison, including for court appearances.
The committee was appointed after monks met the president and argued that removing a monk’s robes should not be treated as a routine administrative decision by prison authorities.
The committee recommended that monks sent to prison be allowed to wear their robes when taken outside the prison.
In 2016, Gnanasara disrupted a court hearing in a case concerning the abduction of a journalist who disappeared in 2010. Military intelligence officials were accused in the case.
He was sentenced in 2018 for contempt of court and intimidating the journalist’s wife.
However, Gnanasara served less than a year of the sentence after receiving a pardon from then President Maithripala Sirisena in 2019.
(PTI News)
