Friday, September 16, 2011

Sri Lanka Buddhist Monks Destroy Muslim Shrine

A group of Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka led a crowd that demolished a Muslim shrine last week.

This incident took place on Saturday in Anuradhapura, an ancient Buddhist city and Unesco world heritage site.

The monk who led the group told the BBC he did it because the shrine was on land that was given to Sinhalese Buddhists 2,000 years ago.

But a prominent Muslim in the area said he was very sad and the sentiment was shared by many Sinhalese too.

A Sri Lankan news website showed photographs of a crowd including monks apparently reducing a small structure to a pile of rubble.

The mob waved Buddhist flags and - in one picture - burnt a green Muslim flag. There have been no other reports of what happened.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14926002