Pastor threatened with death, historic Methodist sanctuary ransacked,
during Holy Week.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, April 16 (Compass Direct News) – Buddhist mobs
attacked several churches in Sri Lanka last week, 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, 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 said his 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 ordered the pastor to come out, shouting, “I didn’t bring my
gun tonight because if I had it with me, I would use it!”

“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.

Methodist Building Ransacked

Earlier, on Palm Sunday (April 5), another group of men broke into the
150-year-old Pepiliyana Methodist Church in Colombo after congregants
concluded an Easter procession.

The gang entered through the back door and windows of the building late
that night; witnesses said they saw them load goods into a white van
parked outside the church early the next morning.

“They removed everything, including valuable musical instruments, a
computer, Bibles, hymn books and all the church records,” said the Rev.
Surangika Fernando.

The church had no known enemies and enjoyed a good relationship with
other villagers, Rev. Fernando said, adding that the break-in appeared
to be more than a simple robbery.

“My desk was completely cleaned out,” he said. “They took important
documents with details of parishioners such as baptism and marriage
records, which are of no value to thieves. They even took what was in my
wastepaper basket.”

Local police agreed that robbery was an unlikely motive and that
opponents from outside the area were the most likely culprits.
Investigations were continuing at press time.

Finally, anti-Christian mobs in Vakarai, eastern Batticaloa district,
intimidated church members gathering for several worship services during
Holy Week.

“What can we do?” pastor Kanagalingam Muraleetharan told Compass. “The
authorities and the police say we have the right to worship, but the
reality is that people are threatened.”

The Easter incidents are the latest in a long series of attacks against
churches and Christian individuals in recent years, many of them
instigated by Buddhist monks who decry the growth of Christianity in the
country.

Members of Sri Lanka’s Parliament may soon enact an anti-conversion bill
designed to restrict religious conversions. Human rights organizations
and Christian groups have criticized the vague terminology of the
legislation that, if passed, may invite misapplication against religious
activity.

The draft “Bill for the Prohibition of Forcible Conversions” was
referred to a consultative committee of the Ministry of Religious
Affairs in February for further deliberation, prior to a final reading
and vote. (See www.compassdirect.org, “Parliament to Vote on
Anti-Conversion Laws,” Jan. 26.)

According to the most recent government census, Protestant Christians
number less than 1 percent of the total population in Sri Lanka, but
they remain the primary target of religiously motivated violence and
intimidation.

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