Sri Lanka announced that it would continue to cremate all the corpses of the Coronavirus deaths, rejecting international calls and recommendations to allow Muslims to bury their dead according to their religious rites.
Since last April, the Sri Lankan government has prevented the burial of the dead in Corona, in light of fears fueled by influential Buddhist monks loyal to President Gotabaya Rajapakse that burying the bodies of the deceased in the epidemic could pollute the groundwater and contribute to the spread of the virus.
The World Health Organization and reliable global scientific and medical bodies - such as the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the European Center for Disease Control, and the Scientific Council of the Turkish Ministry of Health - confirmed that there is no harm in terms of health and science from burying the corpses of Corona.
Muslims form a minority in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka.
In a speech in Parliament Thursday, Sri Lankan Health Minister Pavithra Wanirachoshi claimed that "the decision to cremate the bodies of people with Corona came in line with the Sri Lankan Doctors Association report issued last week."
He added that the report mentioned that cremation is the safest way to dispose of the corpses of Corona deaths.
Regarding the reason for not approving the burial of corpses of Corona deaths - which is also suggested by the aforementioned report - the minister said that "the government did not want to deviate from the report on any ethnic or religious basis."
In response, former Sri Lankan Development Minister Ali Zahir Maulana said, "These government decisions are not based on science, but on politics and racial discrimination, and highlight their overt prejudice and intolerance."
Maulana added - in a tweet via Twitter - that the report of the Sri Lankan Doctors Association had explicitly announced that the corpses of corona dead people could be buried, calling on Wanirachushi to present the report to Parliament for public review.
Last month, the Speaker of the Maldives Parliament, Muhammad Nasheed, suggested to the Sri Lankan authorities to allow Muslims to be buried in a Maldivian cemetery in Colombo, but this suggestion remained unanswered.
Earlier, non-governmental organizations and minority groups in Sri Lanka submitted petitions to the country's Supreme Court, demanding an end to the burning of Muslim bodies, but all requests were rejected.
The founding Secretary-General of the British Muslim Council, Iqbal Sacrani, said - in an interview with Anatolia over the weekend - that "the decision to burn the bodies of Muslims who died in Corona in Sri Lanka is purely political, and there are fears that similar measures will be taken in other countries due to Islamophobia."
As of Friday morning, the number of Corona deaths in Sri Lanka reached more than 222, while the injuries exceeded 46,780 cases, according to the "World Meter" website.