2023-07-14 04:25:05
image copyrightMohamed Shafi
Article informationAuthor, Suneth PereiraRole, BBC World Service
9 hours ago
Is there a pill that can make a person infertile? Or gel in women’s underwear? Have you ever heard of a doctor secretly sterilizing women during caesarean sections?
All these conspiracy theories are circulating among anti-Muslim Buddhist hardliners in Sri Lanka.
The novel says that the Muslim minority in the country is secretly trying to increase the percentage of Muslims by sterilizing women from the majority Buddhist community.
One of the men, a doctor from the northwestern town of Kurunegala, was the target of a particularly implausible claim.
“I am a Muslim, and I have been accused of secretly sterilizing 4,000 Buddhist women,” surgeon Muhammad Shafi told the BBC.
Dr. Shafi was falsely accused of compressing the fallopian tubes of female Buddhist patients with an instrument during caesarean section, thus preventing them from having more children.
The doctor was arrested on May 24, 2019 and charged under the terrorism laws.
“I was put in jail with the criminals,” said Dr. Shafi. “I wondered why they would do this to me? I should now be with my wife and three children.”
Shafi was behind bars for two months.
In July 2019, the court released him on bail, but he was granted compulsory leave due to the ongoing investigations against him.
Four years after his arrest, the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health reinstated Muhammad Shafi in May 2023 due to the lack of evidence to support the charges against him.
Easter bombings
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More than 250 people were killed in the Easter attacks
Buddhists make up about 70 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 22 million, Muslims about 10 percent, Hindus about 12 percent and Christians 7 percent.
Before his charges were brought, Dr. Shafi spent his days treating patients of all these faiths.
But on April 21, 2019 – Easter Sunday – a series of bombings targeted churches and tourist hotels, killing more than 250 people. These terrible attacks changed Shafi’s life forever.
The attacks, carried out by a group of extremists linked to the Islamic State, were the deadliest since the country’s civil war against separatist Tamil Tigers ended in 2009.
The bombings sparked a wave of anti-Muslim sentiments across Sri Lanka.
Because of this, mosques, houses and shops owned by Muslims were set on fire, and a Muslim man was tortured to death by a group of people.
lie
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This story was published by the Sinhala-language daily newspaper Devania on May 23, 2019 with the narration that around 4,000 Sinhalese Buddhist women were sterilized without their knowledge by a Muslim doctor.
On May 23, 2019, a month after the Easter bombings, Divina, one of the country’s largest newspapers, published a front-page article claiming that “a Jamaat-ut-Tawhid doctor sterilized 4,000 Sinhalese Buddhist mothers. Disclosing details with evidence.” Extensive investigations to arrest the doctor.
The Easter attacks were blamed on the National Thowheed Jamaat, one of two local Islamist groups.
The newspaper did not cite any sources to support its claims and did not reveal the identity of Dr. Shafi, but accusations of sterilizing female Buddhist patients soon emerged from Dr. Shafi, along with a picture of him and his location on Facebook.
“It was the first time my name was publicly linked to these allegations,” he told the BBC.
Dr Shafi, a consultant on one of the hospital wards, says he and fellow senior officials visited the director of the Kurunegala Teaching Hospital, Dr Sarath Werabandara, to report the false accusation against him on social media and express his concerns about a possible threat to his life.
But Weerabandara said he could handle issues raised inside the hospital, not outside.
Two days later, Shafi was arrested.
“I was taken to the police station without a warrant and put in jail to avoid public disturbances,” he said.
Poisoned media
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Buddhist monks demonstrate outside the hospital after Dr. Shafi’s arrest
The case gained more attention when TV channels started broadcasting the news and false accusations spread on social media.
“I was portrayed as the accused person and publicly labeled a terrorist,” Shafi said. “Inciting TV channels and fake news on social media have basically ruined my life.”
Buddhist monks began protesting outside the hospital where Dr. Shafi’s wife, Fatimah Amara, works.
“My wife received death threats. She feared for the lives of our children,” Shafi said, adding that she almost lost her job.
“My eldest daughter was preparing for her exams and wanted to go to school. But we couldn’t do that because of the public outrage against us. My daughter suffered from depression and we had to find new schools for our children.”
After the arrest, his wife and their three children moved to Colombo. Since then, his children go to three different schools.
“My children and my wife had to flee from one place to another,” Shafi said. “They had no money because my bank accounts were frozen.”
Although about 800 women lodged complaints against Dr. Shafi – which the hospital authorities referred to as “the complaints”, on 27 June 2019 the Criminal Investigation Department of Sri Lanka informed the court that there was no evidence against Dr. Shafi in relation to his alleged secret sterilizations. .
In addition, statements by various law enforcement and intelligence agencies, including the State Security Intelligence Service, denied any evidence linking Shafi to any terrorist activities.
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A statue amidst the remains of St Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, Sri Lanka, after the Easter Sunday bombing
Election campaign
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Religious intolerance played an important role in the Sri Lankan presidential elections, which resulted in the landslide victory of Gotabaya Rajapaksa
After the Easter bombings, former wartime defense minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brother of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, said he would run in the presidential election and would stop the spread of Islamic extremism.
Anti-Muslim sentiment reached its peak during the run-up to the elections, which took place in November 2019.
“Racism is a kind of addiction. Unfortunately, those addicted to racism talk about it with pride,” said Dr. Shafi.
“Sri Lankan politicians tarnished my reputation, it was an unimaginable shock.”
Sterilization pills and gels
The conspiracy theory that sterilization of women is a weapon used by Muslims to control Sri Lanka has surfaced on other occasions as well.
In 2018, a Muslim restaurant owner was accused of adding “sterilization pills” to food to target Buddhist customers.
This caused violent attacks by Buddhist mobs on Muslim-owned restaurants, shops and hotels in Ampara, eastern Sri Lanka.
After Dr. Shafi’s arrest, prominent Buddhist monk Warakaguda Sri Gnanaratana publicly supported stoning Muslims and urged Buddhists to boycott Muslim-owned shops and foods.
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Buddhists make up about 70% of Sri Lanka’s population
Another allegation is that Muslim-owned clothing stores put so-called “sterilization gel” in the underwear of Buddhist women.
As rumors spread on social media, Buddhist hardliners called for a boycott of Muslim shops and attacked some of those who shop there.
In the aftermath of the violence in Ampara, the United Nations was forced to issue a statement confirming that there were no sterilization pills or gels.
Media ethics
The Sri Lanka Young Journalists Association (SLYJA) was among the few groups that raised their voice against the reports that were being published in local newspapers, broadcast on TV channels and websites.
According to the association’s president, Tharindu Jayawardena, only a few factual investigations into the matter were published at the time.
The BBC spoke to various local journalists whose investigative stories “which told both sides of the story” were not published because the editors feared “their investigations would anger readers and affect newspaper sales”.
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Buddhist mobs attack a mosque after the Easter bombings
The hate campaign against Dr Shafi on mainstream and social media, Jayawardena says, has directly led to calls for Muslims to be stoned to death by Buddhist monks, without any foundation.
“We found that among the women who filed complaints against Shafi, only 168 of them had reproductive problems, and others filed complaints only after hearing the news. They just wanted their status to be checked. We have a list of all the complainants and we confirmed that 120 of them gave birth after the arrest. Healer.
Proof of innocence
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Sri Lanka is religiously and ethnically diverse
In the absence of evidence to support the allegations against him, Shafi resumed his work at Kurunegala Teaching Hospital in May 2023.
He received late payments for about three years ($8,750). Dr. Shafi donated them to the Ministry of Health to purchase much needed medicines.
Many Sri Lankan doctors emigrate in search of a better life as the country goes through an economic crisis, but Dr. Shafi is determined to stay and continue working at the hospital where he was falsely accused.
“My family members advised me not to do that, but I know the only way to prove my innocence is to go back to the same hospital and work the same job,” he said.
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