A cabinet paper banning the burqa was signed by Minister of Public Security Rear Admiral (Rtd) Sarath Weerasekara on Friday (12).
He said this step was taken because the burqa was posing a direct threat to national security. He said while he was growing up he had Muslim friends and ‘none of them wore a burqa’.
“It is a symbol of religious extremism that came into the country recently. Therefore, we are banning it (the burqa),” Minister Weerasekara told a gathering in Munasinghe Aramaya in Kalutara yesterday.
He added that there are over 2,000 Madrasas in the country and this was problematic as no one can arbitrarily open a school and teach what they desire to students. He said all children aged between five and 16 years should be taught under the national education policy. “We will take steps to ban more than 1,000 Madrasas that have not been registered under the national education policy,” he added.
The burqa was banned temporarily soon after the Easter Sunday attacks that killed over 250 people and injured some 500 others in 2019.
The ban was lifted after rights groups and the Muslim community voiced their concerns.