Sri Lanka bans face covering after attacks
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Sunday
announced a ban on face covering, a week after militants carried out coordinated
suicide bombings that killed 253 people.
Sirisena said he was using emergency powers to ban
any form of face covering in public. The restriction will take effect from
Monday, his office said in a statement.
“The ban is to ensure national security... No one
should obscure their faces to make identification difficult,” the statement
said.
It came days after local Islamic clerics urged
Muslim women not to cover their faces amid fears of a backlash after the
bombings carried out by extremists affiliated to ISIS.
Muslims in the majority Buddhist nation account for
about ten percent of its 21 million population.
Most Sri Lankan Muslims practice a liberal form of
the religion and only a small number of women wear the niqab.
