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161 ISLAMIC PREACHERS TO BE EXPELLED FROM SRI LANKA

161 ISLAMIC PREACHERS TO BE EXPELLED

 

 FROM SRI LANKA

 

 



Sri Lanka has reportedly ordered 161 foreign Muslim preachers to leave the country for flouting visa regulations immigration officer said on Sunday 01/22/2012.

A senior immigration official was quoted as saying that the clerics had no right to preach in Mosques because they had arrived on tourist visas. He also said that some local Muslims had complained that the visitors were not teaching a moderate form of Islam.

The preachers – from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Maldives and Arab nations – must now leave by 31 January.

“They have violated immigration laws. A tourist visa is to have a holiday or visit friends and family, and not to preach Islam,” Sri Lanka’s immigration head Chulananda Perera told the AFP news agency. Mr Perera said the group belonged to Tablighi-Jamaat – an international Islamic movement popular in Sri Lanka and the region.

A Muslim source said that the movement sends groups of preachers to places of worship, urging Muslims to devote more time to their faith and act more devoutly. Any idea that they were militant was laughable, the source added.

Muslim members of Sri Lanka’s government have expressed concern at the mass expulsion, and are expected to meet other officials later on Monday to try to delay the move.

The news has also created consternation in the Muslim community in Sri Lanka, the third largest ethnic group in the country after Sinhalese and Tamils,. During the long civil war the community was often caught between the two warring parties and it has a reputation for moderation, our correspondent adds.

 

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