Sri Lanka bans face covering after attacks

By : AFP

Date: 28 April 2019 7:22pm WAT

This handout photo taken and released by the Sri Lankan President's Office on April 23, 2019 shows President Maithripala Sirisena (3rd L) visiting St. Sebastian's church in Negombo, two days after a series of bomb attacks targeting churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka. - Sri Lanka began a day of national mourning April 23 with three minutes of silence to honour more than 300 people killed in suicide bomb blasts that have been blamed on a local Islamist group. (Photo by Handout / SRI LANKAN PRESIDENT'S OFFICE / AFP) / -----EDITORS NOTE --- RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO

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Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Sunday announced a ban on face covering, a week after Islamist 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 jihadists affiliated to the Islamic State group.

Muslims in the majority Buddhist nation account for about 10 percent of its 21 million population.

Most Sri Lankan Muslims practise a liberal form of the religion and only a small number of women wear the niqab.
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