Two Anti-Conversion Law Votes Expected in Sri Lanka this Week

Sri Lanka's Parliament is expected to vote this week on two anti-conversion laws presented by the Jathika Hela Urumaya party (JHU). Even though the same proposition was taken to the Supreme Court last year in August 2004 and two of the clauses of the bill were found to be unconstitutional, the JUH has revived the bill for the Prohibition of Forcible Conversion. The bill has been presented on the Parliamentary Order Paper for the second time despite the fact that no changes, editings or re-writings have taken place as originally requested by the Court.

The proposed law contains rules to prevent people from changing their religion, and was formed by Sri Lanka's Minister of Buddhist Affairs, Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, with the support of the JHU. For the law to pass, it would require a constitutional amendment that would need a two-third majority vote by the parliament and a national referendum.

If the law passes, it would forbid anyone to "unethically convert or attempt to unethically convert any other person espousing one religion...to another religion, religious belief, religious persuasion or faith which such a person does not hold or belong to."

The penalty for breaking the law has been set to a fine of around 100,000 rupees (500 pounds) and/or a five year prison term.

The General Secretary of the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (a VCM partner), Godfrey Yogarajah, presented his case to a Parallel Session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, which recently expressed their concerns regarding Sri Lanka's religious freedom at the 61st session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR).

Yogarajah spoke out against acts of violence against his country's Christian minority and expressed the dangerous implications of the proposed anti-conversion laws. He proclaimed that this legislation would affect the citizens of Sri Lanka in practicing their own chosen faith.

"If passed into law, either one of these anti-conversion laws would have the effect of really institutionalising persecution, in the sense that anyone who would lead a Hindu or a Buddhist to Christ could very much end up in prison and be fined and tremendous amount of money. It's meant to have a dampening effect on evangelistic efforts," protested Glenn Penner from Voice of the Martyrs Canada.

Many have said that the result of passing such laws could be truly devastating on all sides: "Even such things as handing out relief aid, such as what's been going on with the tsunami, among Buddhist and Hindu religious leaders, sometimes they say, 'well, that's just a way of doing conversion,'" expresses Penner.

"You cannot even do a good work because you'd be afraid that someone is going to misconstrue that as a way that you're trying to buy somebody into the kingdom of God."