COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan Muslim intelligentsia on Sunday urged the authorities to bring to book extremists who have been harassing and intimidating Sharmila Seyyid for her writings and remarks against the Talibanization of Sri Lankan Muslim society.
Seeking a “thorough and fair” investigation into the complaints made on behalf of Sharmila, the 57 signatories to the appeal have urged the authorities to hold those responsible for all the misconduct accountable.
They also requested community religious leaders like the Jamaithul Ulema to take steps to “halt the targeting of fellow Muslims based on spurious religious justifications.”
The signatories said that there is a “critical need within the Muslim community and also in the country at large, for developing processes to respond to critical issues, not through vilification, harassment or violence, but through a process of dialogue that is in keeping with the law and norms of democratic society.”
A single mother, young Sharmila from Eravur in the Eastern Province, is a poet, novelist, journalist and social worker. She has been writing against the institution of purdah and the subjugation of women in Lankan Islamic society. Through her Organization of Social Development, she had taken up the cause of Muslim women in an increasingly restrictive Lankan Muslim society. She had won accolades for her writings in Tamil Nadu as well as Lanka.
What triggered the tirade against her was an interview given to BBC’s Tamil Osai in 2012 in which she said that the sufferings of prostitutes could be mitigated if prostitution was legalized. Arsonists attacked the educational institution she was running, and the social media was liberally used to tarnish her reputation. According to the media, this included an audio of a “lustful” conversation she had allegedly had with a top cop in Tamil Nadu and a picture of her battered “dead body” suggesting that death was in store for her. Forc
