Sri Lankan authorities have allowed Buddhists monks to operate with impunity in attacking places of worship across the island and continued to build Buddhist shrines in the Tamil North-East, said the United States in a report released this week.

The US State Department, in their International Religious Freedom Report for 2013, stated that Sri Lanka had “failed to prevent the destruction of a Hindu temple in Dambulla and an attack on the Grandpass Mosque in Colombo”, adding that,

“In multiple instances during the year, police failed to respond or were reluctant to arrest or pursue criminal cases against individuals instigating attacks on minority religious sites.”

Stating that there was an “overall decrease in societal respect for religious freedom”, with Buddhist nationalist groups attacking other places of worship, the report said,

“The government was hesitant to arrest and prosecute Buddhist monks involved in numerous attacks against Muslims and Christians. Buddhist monks generally operated under the protection of the government. Some monks, particularly outside Colombo, operated with impunity in trying to eliminate Christian and Muslim places of worship.”

The report went on to take note of government-sponsored construction of Buddhist shrines in the Tamil North-East of the island, stating,

“Following the conclusion of a 27-year conflict between the Buddhist-majority government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), government troops continued to build Buddhist shrines in Tamil areas of the north, which are home to primarily Hindu but also Christian and Muslim populations. Some Tamil groups alleged this demonstrated government-sponsored Sinhalese colonization of former LTTE-held areas. The number of Buddhist shrines and religious sites in the northern districts of Jaffna and Kilinochchi also increased.”

See the full report here.