CID hounding Ranil over book on Buddhism

Wednesday, 26 June 2013 00:25 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Criminal Investigation Department’s chief preoccupation is hounding United National Party Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe over a book he wrote about politics and the Dhamma, Party General Secretary Tissa Attanayake said yesterday. “A book written about Buddhism has become the biggest problem for the CID today,” Attanayake charged. He said the book was not written about toppling governments but about how to apply Lord Buddha’s teachings to modern day governance. The CID has been investigating for months now about why the Friedrich Nuemann Foundation had funded Wickremesinghe’s book, Attanayake said. He said that the CID was going after the foundation in a big way because they funded the book by Wickremesinghe published in 2005.

“Friedrich Naumann is a German Government-funded NGO committed to spread liberalism throughout the world and to assist this process. This Government believes it is a crime for this organisation to fund a book that includes the Buddha’s teachings,” he charged. (DB)