Sri Lanka bans Time Magazine over ‘Face of Buddhist Terror’ Cover

Wednesday, 3 July 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Government has banned the 1 July edition of the Time Magazine in Sri Lanka over its cover story featuring a hard line Burmese monk, Customs officials said. According to Sri Lanka Customs about 4000 copies of the magazine had been detained by Customs officials at the Bandaranaike International Airport. Director of Customs and Customs Media Spokesman Leslie Guruge said the magazine consignment had been detained because it featured content that could inflame religious tensions.

“Under customs regulations, any publication featuring content that could be deemed insulting to a religion or religious philosophy could be withheld from distribution. Therefore we detained these copies at Customs,” Gamini said. Sri Lanka is the second country to ban the magazine after Myanmar. The cover story on the 1 July issue of Time Magazine is called ‘The Face of Buddhist Terror’ and features Myanmar’s extremist monk Wirathu, who has been accused of stoking anti-Muslim sentiments with his 969 movement, launched in February, which calls on Buddhists to boycott Muslim shops and businesses. The cover story also makes a passing reference to hard line Buddhist movements operating in Sri Lanka. In Myanmar, nearly 250 people have died and tens of thousands, mostly Muslims, have fled their homes in religious violence in the past year. (DB)