Tuesday, 1 July 2014 01:43
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Gnanasara Thero receives phone call from US Embassy notifying of visa cancellation
US State Dept. says monk is no longer permitted to travel on multiple entry visa issued in 2011
Bodu Bala Sena reserves action until official written notice served
By Dharisha Bastians
A fortnight after Sri Lanka experienced the worst communal clashes in decades, the US State Department has moved to prevent a prominent hardline Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) monk from travelling to the United States, by cancelling a five year visa accorded to him in 2011, the group said yesterday.
BBS General Secretary Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero received a telephone call from the US Embassy in Colombo last Friday (27), notifying the monk that he would no longer be permitted to travel to the US on his existing five-year multiple entry visa, the group’s CEO Dilantha Withanage told the Daily FT yesterday.
The BBS held a rally in Aluthgama hours before ethno religious clashes broke out in the town, leaving four dead, 80 injured and scores of homes and businesses damaged, a majority of them Muslim-owned. Derogatory speeches against Muslims by the monk in question at the rally are widely believed to have prompted the violence, leading to enhanced calls for the swift introduction of legislation to curb hate speech.
“The visa was issued in 2011 (before the BBS was founded) for the monk to travel to Indiana to attend a religious ceremony there,” Withanage said. He added that Gnanasara Thero had travelled to the US in 2013 on the same multiple entry visa.
The US Embassy has declined to comment on the cancellation.
“The US Government does not comment on individual visa cases because those records are confidential under US law,” an Embassy Spokesperson told the Daily FT.
Withanage said the US Embassy had informed the BBS General Secretary that they were calling to relay a message from the State Department in Washington that he would no longer be eligible to travel to the US on the same visa.
He said the BBS would decide on its next course of action once the notification was issued to the monk in writing or by official email.
