Sri Lanka jails monk for insulting Islam

A Sri Lankan court has sentenced a prominent and controversial Buddhist monk to imprisonment for the second time, following his conviction for making derogatory comments about Islam and inciting religious animosity within the nation.

Galagodaatte Gnanasara received a nine-month sentence on Thursday for his anti-Muslim statements made in 2016.

Previously, he was incarcerated last year for a similar offense related to his disparagement of Sri Lanka's minority Muslim community, which constitutes just over 10% of the country's 22 million inhabitants.

At that time, he was released on bail while appealing a four-year sentence.

Gnanasara has been closely associated with former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who appointed him to lead a committee aimed at reforming Sri Lanka's legal framework to promote religious harmony in 2021.

Opposition lawmaker Shanakiyan Rasamanickam criticized this appointment, labeling it as "the definition of irony."

In 2018, Gnanasara was also sentenced to six years for threatening the spouse of a missing cartoonist and for contempt of court, but he was released after nine months due to a pardon from former president Maithripala Sirisena.

Following the resignation of his patron Rajapaksa amid widespread protests over the nation's severe economic crisis in 2022, Gnanasara's influence waned, leading to renewed legal challenges against him.