Religious Persecution At Issue After Sri Lanka Easter Attacks
By Julian Hayda

Religious Persecution At Issue After Sri Lanka Easter Attacks
By Julian HaydaBombings at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday left 321 people dead. On Tuesday, ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks after increasingly calling for assaults on churches following the New Zealand mosque attacks. Sri Lankan officials have suggested that the bombers in Sri Lanka may have sought to avenge the deaths of Muslims in New Zealand, though they provided little evidence. They have also tentatively stated that two local Islamist radical groups were involved in the Sunday bombings: National Thowheeth Jama’ath and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim. Both Christians and Muslims are minorities in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka, which spent decades in civil war until 2009. Joining Worldview to help us understand the recent tragedy in Sri Lanka is Shanta Premawardhana. Premawardhana is a pastor and interfaith leader originally from Sri Lanka. He is currently the president of the Omnia Institute for Contextual Leadership.