Colombo
\nA hardline Sri Lankan monk who is a close ally of ousted former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has been sentenced to nine months in prison for insulting Islam and inciting religious hatred.
\nGalagodaatte Gnanasara was convicted on Thursday for the remarks, which date back to 2016.
\nSri Lanka rarely convicts Buddhist monks, but this marks the second time that Gnanasara, who has repeatedly been accused of hate crimes and anti-Muslim violence, has been jailed.
\nThe sentence, handed down by the Colombo Magistrate\u2019s Court, comes after a presidential pardon he received in 2019 for a six-year sentence related to intimidation and contempt of court.
\nGnanasara was arrested in December for remarks he made during a 2016 media conference, where he made several derogatory remarks against Islam.
\nOn Thursday, the court said that all citizens, regardless of religion, are entitled to the freedom of belief under the Constitution.
\nHe was also given a fine of 1,500 Sri Lankan rupees ($5; \u00a34). Failure to pay the fine would result in an additional month of imprisonment, the court\u2019s ruling added.
\nGnanasara has filed an appeal against the sentence. The court rejected a request from his lawyers to free him on bail until a final judgment was made on the appeal.
\nHe was a trusted ally of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was forced to resign and flee abroad following mass protests over the island nation\u2019s economic crisis in 2022.
\nDuring Rajapaksa\u2019s presidency, Gnanasara, who also leads a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist group, was appointed head of a presidential task force on legal reforms aimed at protecting religious harmony.
\nAfter Rajapaksa\u2019s ouster, Gnanasara was jailed last year for a similar charge related to hate speech against the country\u2019s Muslim minority but was granted bail while appealing his four-year sentence.
\nIn 2018, he was sentenced to six years for contempt of court and intimidating the wife of a political cartoonist who is widely believed to have been disappeared. However, he only served nine months of that sentence because he received a pardon by Maithripala Sirisena who was the country\u2019s president at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Colombo A hardline Sri Lankan monk who is a close ally of ousted former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has been sentenced to nine months in prison for insulting Islam and inciting religious hatred. Galagodaatte Gnanasara was convicted on Thursday for the remarks, which date back to 2016. Sri Lanka rarely convicts Buddhist monks, but this marks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454547,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-454670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n