Sri Lanka’s requirement to cremate anyone who dies from COVID-19 goes against public health guidance and discriminates against the Muslim community, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Monday.

“The government’s spurious argument that burial in accordance with Islamic tradition poses a public health risk stigmatizes, oppresses, and causes immense distress to a vulnerable minority,” the HRW said in a report.

The Sri Lankan government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has claimed that burying people who died of COVID-19 complications may “contaminate ground water.”

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