Sri Lanka’s Muslims are once again the target of organised hate on social media, and the issue has now reached Parliament. According to Tamil daily Virakesari, Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala told lawmakers on October 9, in reply to Sri Lanka Muslim Congress MP M.L.A.M. Hizbullah, that the Cyber Crime Division is investigating fake Facebook accounts, created at home and abroad, that are stoking ethnic tensions.
Muslims make up roughly nine to ten percent of Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka. Since the civil war ended in 2009, the community has endured mob attacks, business boycotts and collective blame after the 2019 Easter bombings, while the forced cremation of Muslim COVID-19 victims left a lasting wound.
Sri Lanka’s Muslims: The Minister’s Answer
According to Virakesari, the minister said arrests had been made in some areas and reports filed in court. But he said the government had received no complaints showing hate speech targeting Muslims exclusively, while acknowledging that groups that promoted racism in the past continue the same practices.
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False Population Claims
Lanka Newspapers reported that inflated figures on the Muslim population, bearing no relation to census data, are circulating online, which experts say aim to stoke fear among the majority. Writing in the Colombo Telegraph, Lukman Harees noted that social media monitors recorded 308 incidents of harmful speech in January 2026 alone, up 14.76% on December 2025, much of it in Sinhala that overseas moderators rarely understand.
Sources: Virakesari, Lanka Newspapers, Colombo Telegraph
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