{{The Sri Lankan authorities have ordered the deportation of a British tourist because of a Buddha tattoo on her arm.}}<\/p>\n
Named as Naomi Michelle Coleman, she arrived on a flight from India on Monday and was arrested at the airport after the tattoo of the Buddha and a lotus flower on her right arm was seen.<\/p>\n
She is being held at an immigration detention camp until her deportation.<\/p>\n
The authorities are tough on perceived insults to Buddhism, the religion of the island’s majority ethnic Sinhalese.<\/p>\n
Sri Lanka is particularly sensitive about images of Buddha. The authorities regularly take strict action with regard to the treatment of the image.<\/p>\n
Last March another British tourist was denied entry at Colombo’s international airport because immigration officials said he had spoken “disrespectfully” when asked about a tattoo of the Buddha on his arm.<\/p>\n
He later spoke of his “shock” at the incident, insisting that he himself followed Buddhist teachings and thought a tattoo was an apt tribute.<\/p>\n
Two years ago, three French tourists were given suspended prison sentences for kissing a Buddha statue.<\/p>\n
The UK travel advice on Sri Lanka warns of the sensitivity of the issue and tells visitors not to pose for photos in front of statues of Buddha.<\/p>\n
Over the past year monks belonging to certain hardline Buddhist groups have led violent attacks against Muslims and Christians, a trend which has given rise to considerable concern among religious minorities in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n
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{{The Sri Lankan authorities have ordered the deportation of a British tourist because of a Buddha tattoo on her arm.}} Named as Naomi Michelle Coleman, she arrived on a flight from India on Monday and was arrested at the airport after the tattoo of the Buddha and a lotus flower on her right arm was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000051773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-14007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000051773,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14007.gif","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/gif","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14007.gif","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14007.gif","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14007.gif","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14007.gif","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14007.gif","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000051773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14007"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=14007"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=14007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}