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The Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry (ECAJ), the elected peak rep­res­ent­at­ive body rep­res­ent­ing the Aus­trali­an Jewish community has expressed its horror and outrage at the dev­ast­at­ing series of terrorist bombing attacks in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday against three Catholic churches and three hotels fre­quen­ted by western tourists, which left at least 290 people dead and more than 500 injured.

Easter is the most important of Christian holidays, a time when churches are attended by large numbers of wor­ship­pers. There can be little doubt that Chris­ti­ans were a primary target.

The scale of the attacks, and their close sequen­cing, indicates both the malevol­ence of those respons­ible and their high level of planning, organ­isa­tion and co-ordin­a­tion.

Although the Sri Lankan gov­ern­ment has now attrib­uted respons­ib­il­ity for the attacks to a little-known Islamist extremist group, National Thowheeth Jama’ath, it is entirely possible that other Islamist terrorist organ­isa­tions were involved in the atrocity.

The bombings are the latest and the worst of a growing, and under-reported, number of attacks against Chris­ti­ans and other religious com­munit­ies in various parts of Asia, fuelled by a toxic mixture of nativist nation­al­ism, religious extremism and social media rumour-mongering.

It is espe­cially tragic for the people of Sri Lanka, who for the last 10 years have worked hard to put behind them the hatreds and destruc­tion of the civil war which ravaged the country between 1983 and 2009.

We extend our deepest sym­path­ies to the families of the innocent civilians who were killed by the ter­ror­ists. We wish them and those who were wounded strength in this time of tragedy. May they recover fully and speedily in both body and spirit.

Contact
Peter Wertheim AM | co-CEO
ph: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 5888
e: [email protected] | www.ecaj.org.au