{"id":7473,"date":"2009-02-14T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-14T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2009\/02\/14\/us-congressmen-press-sri-lanka-to-drop-anti-conversion-bill\/"},"modified":"2009-02-14T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-14T12:00:00","slug":"us-congressmen-press-sri-lanka-to-drop-anti-conversion-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2009\/02\/14\/us-congressmen-press-sri-lanka-to-drop-anti-conversion-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Congressmen Press Sri Lanka to Drop Anti-Conversion Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"source\"><a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2009\/feb\/12\/embassy-row-3946580\/\">www.washingtontimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"summary\">WASHINGTON, DC, USA, February 14, 2008: [HPI note: Reacting to proselytizing practices of missionaries, the Sri Lankan government has in the works a law to prevent conversions by &#8220;force, fraud or allurement.&#8221; HPI often receives news of unethical practices by missionaries. Some representatives of the U.S. government are opposing the measures.] <\/p>\n<p>Members of Congress are calling on the ambassador of Sri Lanka to urge his government to defeat a bill that would criminalize attempts to convert citizens of the South Asian nation from one religion to another. <\/p>\n<p>The bill, titled &#8220;Prohibition of Forcible Conversion,&#8221; is supported by the Buddhist National Heritage Party, which is a minor partner in the ruling coalition. The measure would impose fines up to $4,425 and prison terms of up to seven years for religious activists convicted of using &#8220;force, fraud or allurement&#8221; to convert others to their beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>The Sri Lanka Constitution recognizes Buddhism, practiced by more than 70 percent of the population of about 20 million, as the &#8220;foremost&#8221; religion, but also guarantees religious liberty to other faiths.<\/p>\n<p>Christian missionaries in Sri Lanka feel threatened by the proposed legislation. &#8220;Our missionaries only want to share the love of Christ with the people of Sri Lanka,&#8221; K.P. Yohannan, president of the missionary group, Gospel for Asia, told MNN. <\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>www.washingtontimes.com WASHINGTON, DC, USA, February 14, 2008: [HPI note: Reacting to proselytizing practices of missionaries, the Sri Lankan government has,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}