Fwd: Reg: Prof. Meththika Withaanage

[Nazeer]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Nazeer <galax...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 7:53 PM
Subject: Reg: Prof. Meththika Withaanage
To: <in...@twas.org>

Dear Sir/Madam, 

I being a Sri Lankan citizen extend my warm wishes and prayers in this trying times. 

I write with deep concern that an award is being presented to the above individual by your prestigious institution. However, we do have a concern as to whether she truly deserves such recognition. 

She is not a biologist nor a virologist. But her opinion in the popular as well as online media have sparked so much controversy and fuelled the opinion that Covid victims must never be buried since the Covid Virus can "break the ground and infect us all". She denied the WHO guidelines and she claims to be an expert who (though has never researched or given any backing for her claims) has done a Scientific study on it.

As you may very well know, Sri Lanka has made it mandatory to cremate all Covid victims, to which Muslims and Christians oppose vehemently since it is against the WHO guidelines and it is a sin to do so as per their religious teaching. However, people like Meththika Vithanage have created a popular opinion that Covid victims should never be buried because she being an "expert" in the area who has done "research" on the subject, has the knowledge to say so. But her claims are deceptive in as much as, she has never done a research on any of these subjects and she is not an expert on virology or pathology.

With this, she was included in the 'Technical Committee' to dispose Covid dead bodies in Sri Lanka in which, not a single virologist or pathologist is included. Sri Lanka is the only democratic country that denies a dignified burial based on race, since it's against the Islamic faith to cremate, however with her opinion, the government has remained adamant to change its stance on mandatory cremation of Covid victims.

I urge you to consider giving her the award, considering the fact that she goes against all the Scientific norms to stick to one's expertise and play racist cards to thrust her racist ideology on a minority. 

Should this award be given to her, this may very well be an endorsement for her role in the systematic persecution that's being done against Muslims and Christians in Sri Lanka, with the help of people like Meththika Vithanage. 

Thank you. 

Yours sincerely,

Zahir Abdul Nazeer