A 37-YEAR-old British nurse was arrested in Sri Lanka and sent to a deportation centre for sporting a Buddha tattoo deemed offensive by authorities.
Naomi Coleman was arrested at the country’s main international airport yesterday shortly after her arrival on a flight from India and appeared before a magistrate who ordered her deportation.
Coleman is a mental health nurse from Coventry. She has a tattoo of a meditating Buddha seated on a pink lotus flower on the upper part of her right arm. She said:
It is a terrible, hellish experience. I am a practising Buddhist and meditate. That is why I have the tattoo, not out of disrespect for Buddhism.
She said the tattoo had never created problems when she visited the country twice before or even in other Buddhist countries like Thailand and Cambodia.
Coleman said that she was never told what charges were brought against her, but was held for six hours and harassed by police for bribes.
She added that she 5,000 rupees (€28) for a lawyer, who did not help her.
I cried. I am very afraid.
Sri Lanka, a majority Buddhist nation, is highly sensitive to perceived insults to the religion.
Previous incidents
Sri Lanka barred another British tourist from entering the island in March last year for showing “disrespect” to Buddhism by having a Buddha tattooed on his arm.
In August 2012, three French tourists were sentenced to six months in jail, which was suspended for five years, for kissing a Buddha statue in what the authorities considered a sign of disrespect.
Sri Lanka prevented US rap star Akon from visiting in 2010 over one of his music videos which featured scantily clad women dancing in front of a Buddha statue.
It was not immediately clear to which country the detained British woman would be deported or when she would be put on a flight.
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