Sri Lankan Muslim minister targeted with fabricated news graphic about Buddhist march

"Buddhists say, may all beings be healthy, healed, and free from suffering. To you, extremist opportunists, who destroy the country. Why do you care?" reads a Sinhala-language Facebook post shared on April 26. 

It shares a graphic showing a picture of Deputy Minister of Power and Energy Arkam Ilyas and the logo of the Live at Sri Lanka news outlet (archived here and here).

Text on the graphic attributed to him reads: "Using a wild animal to propagate the teachings of the teacher who introduced a non-violent philosophy to the world and taught us to love and be kind even to animals is a disrespect to Buddhism."

A line under the purported quote responds: "We will take care of that, you don't have to worry, mind your business."

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Screenshot of the false post taken on May 1 with red Xs added by AFP

The false claim has also spread elsewhere on Facebook and circulated after a group of Buddhist monks began a week-long peace walk across Sri Lanka on April 22, accompanied by a rescued stray dog that has become a celebrity in its own right (archived link). 

Led by Texas-based Vietnamese monk Pannakara, the group of 13 launched their march at dawn from a historic Buddhist temple in Dambulla, about 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of the capital Colombo. 

The group walked 210 kilometres (131 miles) and reached the capital a week later, where he was received by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (archived link). 

Hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans lined the route during the week-long walk to offer Pannakara and his 12 fellow monks flowers and gifts. 

But Buddhist monk Balangoda Kassapa criticised the government and said the peace walk does not align with Theravada Buddhism or Sri Lanka's Buddhist culture (archived here and here). 

"There is no history of Buddhist monks with animals in Buddhist society or during the Buddha's time. We also do not approve of dressing animals in Buddha's robes. As Buddhist monks and as a Buddhist society, we do not agree with such practices," he said.

Comments indicate that some users appeared to believe the deputy minister had made the remarks. 

"Muslims now try to teach us, Buddhists, Buddhism. All the powers of this government have been given to non-Buddhist extremists," a user wrote.

"Who are you? Don't come to teach us. We will take care of our own affairs. How many sins do you commit? Take care of yourselves, you scoundrels," another said.

Fabricated quote 

Saranga Pathirana, head of the news department at Live at Sri Lanka's parent group Swarnawahini, told AFP via email on April 29 that they did not publish the news graphic circulating in the false posts (archived link).

"It can be clearly observed that this has been falsely created using the Live at Sri Lanka news branding, including its logo and associated colours," he said. 

An inspection of the news graphic also shows it has misspelt Ilyas's name in Sinhala (archived here and here).

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Screenshot of the false post captured on April 29, 2026 with the misspelt name highlighted in red by AFP

A reverse image search on Google and a keyword search on Facebook found that the photo of Ilyas was taken from a Facebook post shared on March 27 about a meeting on proposed tourism projects (archived link). 

Ilyas told AFP via WhatsApp on April 29 that he has never made the remarks.

"I have never said anything related to the peace walk. I also did not talk to any news programme of Swarnawahini," he said. 

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Screenshot comparison of the false news graphic (L) and the photo posted by the deputy minister on his Facebook page

A separate search found the person in the bottom-right is Sri Lankan actor Saman Hemarathna, whose picture is taken from a promotional webpage for the movie Gindari 3 (archived link). AFP cannot find credible media reports that he commented on the peace walk. 

AFP has previously debunked other false posts related to Muslims in Sri Lanka.