Sri Lankan authorities say there are no plans to turn the historic Ehelepola Walawwa mansion into a school

This article is more than one year old.
Published on February 17, 2020 at 06:45
3 min read
By AFP Sri Lanka

Multiple Facebook posts shared thousands of times in Sri Lanka have called on people to protest against purported plans to convert a Sri Lankan historical structure into a Muslim school. The claim is misleading; the Sri Lankan Archeology Department said on February 12, 2020, that while the site is currently undergoing renovations, there were no plans to repurpose the building as a Muslim school; the image in the misleading posts actually shows a church, not the historical structure in cited in the caption.

One misleading post was published on Facebook here on February 11, 2020. It has been shared more than 13,000 times and has since been deleted.

Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:

Screenshot of Facebook post

The Sinhala language text superimposed on the image translates to English as: “Let us stand against the conversion of the Ehelepola Walawwa into a Muslim school. Let’s protect our heritage.”

The post’s caption reads: “Let's join”.

Ehelepola Walawwa is located in Kandy, a major city in central Sri Lanka. It was the ancestral home of a courtier named Ehelepola Disawe during the Kandyan kingdom. The building was used as a prison during the British colonial era and then as a remand facility following independence. In 2013, the building was transferred under the purview of former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to be restored as a cultural site.

A similar claim about the site being converted into a school has also been shared on Facebook here, here, here and here.

The claim is misleading; the Central Province Archeology Department told AFP that the site is undergoing renovations, but there were no plans to convert the building to a Muslim school.

“The site has been named an archeological monument and it is currently undergoing conservation and rehabilitation,” the department’s site officer for Ehelepola Walawwa said by phone on February 12, 2020. “The Archeology Department supervises the project closely and is on site weekly and can assure you it has not even been suggested that the building be converted to a school.”

The officer added that the only proposal made in terms of repurposing the building was a plan to convert it to a vegetarian restaurant, but that the proposal was not approved.

The Kandy Urban Development Authority Director of Projects, Gamunu Premawardana, also refuted the claim.

“It is false news. The site is undergoing conservation,” he told AFP by phone on February 12, 2020.

The photog used in the misleading posts does not show the Ehelepola Walawwa. It shows the St. Paul’s Church in Kandy city.

Below is a screenshot comparison of a Google Street View image of the St. Paul’s Church (L) and the misleading post (R):

Screenshot comparison of a Google Street View image of the St. Paul’s Church (L) and the misleading poster (R)

The conservation of Ehelepola Walawwa is part of a Kandy urban development plan being conducted in partnership with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Here is a JICA report on the Kandy development plan published in September 2018. The report provides information on the conservation of Ehelepola Walawwa on page 10-19.

Below is a screenshot of the report:

Screenshot of the report.

On page 10-20, the report adds that the Ehelepola Walawwa is being renovated “without a clear idea of its future use, but it is considering to turn the place into a local food restaurant and a craft store.”

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