E/CN.4/2006/5/Add.3 Page 8 “a situation which combines the observance and practice of a religion or belief with activities which would provide material and other benefits to the inexperienced, defenceless and vulnerable people to propagate a religion. The kind of activities projected in the Bill would necessarily result in imposing unnecessary and improper pressures on people, who are distressed and in need, [in] their free exercise of thought, conscience and religion [and in] the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of [their] choice”. 5 31. The reasoning of the Supreme Court in the above case has remained partly the basis on which it later addressed the questions raised by the draft legislation on conversion (see sect. V) IV. INTERRELIGIOUS TENSIONS A. Overview and background 32. For the past few years, religious tolerance and harmony among religious groups in Sri Lanka has undoubtedly declined. The main religious tensions can be found between the Buddhist community and certain Christian groups. 33. Many interlocutors at the governmental level but also from different religious communities, including from so-called traditional Christian communities, have asserted that there was a problem with the alleged proselytising behaviour of certain Christian religious groups, often referred to as “Christian fundamentalists” or “fundamentalists”, which have arrived or appeared in the country in recent decades. Today, many Sri Lankan Buddhists, but also members from the Hindu community, allege that they feel their identity threatened. 34. This phenomenon has existed for many years in Sri Lanka but, because of the war, did not attract very much attention. It has amplified even further with the humanitarian efforts after the tsunami, though the draft laws on conversion were proposed much earlier and strong lobbies were being built around that issue. 35. While this phenomenon originally developed because of the activities of certain religious communities, it has increasingly included the activities of some, mainly foreign, nongovernmental organizations with a religious agenda that work in development and humanitarian assistance. The issue came to a climax during the crisis that immediately followed the tsunami. After 26 December 2004, an important number of foreign humanitarian NGOs arrived in Sri Lanka and it has been claimed that some of those with a religious affiliation took advantage of the disaster to promote their religion. 36. In 2002, on the basis of complaints that Christian communities were carrying out improper conversions, the “Presidential Commission on Buddha Sasana” was created to inquire into a wide range of matters bearing on the well-being and long-term survival of the position of Buddhism. The conclusions of the Commission, which the Special Rapporteur will not discuss in the present report, were aimed inter alia, at preserving the place of Buddhism in the Sri Lankan society. It appears that instead of easing the religious tensions, it provided more justification for religious intolerance.