LNP – Five Jewish Rabbis performing Kosher chicken processing on visit visa arrested by Immigration Dept

Five Jewish Rabbis, including three Israelis who were performing Kosher on the poultry products of a chicken processing plant in Mirigama were arrested by the Department of Immigration and Emigration (DIE) yesterday for defying their visit visa conditions in Sri Lanka.

The DIE officials, acting on information, raided a chicken processing plant and took five Jewish Rabbis, three of whom were from Israel and two others each from Australia and Italy.

Preliminary inquiries revealed that the five Rabbis who had arrived in the country recently on a visit visa were performing the Kosher tradition of making the poultry products satisfying the requirements of the Jewish laws. The Kosher-performed meat was then supposed to be purchased by the Jewish religious centres of local Chabad Houses and to be sent to the Jewish population dense coastal town of Arugam Bay.

A senior immigration official of the department’s Investigation Division told the Daily Mirror yesterday that two of the Israeli nationals had arrived in the country in March and May, whereas the rest had arrived in the first week of June.

The official said though performing religious rites pertaining to the Jewish culinary traditions was not unlawful in Sri Lanka but carrying out such activity at a commercial venture with a visit visa is illegal, as no work-related activity is permitted on a tourist visa.

He said this was the first time such activity came into light in the country, as foreign religious practitioners must obtain prior clearance from the Ministry of Religious Affairs before entering Sri Lanka for such purposes.

The DIE on several recent occasions made arrests on foreign religious leaders performing preaching with visit visas, and the clergy were removed from the country. Although this is not considered direct religious practice like preaching, the foreigners could have obtained at least a business visa from the DIE to perform such a task, the official said.

The five arrested male foreigners are to be removed from the country shortly after recording statements from them.

The officials are conducting investigations on the instructions of the Immigration and Emigration Controller General Chaminda Pathiraja.