Did Sri Lankan government grant free visa for Bora Muslims up to year 2025

Media Claim: A Social media post claim that “Cabinet approval was given today to grant a free visa for Bora Muslims up to the year 2025 to visit Sri Lanka. Accordingly, the Bora Muslims who come to Sri Lanka will be able to remain in this country for another five years until the year 2025”

Facts Check: False

Viral News on Social media:

බෝරා මුස්ලිම්වරුන්ට ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට පැමිණීම සඳහා 2025 දක්වා නොමිලයේ වීසා ලබා දීමට අද දින කැබිනට් අනුමැතිය ලැබුණා. ඒ අනුව ශ්‍රී ලංකාවට පැමිණෙන බෝරා මුස්ලිම් ජාතිකයන්ට 2025 දක්වා තවත් වසර 5 ක් මේ රටේ ‍රැඳී සිටීමට හැකියාව ලැබෙනවා. ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ සංචාරක කර්මාන්තය ප්‍රවර්ධනය සඳහා ආණ්ඩුව විසින් මෙම පියවර ගනු ලැබුවා.

Cabinet approval was given today to grant free visa for Bora Muslims up to year 2025 to visit Sri Lanka. Accordingly, the Bora Muslims who come to Sri Lanka will be able to remain in this country for another five years until the year 2025. The government has taken this step to promote Sri Lanka's tourism industry.

போரா முஸ்லிம்களுக்கு 2025 ஆம் ஆண்டு வரை இலங்கைக்கு வருகை தர இலவச விசா வழங்க அமைச்சரவை ஒப்புதல் இன்று வழங்கப்பட்டது. அதன்படி, இலங்கைக்கு வரும் போரா முஸ்லிம்கள் 2025 ஆம் ஆண்டு வரை இன்னும் ஐந்து ஆண்டுகள் இந்த நாட்டில் இருக்க முடியும். இலங்கையின் சுற்றுலாத் துறையை மேம்படுத்துவதற்காக அரசாங்கம் இந்த நடவடிக்கையை எடுத்துள்ளது.

Facts Check Analysis: Various post claiming of free visa to designated community of people is widely shared on the social media in Srilanka.

The photo with various sections of people, especially from the Bora Muslim communitywomen, in the picture is being shared that Sri Lankan government has approved, “free visa for Bora Muslims up to year 2025 to visit Sri Lanka. Accordingly, the Bora Muslims who come to Sri Lanka will be able to remain in this country for another five years until the year 2025. In order to improve tourism industry”

There is no truth to the claim that the government has implemented a free visa scheme for Bohra Muslims. We further checked in the official website of Sri Lanka, We did not find anything specific to support this claim.

As per Aug 2019 news, “Bohra community gears up to host 21,000 visitors to Colombo”

As per ft, Sri Lanka expects a major tourism boost from the first-ever carbon-neutral ‘Ashara Mubaraka’, a 10-day spiritual convention draw ing 21,000 religious visitors from 40 countries from August last week, with an expected revenue of $ 31 million.

This is the first major international convention the island nation is hosting after the 21 April Easter Sunday attacks, and was initiated by the Tourism Development Ministry as well as the Bohra community in the country, to boost the image and to demonstrate to the world that Sri Lanka is safe for travel.

We did not find any reference of free visa to the Bora Community of Muslims.

As of 02 July 2019, Sri Lankan citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 42 countries and territories,

Implementing free visa scheme for designated countries

Those who hold passports of listed countries and travel to Sri Lanka from 01.08.2019 to 31.01.2020 for tourist purposes are exempted paying ETA fee, in view of enhancing tourist arrivals from designated countries.

However, any foreign national who will be visiting Sri Lanka for a short period is required to apply ETA and ensure pre approval before the journey to avoid unnecessary delays at the port of entry and adhere with enhanced pre clearance.

The list of countries is as follows.

Thailand
28 countries under European Union

{Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.}