Nilay Saiya, Senior Fellow with the Religious Freedom Institute’s South and Southeast Asia Action Team, writes at The Diplomat about the relationship between religious repression and the terror attacks on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka.

How the government responds to the Easter attacks will matter greatly for the stability of Sri Lanka. If it takes a hardline stance and refuses to address systemic issues of bias and discrimination, it will continue to fertilize a breeding ground for terrorism. Similarly, if the country’s Buddhist nationalists use the attacks to fuel fear of religious minorities and justify retaliatory violence, we can indeed expect to see a new age of terror in Sri Lanka.

Read more: Religious Repression and the Easter Attacks: The Hidden Connection