Buddhist terrorism refers to religious terrorism committed by groups or individuals with motivations rooted within the tenets of Buddhism. Buddhist teachings disapprove of killing or inflicting pain on others beings. However, on occasion, there have been Buddhists who have contravened against such tenets, and Buddhist monks have encouraged violence or initiated it for various reasons. China During the 2008 unrest in Tibet, the has claimed that Tibetan Buddhist it captured that were planning suicide attacks, were the "scum of Buddhism" and agents of the 14th Dalai Lama, the leader of a prominent sect in Tibetan Buddhism. Japan On March 12, Aum Shinrikyo, a "quasi-Buddhist cult", had committed a lethal gas attack on the Tokyo subway. Its motivations were "religious and apocalyptic"; the leader bases his religion on Buddhist and Hindu philosophy. Sri Lanka Sri Lankan Tamil people, who are predominantly Hindu, have claimed religious intolerance by Buddhists and "Buddhist terrorism" in particular. G.G. Ponnambalam of The Sunday Leader reports that Buddhist priests and armed policemen have attacked the Tamil Ceylon Workers' Congress, and that that represents "the advent of Buddhist terrorism".
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