By Charles Haviland BBC News, Colombo

	Lord Buddha's philosophy does not condone worshipping statues

Buddhism is the majority religion in the island, the faith of most of its Sinhalese majority population.

The men, Abubaker Kalam and Tuan Rajabdeen, were arrested by police in the Pettah, a crowded bazaar area in the city centre, after they were found selling key tags with an image of the Buddha.

The Colombo chief magistrate pronounced them guilty under a section of the penal code which makes it an offence to insult a religion by defiling an object held sacred by that faith.

They were sentenced to one year's prison with hard labour, suspended for two years.

Such cases are rare. But some Sri Lankans have told the BBC that they believe that, with the rising political power of the Buddhist clergy in recent years, the social climate is getting more strict with regard to Buddhist observation and behaviour.

They have pointed to a similar trend in the country's third-largest religion, Islam.

Despite years of ethnically-grounded war, people often remark on the good and mutually respectful relations between the four main religions here – Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity.