Latest Highlight



By Nadia MASSIH
May 31, 2018

We speak to Maung Zarni, a human rights campaigner, academic and co-author of "The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar's Rohingya". He joins us on set a week after Amnesty International published a report detailing a massacre carried out by Rohingya militants last August in Myanmar's Rakhine state, where nearly 100 Hindus were killed. Zarni vocally criticises Amnesty, saying the report whips up anti-Rohingya sentiment, not just in Myanmar but across Southeast Asia.





By Team Observers
November 25, 2015            

In just 24 hours, this Facebook post in Burmese has been shared more than 5,000 times, and “liked” nearly as much. Two photos of massive protests are captioned “a hundred thousand French people protested on November 22 to kick Muslims out of France”. In Burma, where Islamophobia runs rampant, this seemed believable to many.



The post was spotted by Aung Aung, a Burmese Observer living in France. It was published by a popular Facebook page whose name translates to “Knowledge Digest”. Apparently aimed at young people, this page shares all types of news and opinion, including a lot of anti-Muslim and anti-Rohingya rhetoric. In the past few years, the rise of extremist Buddhist nationalists in Burma has led to growing Islamophobia and persecution of the Rohingyas, a Muslim ethnic minority. 

Of course, anyone who pays attention to news from France knows that there have been no major anti-Muslim protests since the November 13 Paris attacks. A quick Google Images search shows that the two photos used in the post are not at all what the caption claims they are. 

Neither photo was taken on November 22. They were taken on two different days, November 17 and November 21. Both were taken by AFP photographers in the southern French city of Toulouse, where marches were held to honor victims of the attacks. There was no rallying cry of “kick out the Muslims” – quite the contrary. In the second photo, you can see a giant banner on which is written, in French, “For freedom and peace, against barbarity and conflations”. Conflations, used in a French context, means mixing up terrorists and Muslims, a mistake many French citizens - including France’s president - have warned against. 

Unfortunately, this message was lost on the thousands of Burmese Facebook users who shared the post. According to our Observer, about three-fourths of the comments expressed anti-Muslim sentiments. Some of them were even written in English, like these: 



A small minority was more suspicious, and at least one person said they reported the post to Facebook. 



We’ll stay tuned to see if the post ends up being taken down – or continues to spread.

Article written with Gaƫlle Faure, Journalist
                                                     
A crowd of people (including monks, in orange robes) gathered outside Muslim-owned stores that were trashed and set on fire in Meikhtila on Wednesday.

March 22, 2013

Photos and videos coming out of the central Burmese town of Meikhtila show rioting and attacks against Muslim-owned businesses, in the country’s worst communal violence since last year's clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in the eastern part of the country. The ungoing unrest has left at least 10 people dead, according to a member of parliament from Meikhtila District.

The source of the conflict remains murky. But both local police sources and Muslim activists agree that it all started with an argument between a Muslim gold-shop owner and Buddhist customers on Wednesday morning. From there, the stories diverge. A police source cited by Radio Free Asia says the shop owner broke an item belonging to the customers, leading to a brawl; Muslim activists, citing local sources, say the customers tried to sell the shop owner fake gold. Either way, the dispute quickly drew a crowd that attacked the goldsmith’s store as well as other Muslim-owned businesses.

A mob attacks Muslim-owned stores in Meikhtila on Wednesday. This video was relayed by Burmese Muslim activists living abroad.

Rioting continued during the night and into Thursday, with plumes of smoke rising around the town; a curfew declared by the authorities was evidently ignored. Several mosques were reportedly torched. 

Police say that at least two of the confirmed dead are Buddhists, one of them a monk. An AFP photographer who was able to visit the town Thursday said he saw at least three burned bodies and houses on fire. 

According to MP Win Thein, who hails from Meikhtila and belongs to the opposition National League for Democracy party, there are about 30,000 Muslims in the township, out of about 80,000 total residents. 

Muslims represent about four percent of Burma’s population, according to the last census. A wave of clashes between Buddhists and ethnic Rohingya, a Muslim minority, in eastern Rakhine State last year left at least 200 dead and more than 100,000 homeless, with many Rohingya fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh. Last month, a Buddhist mob attacked a Muslim school and Muslim-owned stores in a suburb of Rangoon.

The aftermath of attacks on Muslim-owned stores on Wednesday. Police can be seen keeping a crowd at bay. Photo via Rohingya Blogger.

"Eyewitnesses I spoke to thought the mob violence might have been organised ahead of time"

Nay San Lwin is a Burmese Muslim activist living in exile in Germany. He contributes to the website Rohingya Blogger. He was able to speak to Meikhtila residents on Wednesday and Thursday morning; communications became more difficult on Thursday afternoon, when some of his sources fled town and stopped answering their phones.
The eyewitnesses I spoke to told me that hundreds of people gathered to destroy Muslim-owned businesses in a very short time span, which they found suspicious – like it was perhaps organised ahead of time. They said many had sticks with them, and used them to destroy the inside of the goldsmith’s store and others. Later, in the evening, they started lighting mosques and Muslims’ homes on fire. The police just stood by. 
Mobs also surrounded an Islamic religious school, trapping teenage students and teachers inside. [Several Muslim Burmese activists, citing local contacts, believe that some of them were killed after the school was set on fire this morning. Local authorities have said that a school was burned, but did not mention any deaths. FRANCE 24 has so far been unable to independently confirm these claims]. 
The Muslims I’ve talked to in Meikhtila are terrified. Many have shut themselves up inside their homes, for fear of being killed if they leave; but many others have already fled town [Buddhists have reportedly fled the violence as well]. They feel like there is nobody to protect them there. 
"Muslims in Burma don't have anyone to turn to for help" 
Several leaders from the 88 Generation Students’ group [an activist group led by people who participated in the 1988 pro-democracy students’ revolt, which was quashed by the military junta at the time] travelled to the town today, to try to calm the situation. But it seems that the mobs aren’t listening to them at all. [Editor’s Note: Min Ko Naing, one of the members of the 88 Generation who travelled to Meikhtila on Thursday, told Radio Free Asia: “We would like to request everyone to stop spreading violence. Most local residents are trying to prevent the unrest from spreading.”] 
Over the last few decades, the authorities in Burma have trained the population to hate Muslims. Many leaders use derogatory terms for Muslims in public, like "kalar". Recently, things have become even worse with the conflict in Rakhine state and the increasing influence of a powerful monk in Mandalay, Wirathu [Editor’s Note: Wirathu is known for his Islamophobic views. According to several Muslim Burmese activists, he recently visited Meikhtila, where he reportedly criticised the fact that many businesses were owned by Muslims]. We don’t have anyone to turn to for help. Not even Aung San Suu Kyi [Burma’s opposition leader, who after years of house arrest, now has a seat in parliament] will help us, because in Burma, speaking out for Muslims means losing votes. 
Rohingya Exodus