AFP

July 11, 2013

Islamic nations on Wednesday called on UN leader Ban Ki-moon to do more to halt the "tyranny" they say Muslims are enduring in Myanmar.

UNITED NATIONS: Islamic nations on Wednesday called on UN leader Ban Ki-moon to do more to halt the "tyranny" they say Muslims are enduring in Myanmar.

Religious riots in Buddhist-majority Myanmar have cast a shadow over heralded political reforms since military rule ended two years ago. Envoys to the UN from Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries say the global body should pressure the Myanmar government over the troubles.

"Myanmar is having a honeymoon with the world. The only problem is that that honeymoon is being built on the bodies of the Muslim victims in that country," said Saudi Arabia's UN ambassador Abdullah al-Mouallemi.

Mouallemi and other ambassadors from OIC members met Ban on Wednesday to demand more action by the United Nations, particularly over Rohingya Muslims.

In March at least 44 people, mainly Muslims, were killed in sectarian strife in central Myanmar.

Communal unrest last year in the western state of Rakhine left about 200 people dead and up to 140,000 displaced, mainly Rohingyas, minority Muslims who are rejected by many in Myanmar.

Roble Olhaye, Djibouti's UN ambassador and head of the OIC group at UN, called the action against Rohingyas "ethnic cleansing".

"The Myanmar authorities are failing in taking the necessary measures to stem the violence," he added at a press conference with Mouallemi.

"What we need from the UN is to have its voice heard loud and clear, being the conscience of the world," Olhaye said.

Olhaye and Mouallemi said the UN leader had promised to be more vocal about defending Muslims in Myanmar.

"We called on the secretary general to interfere to make his voice heard more loudly," said the Saudi envoy. "The most basic human rights and human values are being stepped upon by the current government and by the radical elements within Myanmar."

Mouallemi said Islamic nations wanted the United Nations and the major powers -- particularly the United States, Russia, China, European Union and Myanmar's neighbours -- to speak out against what he called the "ethnic cleansing" of Rohingyas.

"I think there is a lot more that the UN can and should do," he said, adding that Muslim nations would also be speaking with UN Security Council members about Myanmar.

"Myanmar is trying to open itself to the world, trying to attract attention, investment, engagement by the entire world. It is not enough to simply say that you must have elections and feed the basic structures of democracy.

"There has to be an end to the killing, that is much more basic, there has to be an end to the persecution, to the tyranny that this population is facing," said Mouallemi.

Ban met on Wednesday with members of the Group of Friends on Myanmar, which includes the United States, China, European and Asian nations to discuss changes in Myanmar and recent unrest, said a UN spokesman.

The group welcomed peace talks with Kachin rebels, but also "stressed the urgent need for effective action to punish the perpetrators of the violence" in Rakhine and "urgent attention" to issues including Rohingyas citizenship.

Ban "expressed his confidence that Myanmar would continue to make all round progress in strengthening its democratic institutions", said the spokesman.

Peter James Spielmann

Associated Press

July 10, 2013

The U.N. chief on Wednesday warned Myanmar that it must end Buddhist attacks on minority Muslims in the Southeast Asian country if it wants to be seen as a credible nation.

Sectarian violence against Rohingya Muslims in the predominantly Buddhist nation has killed hundreds in the past year, and uprooted about 140,000, in what some say presents a threat to Myanmar's political reforms because it could encourage security forces to re-assert control.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday: "It is important for the Myanmar authorities to take necessary steps to address the legitimate grievances of minority communities, including the citizenship demands of the Muslim/Rohingya."

He says failing to do so could risk "undermining the reform process and triggering negative regional repercussions."

In 1982, Myanmar passed a citizenship law recognizing eight races and 130 minority groups — but omitted the nation's 800,000 Rohingyas, among Myanmar's 60 million people. Many Myanmar Buddhists view the Rohingyas as interlopers brought in by the British colonialists when the nation was known as Burma.

Earlier this year, Myanmar passed a law limiting Rohingyas in two townships in the western state of Rakhine, bordering Bangladesh, to having two children, a law that does not apply to Buddhists. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi criticized the law, and was widely denounced by Buddhists in Myanmar. Seen as likely to be elected president of Myanmar, she has had little else to say about Rohingya rights.

Myanmar had been ostracized by most of the world for 50 years after a coup that instituted military rule. But in recent years the country has been cautiously welcomed after it freed many political prisoners and ended the house arrest of Syu Kyi and instituted reforms. President Barack Obama visited the country last year on an Asian tour, as a hallmark of Myanmar's rehabilitation.

Muslim ambassadors on Wednesday said Myanmar cannot rejoin the community of democratic nations if it doesn't protect minority rights.

"It is not enough to just have elections, you have to end the killings and persecutions," Saudi Arabian U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Yahya al-Mouallemi told reporters. He said the Rohingya are barred from citizenship, work, travel, religious practice, and even the proper burial of their dead.

Djibouti's U.N. Ambassador Roble Olhaye, representing the Organization of the Islamic Conference, said that the Rohingya live in "permanent segregation in what amounts to ethnic cleansing."

A call to the Myanmar U.N. Mission went unanswered on Wednesday evening.

Ban spoke at a meeting of ambassadors from the "Group of Friends on Myanmar," consisting of Australia, China, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Britain, the United States, Vietnam, and the country holding the presidency of the European Union, currently Lithuania.

Ron Corben

VOA News

July 10, 2013

BANGKOK — Indonesia is pressing Burma’s government to grant legal status to the country’s Muslim Rohingya. As more Rohingya seek asylum in Indonesia and elsewhere abroad, Ron Corben reports from Bangkok that Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa says Burma needs to take action to end inter-communal violence.

Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Marty Natalegawa, says Burma has to press on with democratic reforms and recognize the legal rights of hundreds of thousands of stateless Muslim Rohingya.

Burma - also known as Myanmar - has been wracked by sectarian bloodshed over the past year that has led to more than 200 deaths and displaced tens of thousands. Fighting began in communities with large numbers of ethnic Rohingya, who are denied citizenship in Burma.

Natalegawa, speaking to reporters in Bangkok Wednesday, says Indonesia is “encouraging” Burma to grant legal recognition to the Rohingya as an initial step to ease tensions.

“There is the issue of the status issue, which on the one hand is political as well as legal, which we are now encouraging the government of Myanmar to address in a fundamental way so that the Rohingya can obtain the kind of status and legal rights similar and akin to the rest of their countrymen,” said Natalegawa.

Burmese authorities have long excluded Rohingya from the ethnic groups recognized as Burmese citizens, claiming that they have always been illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.

Natalegawa says there is a “huge sense of distrust” that now lies between the Buddhist majority and Muslim minority in Burma as a result of the sectarian bloodshed. He said Indonesia had to work through similar bouts of violence since the late 1990s as it moved towards democratization. He says Indonesia is ready to share its experience with Burmese authorities in rebuilding the communities.

“So we know there is an issue to be addressed but I believe that this is part and parcel of Myanmar’s democratization efforts," he said. "It cannot be treated in isolation so we must impress upon the Myanmar government as we have been, that to be able to transform democratically there must be at the same time, not sequentially, at the same time they must also address the issue of communal tensions and horizontal conflicts.”

Thousands of Rohingya have fled by boat on perilous journeys, with an unknown number perishing at sea, as they seek asylum abroad.

Indonesia is planning to convene a major regional conference this year to combat people smugglers and reduce the flows of boat people coming into the region.

Press TV

July 10, 2013

Several human rights groups and activists have strongly criticized the Myanmar government for its silence over growing violence against the Rohingya Muslims across the Southeast Asian country.

Several international rights groups and activists warned in a joint statement on Monday that impunity for the Buddhist assailants will further embolden them to commit more crimes against the Muslim minority, and will turn Myanmar into a breeding ground for extremism. 

The statement comes more than three months after authorities failed to charge any suspect in connection with an attack on an Islamic school that claimed dozens of lives in central Myanmar. 

The school on the outskirts of Meiktila town was razed during the bloodshed in March that triggered an outbreak of violence against the Muslim across the southeast Asian country. Hundreds of thugs used steel chains, sticks and knives to attack the students and teachers. 

According to official figures, nearly 50 people were killed and thousands were left homeless across the troubled region. 

The rights group, Physicians for Human Rights, has put together information and eyewitness testimonies to show the scale of violence and horrors at the massacre site. 

Last year western Myanmar's Rakhine State saw a wave of violence against the Muslim community that left more than 200 people dead. 

Scores of Rohingya Muslims have been killed and thousands of others displaced as a result of attacks by Buddhist extremists in Myanmar in recent months. 

International bodies accuse the government of turning a blind eye to the attacks. 

Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar account for about five percent of the country’s population of nearly 60 million. They have been persecuted and faced torture, neglect, and repression since the country's independence in 1948. 

Myanmar’s government has been repeatedly criticized for failing to protect the Rohingya Muslims.

Alok Singh

IANS

July 10, 2013

Jasmine, 20, dreads going back to Myanmar where she says people of her community are treated like pariah and subjected to atrocities. She is among the 195 Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar who are languishing in a deplorable state in in the Jaitpur shantytown in the southeastern periphery of the capital for the past year.

"We would die but won't go back to Burma (Myanmar). Life is a virtual hell there. Though life is not easy here, it is much better than in Burma. No one harasses us here," Jasmine told IANS.

"I don't know the future of my three-year-old daughter. How will she grow up? Where will she study?" a worried Jasmine said while her daughter was playing in a muddy pool of water outside her hut.

In May 2012, this group of Rohingyas had crossed over into India from Bangladesh. They had fled Myanmar fearing attacks on them from Buddhists in the violence that spread through Myanmar's Rakhine province (also known as Arakan).

Rohingyas are not recognised among the 135 ethnic groups in Myanmar and they are treated as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Bangladesh rejects them, saying they are Myanmarese, with the result that they are living without any civil rights or citizenship.

The temporary settlement of Rohingyas in Jaitpur, comprising a cluster of dirty plastic sheet-covered bamboo huts, is devoid of any basic amenities and the lives of their children and women are pitiable.

"We are looted, exploited and beaten there. No one employs us because we are Muslims," 44-year old Haroon, who is from Busidung in Myanmar, told IANS.

P. Kalam, 20, a daily wage labour who earns Rs.200 a day, said: "Only I know how I am living away from my parents. They don't want me to return to them in Myanmar," said Kalam, who is from the Mongdu area in Myanmar.

The Rohingyas are demanding full refugee status with rights before the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR. In May last year, hundreds of them demonstrated outside the UNHCR office in Vasant Vihar in south Delhi. Most of the Rohingyas who arrived in New Delhi last year spread out to other parts of India, including Jammu and Kashmir.

"We want refugee status in India or another country," said Mohammad Jakaria, a rickshaw puller.

Kalam fled his country thinking that things would get worse. He married Taslima in New Delhi who is also from Myanmar.

Taslima's parents were killed in an attack by local goons in one of the districts of Myanmar.

According to Alana Golmei, a project manager in Burma Center, Delhi, the Burma-Rohingya conflict is very complicated. It needs proper documentation in solving the issue.

"If media reports are to be believed, they are being persecuted. India being a neighbour country can help them by providing shelter for some time," she said.

She said an estimated 3,000 Rohingyas have taken shelter in other Indian cities like Hyderabad, Aligarh, Saharanpur and Mathura in Uttar Pradesh and Mewat in Haryana.

Outside India, Rohingyas have found themselves as asylum seekers in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

(Alok Singh can be contacted at alok.s@ians.in)

The Hindu

July 9, 2013

The attack could be used to target Muslims in the country in order to gain political polarisation before the coming general election, and unleash a new wave of violence against Muslims in Myanmar 

Religious leaders and peace activists across the country have appealed to people to view the terror attack in Bodh Gaya as an act of misguided criminals and not to speculate — that it could have been a retaliation to attacks on Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims — until a proper probe is completed. 

Condemning the bomb blasts, in which three persons were injured, the signatories to a statement on Tuesday said they were deeply pained and shocked by the heinous terror attack targeting innocent people at a place of great spiritual and historical significance and unequivocally condemned the dastardly act of crime against humanity.

Referring to speculation that the attack could be in retaliation to attacks on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, they said all such speculations should be discouraged till proper investigation was conducted and the identity of culprits firmly established. 

The attack, they felt, could be used to target Muslims in the country in order to gain political polarisation before the coming general election, and unleash a new wave of violence against Muslims in Myanmar, who were already suffering grave violence and untold sufferings for years. 

Lakhs had to flee Myanmar to save their lives over the past years. This mindless action, the signatories to the appeal said, might also make scores of Rohingya refugees around the world vulnerable and open to retaliatory attacks in different countries where they had taken refuge. 

The statement urged the government to initiate a speedy, professional and thorough probe to apprehend the culprits and expose and punish both the perpetrators and conspirators behind the dreadful act. 

The signatories to the statement were film maker Mahesh Bhatt; Swami Agnivesh, Arya Samaj, New Delhi; Mazher Hussain and Sardar Nanak Singh Nishtar, Confederation of Voluntary Associations, Hyderabad; D. Yadiah, Boudhik Pramukh, All India Samata Sainik Dal; Binayak Sen, People’s Union for Civil Liberties; Kamla Bhasin, New Delhi; Maulana Syed Shah Hamid Hussain Shutari, All India Sunni Ulema Board; Fr. Dominic Emmanuel, Delhi Catholic Church, New Delhi; Ram Punyani, All India Secular Forum, Mumbai; Zafar Mahmood, Zakat Foundation, New Delhi; Ilina Sen, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai; Hasan Mansoor, PUCL, Bangalore; Sandeep Panday, ASHA, Lucknow; A. Faizur Rahman, Islamic Forum for Promotion of Moderate Thought, Chennai, and Iqbal Ahmad Engineer, Centre for Peace and True Message, Hyderabad.

Syed Mohammed

The Times of India

July 9, 2013

HYDERABAD: Though no stranger to harassment, hundreds of Rohingya refugees who have made the city their own, are apprehensive about policemen knocking on their doors once again in the wake of serial blasts in Bodh Gaya.

"The locals told us about the blasts. The police frequently ask us to produce documents and such harassment has become part of our lives," said 28-year old Abdullah, who arrived in the city last year.

The Rohingya exodus began last June, a month before the onset of Ramzan, in the aftermath of ethnic violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

Linking the attack on the Mahabodhi temple to Rohingyas was unfair, Abdullah, who goes by one name, said. "We were unaware of the attack as most of us cannot read, write or even speak local languages. We are first concerned about earning money to buy food and getrefugee status," he said.

While many Rohingyas settled in Delhi and Pune, a substantial number chose Hyderabad as their new home. They believed the city, on account of its substantial Muslim population, would welcome them with arms wide open. But little did they think about police questionings and needless interrogation each time a Hindu shrine or a Buddhist structure comes under attack.

Hyderabad-based Confederation of Voluntary Organisations (Cova), an NGO at the forefront of Rohingya rehabilitation says 1,200 asylum seekers have registered with them so far and many more are likely to come.

After sustained efforts and coordination with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 80 Rohingyas have been given refugee status, another 200 are now refugee certificate holders and 700 are yet to receive a letter of appointment from UNHCR.

Apathy and death has followed the displaced Rohingyas to the city. It was around a fortnight ago that Iqbal Hussain with his family of six had arrived in the city from Myanmar to escape persecution. But in a quirk of fate, Hussain, the sole breadwinner, slipped from a local train and died instantly. Abdul Mazek, who had crossed the border to West Bengal around 24 days ago, was separated from his teenaged son at the local Kharagpur railway station. He still weeps for him and locals say another victim, Noor Qamar's story in particular is heart-wrenching. An angry Buddhist mob had sawed off Qamar's hands and toes in a forest in Myanmar. "Nobody could hear my screams for mercy and help and now people feed me and help me wash myself," Qamar added.

In search of employment, Dudu Miyan, another refugee, pointed out that around 150 men went to the local 'labourer adda' in Babanagar, but only 50 found work as labourers. The trend is the same everyday. "A man who is busy looking for work everyday has no time to even think about causing trouble," he said, pointing to allegations of Rohingya Muslim role in any incident related to the violence in Myanmar.

To tackle disagreement, the refugees have formed a committee of 15 who are entrusted with arbitration. "We do not wish to take our differences, monetary or otherwise, outside. We are already beset with bigger problems which is why it is important that we help each other," said Abdullah, who is respected by the others.

"To think that these illiterate and hapless people could be behind any terror attack is unbelievable. Whoever has engineered the blasts has damaged the cause of Rohingyas. This act could lead to another wave of violence against Rohingya population not only in Myanmar, but also in India," executive director of Cova Mazhar Hussain told TOI on Monday.

Rohingyas are the most persecuted in the world and around 6,000 have taken refuge in different parts of the country, he added.

Ambika Pandit

The Times of India

July 9, 2013

NEW DELHI: Off the busy Gurgaon-Sohna Road, in a village called Firozepur Namak, stands a cluster of huts housing Rohingya refugees from Myanmar's Arakan region. Its 280 asylum-seekers hope to return home one day but for now they are worried about being evicted from this village that has been their home for about a year. The plot they are squatting on belonged to a doctor but he has sold it, they say. The 65 families have been told to find another place soon after Ramzan. 

The strife in Myanmar haunts them as many still have relatives in Arakan. In India, they find themselves cut off from the mainstream as asylum seekers. The Rohingyas have been raising the demand for full refugee status with rights before the United Nations' refugee agency, UNHCR. The last big protest happened in May 2012 when thousands demonstrated outside the UNHCR office in Vasant Vihar in south Delhi. 

The Rohingyas justify the demonstration by pointing to the conditions in the settlement. Monday's downpour left the low-lying ground waterlogged. The residents are worried about mosquitoes and sickness as the monsoon breaks in full force over the NCR. Their huts are sturdy but this damp weather makes living in them unbearable. 

The men work as day labour. Some earn Rs 300 a day weaving Burmese bamboo huts that have attracted the attention of locals. Some such huts have come up along the Gurgaon-Sohna highway. 

The 85 children in the camp have no friends in the village as they speak a different language. Fatima, 10, plays with other Rohingya children around a pool of dirty water. School to her means the two hours she spends in a large hut where the elders teach some Arabic. A boy, Zahidullah, says they just idle away their time all day in the open. They never go out of the bamboo gate that opens onto the road. 

Mamun Rafique, chairman of the Myanmar Rohingya Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Committee, says the families are most worried about the education of their children. "Members of our committee are planning to take the assistance of an NGO to help educate the children. We need to secure their future," Rafique says. He came from Myanmar two years ago with his wife. His parents and daughter are still in Arakan. 

On the atrocities that drove them out of Arakan, 55-year-old Shahzan says all their rights, including the right of their children to marry, were taken away. She came to India four years ago. Her son, Mohd Hassan, found his life partner at the settlement and had a traditional nikah in a hut which now also serves as a mosque for the community. Inside this hut one finds dreams of a better life as paper wall hangings crafted like chandeliers dangle from the plastic roof.

In this photo essay, The Diplomat offers a close-up look at the anti-Muslim 969 movement on the rise in Myanmar today.

Myanmar is home to a growing wave of anti-Muslim sentiment, as seen in the troubling 969 movement. The numerical significance of the digits is rooted in Buddhism’s Three Jewels (Tiratana), which comprise 24 attributes: nine special attributes of Lord Buddha, six core Buddhist teachings, and nine attributes of monkhood. 

Coopted by members of Myanmar’s nationalistic Buddhist majority, the number has become a symbol of religious division that has led to both discrimination and violence. Even the government, under President Thein Sein, has taken controversial actions that seem to align with its anti-Muslim stance, from its ongoing purge of the nation's Muslim minority Rohingyas to its highly contentious two-child policy, applied solely to the same group.

While the movement has infiltrated the country’s mainstream over a long period of time, a prominent Buddhist monk, Ashin Wirathu, has recently become its unofficial leader. A photograph of Wirathu in crimson robes, with the words “The Face of Buddhist Terror”, made the cover of the July issue of TIME Magazine, causing a furor in Myanmar and drawing international attention to the country's heated religious tensions.

In this photo essay, The Diplomat gives an exclusive look at the 969 movement from the inside, including up-close images of the monk who has made international headlines.

In the first image (above) Wirathu is welcomed by supporters at his monastery in Mandalay. Since publicly promoting the 969 movement on social networks, he is often referred to as the “Burmese Bin Laden”. The number “969”, are seen everywhere in the nation's streets: on motor taxis, shop windows, betel nut carts. In a country keen on numerology, 969 officially presents itself as a return to Buddhist roots and the teachings of the faith's founder. However, it is widely accused of being a vehicle of religious hatred and extremist brainwashing.

“If Myanmar wants to live in peace, Buddhists and Muslims have to live separately”, Wirathu told The Diplomat.

We met Wirathu, the saffron robed monk, while he was supervising an exam where he teaches at Masoeyein Monastery in the nation's ancient capital of Mandalay. 

The walls of his office are plastered with giant portraits of himself. Outside, plastic banners display the charred bodies of Buddhist casualties in southern Thailand (a region struggling with an Islamist insurgency) and in Myanmar's western Rakhine state (where the Muslim Rohingya minority is enduring a de facto ethnic cleansing). 

The infamous monk looks much younger than his 46 years. In his soft and calm voice, he said: “Muslims are fundamentally bad. Mohammed allows them to kill any creature. Islam is a religion of thieves, they do not want peace.” 

His racist rants are widely spread on YouTube and social media websites where they are watched by thousands. In 2003, Wirathu was sentenced to 25 years in jail for inciting anti‐Muslim hatred. He was released in 2010 following a general amnesty of political prisoners. With the landmark political reforms implemented by the semi-civilian government that has been in power since March 2011, he is now free to move, speak, and even hold rallies.

Young students in a Madrasa, near Joon Mosque in central Mandalay.

Officially, Islam accounts for 4 percent of Myanmar’s population of 55 million – a figure many 969 followers say is underestimated, claiming the percentage is closer to 24 percent. Members of the movement are convinced that Myanmar is falling prey to an international Islamist conspiracy. In their view, the Muslim minority triggers sectarian riots as a ploy to receive sympathy funding from countries like Saudi Arabia.

“What you see is just the tip of the iceberg," said Wimalar Biwuntha, a prominent member of the 969 movement. "The Muslims here are backed from the outside, by more than 58 Arab countries. More and more countries are giving them money."

According to Myo Win, spokesman for the Myanmar Muslim Network, Muslim organizations estimate that between 8 and 10 percent of Myanmar's total population are Muslims.

Mr Tin Maung Myin is seen here cleaning what remains of his demolished home in Meiktila (200km south of Mandalay).

This was the first time he was allowed to return to his house three months after the clashes that claimed at least 44 lives (mostly Muslims). During the violence, entire quarters of Meiktila were wiped off the map, leaving behind fields of blackened ruins.

In three days, more than 820 buildings were destroyed, according to Human Rights Watch. Where houses once stood, burned trees now tower over a sea of bricks and metal. The mosques have not reopened since. Some 12,000 refugees remain dispersed between five refugee camps under tight police protection. At the end of May, seven Muslims were sentenced to heavy jail terms for their responsibility in the events. No Buddhists were convicted.

A woman, who returned to her destroyed home in Meiktila, recovers pieces of a burnt book in Urdu explaining the teachings of Islam.

That day, the Muslim community started a seven-day clean up program escorted by armed police. The families from the area were allowed to return to their plots for the first time to clear the rubble and recover anything that was not destroyed in the riots.

Wirathu (center) and Wimalar (left) stand among more than 200 Buddhist monks who gathered to discuss how to resolve the growing conflict between Buddhists and Muslims. The conference, held in a monastery on the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, was viewed by local and international media less as an effort to promote conflict resolution than an opportunity to discuss an interfaith marriage law that the 969 movement hopes to present to the government in the coming weeks.

The law, inspired by similar legislation in Singapore, hopes to limit the number of Buddhist women who marry Muslim men. The drafted law stipulates that Muslims would have to seek permission from local authorities in their regions to validate such unions.

“Muslim men try to win the love of poor Buddhist women for their reproductive tactics. They produce a lot of children, they are snowballing. We have a duty to defend ourselves if we don’t want to be overwhelmed,” said Wimalar, 41, who helped draft the proposed law.

Wirathu and his entourage leave after a sermon attended by hundreds in Mandalay.

Wirathu's followers gathered in a lavish setting strewn with lights and decorations to listen to his speech, which was streamed live on a screen. He preached for nearly two hours on the Buddhist teachings and shared his take on Muslims and the recent conflicts that have arisen in the country. A local attendee told The Diplomat that around 70 percent of his speech was anti-Muslim.

While Wirathu delivered his sermon, just blocks away in the Dhamma Tharlar Hall, several local organizations and civil society activists organized a peace event. Around 2,000 people of different faiths gathered to listen to a peaceful sermon meant to promote peaceful interfaith exchange.

The initiative, spearheaded by the Committee for the Prevention of the Creation of Riots, came about after worried parents pulled their children from schools amid rumors of religious violence a few weeks earlier.

AFP

July 8, 2013

YANGON: Myanmar has sentenced two Buddhist men to seven years in prison for murders during religious violence in March that left dozens of people dead, a local official said on Monday.

The defendants were convicted after separate trials at the district court in Meiktila for their part in deadly rioting in the town, which mainly targetedMuslims and sparked waves of religious unrest across the country.

Meiktila district chairman of Tin Maung Soe said one man, aged 24, was sentenced on June 28, becoming the first Buddhist known to be sentenced for a serious offence over the rioting, which left at least 44 people dead.

"He was found at the scene where some people were killed during the unrest in Meiktila. That is why he was charged with murder," he said.

He said the second suspect, aged 21, was handed sentences of seven years and one year with hard labour — to be served concurrently — on Friday for his part in the killings.

Thousands of local Muslims were driven from their homes during the violence, as Buddhist mobs torched whole neighbourhoods, destroyed shops and damaged mosques.

Human rights groups have accused the police of being slow to stop the killings, while activists have called on authorities to fully investigate and prosecute those responsible.

At least 10 Muslims have so far been handed jail terms for serious offences during the rioting.

In May seven Muslims were sentenced to between two and 28 years for their parts in the murder of a Buddhist monk in Meiktila during the unrest.

The violence was apparently initially triggered by a quarrel in a gold shop and three Muslims, including the business owner, were jailed for 14 years in April for assaulting a Buddhist customer.

State media recently said 49 people were on trial for murder, with scores more facing court for their roles in the unrest.

"The other cases are still ongoing and still under investigation," Tin Maung Soe said.

Nadim Al-Hamid

Arab News

July 7, 2013

Under the direction of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia is making all-out political and diplomatic efforts to support the cause of Rohingyas on the international level.

“The Kingdom is exerting pressure on the world community,” said Abdullah Maaroof, president of the International Rohingya Center and leader of the Burmese community in the Kingdom.

Speaking at the Arakan Rohingya Union Conference, which opened at the headquarters of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) yesterday, he said: “We will soon see the positive the results of these efforts.”

He described the efforts as strong and effective because of the Kingdom’s political and Islamic leverage on the international level. He said Saudi Arabia will work on many fronts to exert pressure on international organizations that have strong ties with Myanmar to put an end to the ongoing injustice and violence against Muslims. He said he was hopeful these efforts will contribute to easing the suffering of the Muslims in Myanmar.

“Saudi Arabia is one of the countries that has supported the Rohingya cause, and this conference is a clear proof of this,” said Maaroof. “There are more than a quarter million Burmese citizens in Saudi Arabia. The latest support is represented in correcting their status by giving them iqamas for four years, and facilities and services they have never dreamed of.”

OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said the government of Myanmar should be held accountable for all forms of discrimination against Muslims, and Buddhist extremists should not be allowed to incite one group against another.

His address, which was read out by the director of minorities at the organization, stated that violent acts targeting Muslims led to the murder of people and destruction of property of thousands of people. These acts should not be allowed to continue, and it is the responsibility of the authorities to root out the problem and safeguard lives and property in Myanmar.

Ihsanoglu said the organization will continue to support all efforts and national and international initiatives that aim to find permanent and peaceful solutions to problems in Myanmar. It calls for the return of refugees and the reinstatement of their rights.

He said that yesterday’s meeting was the second conference of the union since its establishment on May 30, 2011. The union was founded with a view to achieving peaceful cohabitation, democracy and human rights. Member countries of the OIC have supported the union.

He said that despite challenges such as lack of resources, the union has achieved progress and urged it to play its role as a legitimate representative of the Rohingyas throughout the world, defend their cause and improve their conditions in Myanmar and the rest of the world, in addition to helping find a solution to their problems.

Andrea Vance

Fairfax NZ News
July 7, 2013

Tehran Times

July 7, 2013

TEHRAN – Myanmar has welcomed Iran’s proposal to hold a dialogue between Muslim and Buddhist religious scholars in order to help ease sectarian strife in the south Asian country. 

Visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi put forth the proposal during a meeting with Myanmar’s Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin on Friday. 

Araqchi expressed grave concern over the ongoing clashes between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims and the appalling situation of displaced Muslims, urging Myanmar’s officials to take effective measure to help resolve the conflicts. 

The senior Iranian diplomat also said that Tehran was ready to help Myanmar’s government settle the crisis and send humanitarian aid to the affected people. 

Sectarian clashes between Buddhists and Muslims have erupted on several occasions. 

Muslims make up about 5 percent of the nation’s roughly 60 million people and are denied citizenship by Myanmar government. 

The violence first flared in western Rakhine state last year, when hundreds of people died in clashes between Buddhists and Muslims that drove about 140,000 others, mostly Muslims, from their homes. Most are still living in refugee camps, according to AP.

In a recent violence which occurred in May, a Buddhist mob set fire to a Muslim school and orphanage, which was so badly charred that only two walls remained. Police and other witnesses confirmed the school burning.

The most serious attacks took place in Rakhine state in the west in June and October last year, when Buddhists fought against Rohingya Muslims, who are denied citizenship by Myanmar and seen by many in the country as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. At least 192 people were killed.

RB News

July 06, 2013

Maung Daw, Arakan- On 2nd July 2013, about 2:30 pm, SB-2 (Special Branch 2) arbitrarily arrested an under-aged Rohingya in the village of Haisshu Rata (Alay-Than-Kyaw), Southern Maung Daw.

“At 2:30PM on 2nd July 2013, Hafiz Sana Ullah S/o Zafar Alam, a 15-year-old minor, was arrested on his way to the market of Alay-Than-Kyaw with the false accusation of involving in the last-year-violence. He was very badly beaten in the lock-up. Eventually, he was found not guilty.

Yet, SB2 extorted Kyat 25000 from the parents of the victim. So, his parents got him released from the hands of cruel and inhumane authority. Many Rohingyas, today, are facing similar atrocities” reported Ya Tin, a Rohingya youth in Maung Daw.

Luke Hunt

As Myanmar continues its reform process, the politics is throwing-up a bevy of contrasts – some welcomed and others not. One tour company is offering free beer while the government has banned the recent issue of TIME Magazine, featuring a cover of a Buddhist monk blamed for the recent carnage against Muslims in the country’s north.

The July 1 edition of Time carried the cover photo of Burmese monk Ashin Wirathu, a known fundamentalist and head of the 969 group, which has deployed the age-old technique of mixing rabid nationalistic and religious sentiment to stir up hatred against minorities.

He would like to see a ban on the marriage of people from different faiths and remains unapologetic for the waves of anti-Muslim violence that has to date claimed more than 200 lives in the country and forced another 150,000 people from their homes.

In a recent interview with the Global Post he even added: “Muslims are like the African carp. They breed quickly and they are very violent and they eat their own kind. Even though they are minorities here, we are suffering under the burden they bring us … because the Burmese people and the Buddhists are devoured every day, the national religion needs to be protected.”

Burmese President Thein Sein seemed sympathetic and is on the record as saying Wirathu is “a son of Lord Buddha” and his 969 movement is “just a symbol of peace”.

“The cover story of the magazine, depicting a few individuals who are acting contrary to most of Myanmar, is creating misconceptions about Buddhism, a religion practiced by the majority of Myanmar’s population,” the President’s office said in a statement.

This comes after proposals to impose a breeding limit on Muslims with a two-child policy.

Oddly, it was among those temples which Wirathu insists are in need of his protection from non-Buddhist influences that one tour company is offering free beer if it rains for more than 10 minutes. The gimmick is for Bagan, Mandalay and Inle Lake only and is part of a broader strategy to convince tourists to visit during the rainy season. Soft drinks are also available.

Edwin Briels, General Manager of Khiri Myanmar, the company behind the free beer offer, added: "Hotel prices are favorable, the scenery is green, the sightseeing, culture and markets are all vibrant during the summer … it's a great time to come."

Reconciling the great divides within Burmese society – whether it’s the Buddhists and Muslims or warring minorities like the Kachin or Shan – could take some time yet. But helping business to deal with these stark realities could take a bit longer.

Luke Hunt can be followed on Twitter at @lukeanthonyhunt.

Todd Pitman
Associated Press

July 5, 2013

MEIKHTILA, Myanmar — Their bones are scattered in blackened patches of earth across a hillside overlooking the wrecked Islamic boarding school they once called home.

Among the smashed fragments of skull and jaw lie the sharpened bamboo staves attackers used to beat dozens of people to the ground before drowning their still-twitching bodies in gasoline and burning them alive.

The mobs that March morning were Buddhists enraged by the killing of a monk. The victims were Muslims who had nothing to do with it — students and teachers from a prestigious Islamic school in central Myanmar who came so close to being saved. In the last hours of their lives, they only had to make it a few hundred steps to four police trucks waiting on a hill above.

What happened on the way is the story of one of Myanmar's darkest days since this Southeast Asian country's post-junta leaders promised the dawn of a new, democratic era two years ago — a day on which 36 Muslims, most of them teenagers, were slaughtered before the eyes of police and local officials who did almost nothing to stop it.

And what has happened since shows just how hollow the promise of change has been for a neglected religious minority that has received neither protection nor justice.

The president of this predominantly Buddhist nation never came to Meikhtila to mourn the dead. Police never roped this place off to collect evidence of the carnage left behind on these slopes. And despite video clips that show mobs clubbing students to death and cheering, not a single suspect has been convicted so far.

International rights groups say the lack of justice fuels impunity among Buddhist mobs and paves the way for more violence. It also reflects the reality that despite Myanmar's bid to reform, power remains concentrated in the hands of an ethnic Burman, Buddhist elite that dominates all branches of government.

"If the rule of law exists at all in Myanmar, it is something only Buddhists can enjoy," says Thida, whose husband was slain in Meikhtila. Like other survivors, she asked to be identified by one name only for fear of retribution. "We know there is no such thing as justice for Muslims."

___

The Associated Press pieced together the story of the March 21 massacre from the accounts of 10 witnesses, including seven survivors who only agreed to meet outside their homes for security reasons. The AP cross-checked their testimony against video clips taken by private citizens, many with the date and time embedded; public media footage; dozens of photos; a site inspection, and information from local officials.

The day before the massacre began like every other at the Mingalar Zayone Islamic Boarding School in Meikhtila — with a call to prayer echoing through the darkness before dawn.

It was Wednesday, March 20, and 120 drowsy students blinked their eyes, rising from a sea of mats spread across a vast dormitory.

When classes began, student gossip quickly turned to an argument in town between a Muslim gold merchant and a Buddhist client, which had prompted a crowd of hundreds to overrun the shop and set it ablaze.

That afternoon, several Muslim men yanked a monk off a motorcycle and burned him to death. Buddhist mobs in turn torched 12 out of 13 of the city's mosques and businesses owned by Muslims, who made up about a third of Meikhtila's 100,000 inhabitants.

Classes at the school were canceled. Students rushed to the dormitory's second floor and gazed out of the windows in shock at the black and gray columns of smoke.

As the sun slunk in a hazy sky, a Buddhist government administrator came to the all-male madrassa and took the headmaster aside.

"You need to get your students out of here," he warned. "The mobs are coming — tonight."

At sunset prayers, the headmaster told everyone to collect their valuables and their money, remove their head caps and Islamic dress and prepare to leave. He never explained why. He didn't have to.

"If they try to destroy this place, we'll do our best to stop them," he said. "But whatever happens, we will not let you die."

___

After dark, they crept deep into a swampy square of tall grass called the Wat Hlan Taw. Most of the 150 refugees were students and teachers, but two dozen women and children were among them.

They sat down in the mud. Nobody said a word.

Soon they heard a cacophony of voices, first at the gate of their madrassa and then inside. The mobs kicked in doors, smashed windows and set the place on fire.

In the darkness of the Wat Hlan Taw, a teacher named Shafee with a stomach ailment reached for his wife's palm and squeezed it hard.

"If they find us," he whispered nervously, "you know I won't be able to run."

"Don't worry," his wife, Thida, replied, cradling their 3-year-old son in her arms. "We'll be together, every step."

At 4 a.m., Buddhist prayer gongs rang out, and the mobs began shining flashlights into the Wat Hlan Taw, screaming, "Come out, Kalars!" — a derogatory word for Muslims.

By the time students fled to a neighboring compound owned by a wealthy Muslim businessman, the mobs were not far behind.

Thida heard a boy screaming somewhere behind her. He had waited just a few seconds too long to run.

___

When the sun rose, students peered over the compound's thin bamboo fence and realized they were trapped.

Men clutching machetes and sticks were girding for a fight outside. Hundreds more were gathering on a road running across a huge embankment that shadowed the neighborhood's western edge.

Some students made frantic calls for help. Some chanted and prayed. Others scoured the property for wooden boards and rocks to defend themselves.

When opposition lawmaker Win Htein arrived around 7:30 a.m., he saw dozens of helmeted riot police equipped with rifles and gray shields. They had formed lines to keep the Buddhist hordes away from the Muslims.

Over the next 45 minutes, though, he watched in horror as mobs chased five more students out of the bush, one by one, and bludgeoned them to death. Stone-faced police officers stood idle just steps away.

"They must be wiped out!" one woman shouted, urging the killers on.

When Win Thein tried to convince them to spare the Muslims, the mobs threatened him. An officer advised him to leave.

Shortly after, a monk and four policemen offered to escort the trapped Muslims on foot to police vehicles on top of the embankment.

"We'll protect you," one officer said. "But the students must stop chanting. They must put down their weapons" — their sticks and stones.

As the teachers debated what to do, they realized their time had run out. The crowds were flinging long bamboo staves wrapped with burning fabric over the fence like giant matchsticks, and the compound was on fire.

___

The group emerged slowly with their hands behind their heads, like prisoners of war.

Almost immediately, they were stoned. The mobs screamed around them.

What followed was a gantlet from hell, an obstacle course that came with its own set of macabre rules: Do not run, or they will chase you. Do not fall, or you may never get back up. Do not stop, or you may die.

Police fired several rounds into the air, but the crowds attacked anyway, clubbing a student across the forehead with a hoe and knocking a teacher to the ground. One officer, struck in the face by a rock, apparently by accident, shot a Buddhist man in the leg.

As they moved inside the Buddhist neighborhood, police ordered the Muslims to squat down.

Crowds taunted and slapped them. Several women forced them to bow their heads and press their hands together in prayer like Buddhists.

The monks said the police should round up the women and children and let them go first. When Thida refused to let go of her husband, a Buddhist man shoved a palm in his face and forced them apart.

Eventually, police began escorting about 10 women and their children up the hill toward the trucks. But even as they ascended, other Buddhists hacked a 17-year-old student to death on the edge of the Wat Hlan Taw, striking him 24 times. One of the attackers was a monk.

"Look! Look!" one Buddhist bystander shouted from the top of the embankment. "The police are heading down there, but they aren't doing anything."

___

The last time Thida saw her husband, he was struggling to climb the hill to where she waited anxiously beside police, anxiously.

His face was pale. And voices were screaming out: "Kill the Kalar! Don't leave any of them behind!"

Somewhere below, crowds were chasing several students who had tried to run. They beat two of them, along with a teacher, to the ground with daggers and sticks. Police stood on both sides of the hill watching, unmoved.

When a frantic monk waved a multicolored Buddhist flag, screaming for the killing to stop, the crowds backed away briefly.

But police left the wounded behind on the hill, abandoning them to their fate.

A video clip shows a man viciously beating a group of seven bloodied Muslim men as they lay crumpled on the ground beneath a grove of rain trees. One of them is Shafee.

"Oh, you want to fight back?" a voice says, laughing.

Another grainy video filmed shortly after shows flames leaping from 12 charred corpses in the same spot as crowds cheer.

Smelling burning flesh, Thida hugged the leg of a police officer standing beside her.

"Hey brother," she asked, "please. Please. What is happening to us?"

"Shut up, woman," the officer replied. "Don't you know you can die here, too?"

Amid the mayhem, several dozen police reinforcements arrived to take the remaining Muslims to the hilltop and load them onto the trucks. The survivors were driven to a police station where they were offered water, and by at least one officer, an apology.

___

The police present that day were the only ones with rifles and guns, which would have been no match for the crude weapons carried by the mobs. But while they rescued around 120 Muslims, they did not stop the massacre of 32 students and four teachers, according to the headmaster, who cross-checked their deaths with families and witnesses.

Two of the videos the AP obtained, shot by unidentified witnesses touring the area after the killings, show at least 28 dead bodies, the fists and arms of the blackened corpses reaching into the air.

Win Htein, the lawmaker, said either the "police didn't get any order from above (to shoot), or they got the order from above not to do anything."

The head of state security in the region, Col. Aung Kyaw Moe, insisted he gave authorization to fire, but police held back because doing so could have "made the situation even worse."

He said even though 200 police were deployed to the area, the crowds outnumbered them. Muslims died because "some of them tried to run," he said.

"They scattered and our forces could not follow every one of them," he said. "They had to take care of the rest of the people they were guarding. ... that's why there were casualties."

Authorities say they did not hand the bodies back to the relatives of the dead because they were too badly burned to be identified. But families of those slain say they were never even asked, and never given the chance to bury their loved ones according to Islamic rites.

No Muslim families have dared visit the cemetery or return to the massacre site.

___

The first people prosecuted for the violence in Meikhtila were not the Buddhist mobs. The first were Muslims.

On April 11, a court sentenced the gold shop owner and two employees to 14-year jail terms for theft and causing grievous bodily harm.

On May 21, the same court sentenced seven Muslims to terms ranging from two years to life for their roles in the killing of the monk on March 20, the day the unrest began.

Meikhtila state prosecutor Nyan Myint said 14 Buddhists have been charged and are on trial for the Mingalar Zayone killings, some for murder, but none has yet been convicted.

Justice "is a matter of time," he said. "The courts are proceeding with the trials and have no prejudice or bias against any group."

Aung Kyaw Moe, the security chief, said all those arrested were residents of Meikhtila, but he gave no other details.

No police have been reprimanded.

___

The school's headmaster dreams of gathering his surviving students together again and rebuilding his school elsewhere.

He will not say where, or when. He is too afraid.

He wonders what they will do if sectarian violence erupts again.

"Where is safe in this Myanmar?" he says.

On March 21, he urged his students not to fight back.

"Next time, we will defend ourselves," he says quietly, "because we know that nobody else will."