Skip to main content

OIC to Take Burma Persecution to UN

The OIC plans to take the issue of attacks against Muslims in Burma to the United Nations

OnIslam News:
March 31, 2013

CAIRO – A global Muslim body is planning to take the issue of persecution of Muslims in Buddhist-majority Burma to the United Nations to help stop continuing attacks against the minority.

“The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) intends to raise the issue in the Security Council and the Human Rights Council to find a solution that contributes to putting an end to religious persecution against Muslims in Burma,” an OIC official told Arab News on Sunday, March 31.

“The OIC had previously tried to contact government officials in Burma to no avail.”

The Jeddah-based group plans to hold a meeting in Saudi Arabia on April 14 to discuss attacks against Muslims in Burma.

OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said the organization was “ready to take all necessary measures and actions” in dealing with the impending crisis.

Ihsanoglu also urged the Burmese government to “put an end to Buddhist extremism and hate campaigns, as well as ethnic cleansing.”

The OIC move follows attacks against Muslims, which left at least 43 people dead and several mosques burnt in a week of sectarian violence in the central city of Meiktila.

The violence started by an argument between a Buddhist couple and gold shop owners and spread to at least 10 other towns and villages in central Burma.

“Violence has extended to target all Muslims in Burma,” the OIC official said.

“The recent violence in the central regions of the country confirms all too well that there is religious persecution.”

In October, the OIC tried to open an office in Burma to help Muslims there, but the move was blocked by President Thein Sein following massive protests by Buddhist monks.

“The OIC attempted to open an office in Myanmar (Burma) over the past year to supply aid to Muslims in Myanmar but extremist Buddhists demonstrated against this attempt,” the official said.

“There has also been an Egyptian proposition to send a special delegation headed by the Secretary General of the OIC, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, and includes a number of foreign ministers of member countries to Myanmar, but this visit has been postponed.”

Radical Monks

With Buddhist mobs chasing Muslims from village to another, experts blame radical monks for the new wave of sectarian violence in Burma.

“It is clear that there are some agents provocateurs with radical anti-Muslim agendas at work in the country -- including influential Buddhist monks preaching intolerance and hatred of Muslims,” Jim Della-Giacoma, a Burma expert with the International Crisis Group think-tank, told The Week.

“Also, the systematic and methodical way in which Muslim neighborhoods were razed to the ground is highly suggestive of some degree of advance planning by radical elements.”

Tension between Buddhists and Muslims has been simmering since last year’s sectarian violence in western Rakhine state, which displaced thousands of Muslims.

Monks were seen igniting the violence by preaching a so-called “960 movement”, which represents a radical form of anti-Islamic nationalism that urges Buddhists to boycott Muslim-run shops and services.

“When the profit goes to the enemy's hand, our nationality, language and religion are all harmed,” said Wirathu, a monk from Mandalay known for his radical anti-Islam rhetoric.

“They will take girls with this money. They will force them to convert religion. All children born to them will be a danger to the country. They will destroy the language as well as the religion,” he said in a speech put online.

Burma’s Muslims -- largely of Indian, Chinese and Bangladeshi descent -- account for an estimated four percent of the roughly 60 million population.

Muslims entered Burma en masse for the first time as indentured laborers from the Indian subcontinent during British colonial rule, which ended in 1948.

But despite their long history, they have never fully been integrated into the country.

“We need to fight this incitement by a group of bad people,” said Thet Swe Win, a human rights activist who co-organized a recent prayer service for Burma’s peace.

“We must prevent racial and religious disputes.”

Popular posts from this blog

Rohingya MP U Shwe Maung undergoes questioning

Rohingya MP U Shwe Maung By Kayleigh Long Myanmar Times February 07, 2014 Union Solidarity and Development Party MP U Shwe Maung has been questioned by police in Nay Pyi Taw over comments he made to Democratic Voice of Burma about possible police involvement in a fire that broke out in a Muslim village in Rakhine State late last month. More than a dozen homes were destroyed in the blaze at Du Chee Yar Tan West village near Maungdaw in northern Rakhine State on January 28. U Shwe Maung said the February 4 interrogation came at the behest of President U Thein Sein, who sent a letter to Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Speaker Thura U Shwe Mann requesting permission for police question the MP. The interview lasted about 90 minutes and was conducted at his USDP living quarters in Nay Pyi Taw. It focused on allegations that U Shwe Maung, a Rohingya, had defamed the state and police by saying that residents believed security forces were involved in starting the fire. ...

ERC representatives and Dr.Maung Zarni partook a seminar in Sweden

ERC Delegation Meet Dr. Zarni Mohamed Farooq ( Mayu Press) May 7, 2013 The Stockholm University of Sweden held a seminar on “Forum for Asian Studies” at William Olsson Hall, the department of geological science on 3rd May 2013. It depicts Rohingya tragedy and Human Right Eradication in western Burma. Burma (Myanmar) is a nation with ambition to make their name and discharge their White Man’s Burden, one of the world’s hottest assignments in the world of diplomats, development consultants, NGO experts and academic researchers, a lucrative ‘frontier’ market for investors, venture capitalists and multinationals, a must-go for both citizen-tourists and global luminaries. This lecture will critically discuss the rose-tinted view of reforms in Burma against the troubling realties as lived by the people of that country, including full-scale Rohingya genocide of 40 years, the 60-years of Burmese army’s un-ending internal colonial wars against the Christian Kachins, the Kare...

রোহিঙ্গা শরণার্থীদের কোনো ভবিষ্যৎ নেই

বাংলাদেশের আশ্রয়শিবিরে বসবাসকারী রোহিঙ্গা শরণার্থীদের কোনোই ভবিষ্যৎ নেই বলে মন্তব্য করেছেন রোহিঙ্গা বিষয়ক আইনজীবী রাজিয়া সুলতানা। তিনি এই আশ্রয়শিবিরকে চিড়িয়াখানার সঙ্গে তুলনা করেছেন এবং রোহিঙ্গাদের ফেরত পাঠানোর জন্য একটি উপযুক্ত কৌশল নির্ধারণের আহ্বান জানিয়েছেন। কয়েকদিন আগে যুক্তরাষ্ট্রের পররাষ্ট্র মন্ত্রণালয়ের ইন্টারন্যাশনাল ওমেন অব কারেজ এওয়ার্ড (আইডব্লিউসিএ) পুরস্কার পান রাজিয়া সুলতানা। সাহসিকতা দেখানোর জন্য সারা বিশ্ব থেকে বাছাই করা ১০ জন নারীকে এ পুরস্কার দেয়া হয়।  রাজিয়া সুলতানার একটি সাক্ষাৎকার নিয়েছে বার্তা সংস্থা রয়টার্স। তাতে তিনি রোহিঙ্গাদের পরিণতি নিয়ে হতাশা প্রকাশ করেন। রাজিয়া সুলতানা বলেন, মিয়ানমারের মুসলিম সংখ্যালঘু সম্প্রদায়ের রোহিঙ্গা শরণার্থীদের মধ্যে আশার অভাব রয়েছে। ২০১৭ সালের আগস্টে মিয়ানমারের সেনাবাহিনীর নৃশংস নির্যাতনের ফলে তারা পালিয়ে এসে বাংলাদেশে আশ্রয় নিতে বাধ্য হয়। রাজিয়া সুলতানা বলেন, এই আশ্রয় শিবিরে যত বেশি সময় শরণার্থীরা থাকবেন ততই পরিস্থিতির অবনতি ঘটতে থাকবে। ওই সাক্ষাৎকারে তিনি আরো বলেন, হ্যাঁ, এ কথা সত্য যে, শরণার্থীরা খাবার পাচ্ছে। কিন...