By Charlie Campbell Time March 27, 2014 Proposed discriminatory laws are the latest escalation in persecution of Muslims and a political ploy to secure Buddhist votes ahead of polls in 2015 Last March, sectarian riots roiled Central Burma and at least 48 people, mainly Muslims, were slaughtered by machete-wielding thugs. Buddhist monks spurred on frenzied mobs in an orgy of bloodshed that will be forever indelible in the minds of the Southeast Asian nation’s Muslim minority. The violence spread to a further 11 townships. One year on, thousands remain homeless and animosity is entrenched. “It is not stable and conditions are still very dangerous,” says Aung Thein, a 51-year-old Muslim lawyer in Meiktila, a central Burmese town of 100,000 people, where at least five mosques and more than 800 homes were razed to the ground. “Extremists use hate speech every day and Muslims are not safe.” Adding to this already fraught picture, new legislation threatens to isolate the ...