Burma: End ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ of Rohingya Muslims

Unpunished Crimes Against Humanity, Humanitarian Crisis in Arakan State

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  Ethnic Arakanese with weapons walking away from a village in flames while a soldier stands by. Arakan State, Burma, June 2012.

   

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  Burma: Ethnic Cleansing in Arakan State

The Burmese government engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya that continues today through the denial of aid and restrictions on movement. The government needs to put an immediate stop to the abuses and hold the perpetrators accountable or it will be responsible for further violence against ethnic and religious minorities in the country.

(Bangkok) – Burmese authorities and members of Arakanese groups have committed crimes against humanity in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State since June 2012, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

The 153-page report, “‘All You Can Do is Pray’: Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Arakan State,” describes the role of the Burmese government and local authorities in the forcible displacement of more than 125,000 Rohingya and other Muslims and the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Burmese officials, community leaders, and Buddhist monks organized and encouraged ethnic Arakanese backed by state security forces to conduct coordinated attacks on Muslim neighborhoods and villages in October 2012 to terrorize and forcibly relocate the population. The tens of thousands of displaced have been denied access to humanitarian aid and been unable to return home.

“The Burmese government engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya that continues today through the denial of aid and restrictions on movement,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. “The government needs to put an immediate stop to the abuses and hold the perpetrators accountable or it will be responsible for further violence against ethnic and religious minorities in the country.”

Following sectarian violence between Arakanese and Rohingya in June 2012, government authorities destroyed mosques, conducted violent mass arrests, and blocked aid to displacedMuslims. On October 23, after months of meetings and public statements promoting ethnic cleansing, Arakanese mobs attacked Muslim communities in nine townships, razing villages and killing residents while security forces stood aside or assisted the assailants. Some of the dead were buried in mass graves, further impeding accountability.

Human Rights Watch traveled to Arakan State following the waves of violence and abuses in June and October, visiting sites of attacks and every major displaced person camp, as well as unofficial displacement sites. The report draws on more than 100 interviews with Rohingya and non-Rohingya Muslims and Arakanese who suffered or witnessed abuses, as well as some organizers and perpetrators of the violence.

All of the state security forces operating in Arakan State are implicated in failing to prevent atrocities or directly participating in them, including local police, Lon Thein riot police, the inter-agency border control force called Nasaka, and the army and navy. One soldier told a Muslim man who was pleading for protection as his village was being burned: “The only thing you can do is pray to save your lives.”

Displaced Rohingya told Human Rights Watch how in October security forces stood by or joined with large groups of Arakanese men armed with machetes, swords, homemade guns, and Molotov cocktails who descended upon and attacked their villages. In some cases, attacks occurred simultaneously in townships separated by considerable distance.

Satellite images obtained by Human Rights Watch from just 5 of the 13 townships that experienced violence since June show 27 unique zones of destruction, including the destruction of 4,862 structures covering 348 acres of mostly Muslim-owned residential property.

In the deadliest incident, on October 23, at least 70 Rohingya were killed in a daylong massacre in Yan Thei village in Mrauk-U Township. Despite advance warning of the attack, only a small number of riot police, local police, and army soldiers were on duty to provide security, but they assisted the killings by disarming the Rohingya of their sticks and other rudimentary weapons they carried to defend themselves. Included in the death toll were 28 children who were hacked to death, including 13 under age 5. “First the soldiers told us, ‘Do not do anything, we will protect you, we will save you,’ so we trusted them,” a 25-year-old survivor told Human Rights Watch. “But later they broke that promise. The Arakanese beat and killed us very easily. The security did not protect us from them.”

“In October, security forces either looked the other way as Arakanese mobs attacked Muslim settlements or joined in the bloodletting and arson,” Robertson said. “Six months later, the government still blames ‘communal violence’ for the deaths and destruction when, in truth, the government knew what was happening and could have stopped it.”

Considerable local organizing preceded and backed October’s attacks. The two groups most influential in organizing anti-Rohingya activities were the local order of Buddhist monks (the sangha) and the regionally powerful Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP), which was founded in 2010 by Arakanese nationalists. Between June and October, these groups and others issued numerous anti-Rohingya pamphlets and public statements, explicitly or implicitly denying the existence of the Rohingya ethnicity, demonizing them, and calling for their removal from the country, at times using the phrase “ethnic cleansing.” The statements frequently were released in connection with organized meetings and in full view of local, state, and national authorities who raised no concerns. Local authorities, politicians, and monks also acted, often through public statements and force, to deny Muslims their rights to freedom of movement, opportunities to earn a living, and access to markets and to humanitarian aid. The apparent goal has been to coerce them to abandon their homes and leave the area.

“Local officials and community leaders engaged in an organized effort to demonize and isolate the Muslim population as a prelude to murderous mob attacks,” Robertson said. “Moreover, since the bloodshed, the central government has taken no action to punish those responsible or reverse the ethnic cleansing of the forcibly displaced Muslims.”

Human Rights Watch uncovered evidence of four mass-grave sites in Arakan State – three dating from the immediate aftermath of the June violence and one from the October violence. Security forces actively impeded accountability and justice by digging mass graves to destroy evidence of crimes.

For instance, on June 13, a government truck dumped 18 naked and half-clothed bodies near a Rohingya displaced person camp outside of Sittwe, the state capital. Some of the victims had been “hogtied” with string or plastic strips before being executed. By leaving the bodies near a camp for displaced Rohingya, the soldiers were sending a message – consistent with a policy of ethnic cleansing – that the Rohingya should leave permanently.

“They dropped the bodies right here,” said a Rohingya man, who saw the bodies being dumped. “Three bodies had gunshot wounds. Some had burns, some had stab wounds. One gunshot wound was on the forehead, one on the chest.”

Arakan State faces a major humanitarian crisis brought on by the Burmese government’s systematic restrictions on humanitarian aid to displaced Rohingya.

More than 125,000 Rohingya and non-Rohingya Muslims, and a smaller number of Arakanese, have been in displaced person camps in Arakan State since June. While President Thein Sein’s government has hosted high-profile diplomatic visits to displacement sites, it has also obstructed the effective delivery of humanitarian aid. Many of the displaced Muslims have been living in overcrowded camps that lack adequate food, shelter, water and sanitation, schools, and medical care. Security forces in some areas have provided protection to displaced Muslims, but more typically they have acted as their jailers, preventing access to markets, livelihoods, and humanitarian assistance, for which many are in desperate need.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya face a range of deadly waterborne diseases if they are not moved to higher ground before the rainy season begins in May.

“The problem with aid delivery in Arakan State is not a failure of coordination, but a failure of leadership by the government to allow displaced Muslims access to aid and freedom of movement,” Robertson said. “An entirely predictable and preventable humanitarian crisis is just weeks away when the rains fall and camps flood, spreading waterborne diseases.”

The displaced Rohingya have not been consulted on their right to return to their original towns and villages, heightening concerns of a long-term intent to segregate the population.

Lacking aid, protection, and facing violence and abuses, tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled the country by sea since June with hopes of reaching Bangladesh, Malaysia, or Thailand, and many thousands more appear ready to do the same – several hundred people have already died at sea.

Under international law, crimes against humanity are crimes committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack by a government or organization on a civilian population. Among the crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya since June were murder, deportation and forcible transfer of the population, and persecution.

“Ethnic cleansing,” though not a formal legal term, has been defined as a purposeful policy by an ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.

Central to the persecution of the Rohingya is the 1982 Citizenship Law, which effectively denies Burmese citizenship to Rohingya on discriminatory ethnic grounds. Because the law does not consider the Rohingya to be one of the eight recognized “national races,” which would entitle them to full citizenship, they must provide “conclusive evidence” that their ancestors settled in Burma before independence in 1948, a difficult if not impossible task for most Rohingya families.

The government and Burmese society openly consider the Rohingya to be illegal immigrants from what is now Bangladesh and not a distinct “national race” of Burma, denying them consideration for full citizenship. Official government statements refer to them as “Bengali,” “so-called Rohingya,” or the pejorative “kalar.”

Human Rights Watch urged the Burmese government to urgently amend the 1982 Citizenship Act to eliminate discriminatory provisions and to ensure that Rohingya children have the right to acquire a nationality where otherwise they would be stateless.

“Burma should accept an independent international commission to investigate crimes against humanity in Arakan State, locate victims, and provide redress,” said Robertson. “Burma’s donors need to wake up and realize the seriousness of the Rohingya’s plight, and demand that the government urgently stop abuses, promote the safe return of displaced Muslims, and ensure accountability to end the deadly cycle of violence in Arakan State.”

(Source / 22.04.2013)

Racist thug held a knife to Muslim woman’s throat and demanded she remove her hijab

A Muslim woman in a hijab, similar to the one that angered racist thug David Norris

A racist who held a knife to a Muslim woman’s throat and demanded she removed her hijab has walked free from court.

David Norris, 39, approached Farduja Jama as she walked with her eight-year-old son and said:  ”Take the hijab off. This is England, you are not allowed. Take the hijab off before I stab you.”

The thug then pointed the six-inch kitchen knife at her throat before running away when a man in a car rumbled him and took a picture.

Later that day Norris approached a second woman, Iqbal Osman, who was watching her four-year-old play in a park.

He asked her why she was wearing too many clothes and accused Muslims of “taking over” his country, before waving the knife around and leaving.

Norris admitted two counts of religiously aggravated harassment and two counts of possession of a bladed article at Bristol Crown Court.

Recorder Nicholas Rowland sentenced him to a two-year community order with two years supervision and a six month alcohol treatment requirement.

He said: “The reason I am doing this is so that any sort of repetition of his behaviour or if he fails to comply with the order he will be brought back before this court and the court’s hands will not be tied.”

Both incidents happened in the Barton Hill area of Bristol on September 3 last year.

Sam Jones, prosecuting, said: “Miss Jama was walking to a cash dispenser on Church Road with her eight-year-old child.

“She heard shouting from behind in a loud and angry voice. She then heard ‘Off with the hijab.’

“She was then approached by the defendant who was holding a knife in his hand.

“He said ‘Take the hijab off. This is England, you are not allowed. Take the hijab off before I stab you.’

“He then pointed the blade of his knife and put it the left and right side of her neck. It was witnessed by a man in a car who took a photo of the defendant.

“At 12pm a Mrs Osman was watching her four-year old play in the Urban Park in Barton Hill.

“The defendant approached her and asked why she was wearing too many clothes and why she had ‘that thing’ over her head. He then said ‘F***ing Muslim people, you are taking over my country.’

“He produced a knife from within his coat. She grabbed her bag and her child and left quickly.”

After he was arrested, alcoholic Norris chillingly told cops “I’m a killer, that is what I do.”

Victim impact statements from both women outlined how they now felt anxious when they left home.

The court was told that Norris, of Barton Hill, had been on remand for seven months awaiting sentence.

Robin Rowland, defending, said: “Mr Norris does not remember the incident but accepts that it must have been terrifying.

“He deeply regrets his actions.”

(Source / 20.04.2013)

Muslim Woman Describes Assault, Harassment near Malden Center

The victim of an apparent hate crime motivated by the Boston Marathon attacks said she loves Boston’s diversity, even if the episode left her shaken Wednesday.

  

A Palestinian woman said she was assaulted and aggressively harassed while walking with her infant daughter and friend near Malden Center late Wednesday morning, in an apparent hate crime motivated by Monday’s attack at the Boston Marathon.

Malden resident Heba Abolaban said she and her friend, both wearing hijabs, were walking with their children on Commercial Street when a man forcefully punched her left shoulder and began shouting at them.

“He was screaming ‘F___ you Muslims! You are terrorists! I hate you! You are involved in the Boston explosions! F___ you!’” Abolaban remembered. “Oh my lord, I was extremely shocked.”

She said the man – described as a white male in his thirties wearing dark sunglasses – kept shouting and walking toward her as she backed away.

“I did not say anything to him,” she said. “Not even that we aren’t terrorists…he was so aggressive.”

After about two minutes, Abolaban said the man continued his brisk walk toward Malden Center. Shaken, Abolaban called her husband in tears, and then 911.

“The police came and were so kind and helpful,” she said, though no suspects were arrested in the incident.

“I love Boston and its people”

Abolaban and her husband, Ahmad Almujahed, are doctors who came to the United States from Syria to develop their specialties.

Last year, she did her six month observership at Mass General Hospital in the Clinical Genetics Department. While she was the only woman on staff to wear the Islamic hijab, she said she never felt singled out by her peers.

“I really do love the beautiful diversity of Boston (and its) people,” she said. “What happened to me yesterday saddened me a lot.”

Abolaban described Islam as a “religion of peace,” noting she spent the day before the attack handing out hot meals with her mosque.

“Our [Mosque] cooked food for the homeless regardless of their religion, ethnicity or race,” she said.

“Even if a Muslim man was the one behind the Boston Marathon blasts, he does not represent our beautiful and peaceful religion,” she later added.

Mayor: City will “not tolerate this type of behavior.”

She noted that she also appreciated a phone call from Mayor Gary Christenson, who reached out to the family after the police report was filed.

“I am simply outraged that such an act has occurred in Malden, a community that takes pride in its diversity and embraces people of all cultures and backgrounds,” Christenson wrote in an e-mail when asked for comment. “I have been in contact with Heba and am relieved that she and her child were not seriously injured.

“Police Chief Kevin Molis and members of his department responded quickly and are diligently proceeding with the investigation to find who was responsible for this heinous act.

“In the meantime, I have assured Heba and her family that Malden does not tolerate this type of behavior and that the acts of one despicable individual will not stop our community from moving forward together.”

(Source / 18.04.2013)

Fear stalks Muslims in Myanmar

Eyewitnesses to a massacre at an Islamic school say it was carried out by Buddhists, and many contend it stems from a coordinated effort with ties to the top

Mon Hnin, a 29-year-old Muslim woman from Meiktila, in central Myanmar, spent the night of March 20 with her daughter and mother-in-law hiding in terror in the bushes on the fringes of her neighbourhood.

KILLING FIELDS: Right, the madrasa where more than 40 Muslims were killed on March 21.

A wave of murderous anti-Muslim riots led by Buddhist extremists had exploded earlier that day in the dusty town with a population of 100,000 people, located 130km north of the capital, Nay Pyi Taw. Like the houses of many other Muslims in the town, the one belonging to Mon Hnin, whose name has been changed for security reasons, had been destroyed by a Buddhist mob in the Mingalar Zay Yone quarter and she and her relatives had to take refuge in the first place they could find.

The next day, she witnessed something far worse than the destruction of her property, as she told Spectrum at a non-governmental refugee camp near Meitktila where she now lives with about 3,400 other Muslim refugees. The bushes where Mon Hnin, her daughter and her mother-in law had hidden the previous night are not far from a local madrasa _ an Islamic school _ where one of the worst episodes of the violence took place. According to several eyewitnesses, that morning a Buddhist mob attacked the school killing at least 30 students and four teachers.

Mon Hnin said she saw about 30 policemen arriving in trucks about 8am. From her vantage point, she saw how the students and teachers of the madrasa gave up to police the weapons they had improvised to defend themselves. She claimed that a group of them was offered the chance to be evacuated from the area in police trucks, but they were attacked by the mob before reaching the vehicles.

One of those she saw being killed was her husband, a halal butcher who was stabbed to death. The policemen in the area did nothing to stop the carnage. Shortly afterwards, Mon Hnin, her daughter and mother-in-law were given shelter in the house of a Buddhist neighbour.

From March 20-22, this dusty garrison city was engulfed by the worst communal violence in Myanmar since the anti-Muslim pogroms that took place in Rakhine state in June and October of last year.

The trigger of the violence was a brawl between the Muslim owners of a gold shop and two Buddhists who tried to sell a gold hair clip on the morning of March 20. Several different, and often contradictory, accounts have emerged of the incident, but there is no doubt that a Buddhist mob responded by hurling stones at the shop and ended up wrecking the building.

That evening the riots became deadly when about 5.30pm a monk was attacked by four Muslim men who torched him alive. The monk died in hospital that same evening. Just a few hours later the city was on fire when groups of Buddhists unleashed their fury on Muslims and their properties under the gaze of security forces, who for two days watched the violence without taking any action.

Many witnesses have confirmed the failure of the police to prevent the violence. One of them is Win Htein, the local MP of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party of Aung San Suu Kyi. Win Htein, a former army officer who spent 20 years in jail for his political activities and used to organise security for ”the Lady” after her release from house arrest on November 2010, told Spectrum in the ramshackle local NLD office that he witnessed the carnage in front of the madrasa.

”I saw with my own eyes two people already dead and five more put to death in front of me.”

He said he tried to protect the Muslims, but was threatened by the mob. Then he called the chief minister of Mandalay Division, Gen Ye Myint, and told him what was happening. ”He said he’d already given orders to the police to take action, but there was no action at all,” Win Htein said.

It took a further day before the army stepped in and restored some order in the city. By then, at least 42 people had been killed and more than 60 were injured. Those are the official estimates, but the real figures are likely to be considerably higher, considering that at least 30 people died in a single incident at the madrasa.

BADGE OF HATE: 969 stickers on sale in Yangon.

One local reporter who witnessed the carnage, told Spectrum that she arrived at the scene at 5pm and saw a pile of several dozen corpses just metres from the madrasa. When she went back four hours later, the pile had been set on fire.

On March 21, the young reporter saw and filmed a group of Buddhists slit the throat of a Muslim man, before dousing him with petrol and setting him on fire. She continued recording despite being told to stop, but eventually had to flee the scene when six or seven Buddhist men chased her, hitting her on the back.

The reporter said that during the time she was in Meiktila, from March 20-22, she saw only Buddhists carrying weapons and the violence was fundamentally one-sided, with the Muslims always on the receiving end.

Win Htein said the attacks were spontaneous and perpetrated by Buddhist residents of the city, but others witnesses claimed the attackers were unknown to them and seemed to be following a well coordinated plan.

Three weeks after the riots, the Muslim quarters of Meiktila are large wastelands of destroyed buildings and charred cars, resembling the aftermath of a war or natural disaster, and where the poorest inhabitants of the city scavenge for scrap to sell. More than 18,000 residents, most of them Muslims, have been displaced by the violence and most of them are now living in government-controlled camps. The camps are off-limits to journalists, but there are also unofficial camps like the one where Mon Hnin lives.

The government has announced plans to rebuild the destroyed houses within two months, but few believe in its ability or even its willingness to do so. Many Muslim refugees fear their situation might become permanent, as happened to the Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine state, in western Myanmar. Unlike the Rohingya, however, the Muslims of central Myanmar are officially recognised as citizens of the country.

THE VIOLENCE SPREADS

After Meiktila, the anti-Muslim attacks spread to other parts of central Myanmar, getting dangerously close to the the nation’s largest city, Yangon. In the Bago region, the pattern of violence against Muslim people and property was repeated in no less than 14 villages.

More than 80 refugees from Minhla, a town with a population of about 100,000, are now living in a mosque in Yangon after fleeing a wave of attacks on March 27.

Ko Maung Win (not his real name), a teacher at the local mosque recounted how a mob of Buddhist extremists attacked the mosque shortly after afternoon prayer. Nobody was killed or injured during the attacks.

FOMENTING DISCONTENT: Ashin Wirathu, famous for his inflammatory anti-Muslim speeches, at the Maseyein monastery in Mandalay.

He and other refugees from Minhla told Spectrum that the attacks came out of the blue, without any prior threat or warning. They said, however, that relations between the two communities had steadily soured after a monk visited the city at the end of February and gave a speech telling Buddhists to shun Muslim people and their shops. A woman who owned a grocery store in the market, and is now one of the refugees in the mosque, said she lost many Buddhist customers after the speech. Nevertheless, when the attacks started she was given refuge in the home of a Buddhist neighbour.

The violence has not yet reached Yangon, but in some of its Muslim neighbourhoods there is an almost palpable tension, particularly at night. Since the attacks in Meiktila, the residents of Mingalar Taungyungnunt, the main Muslim quarter of the former capital, have set up barricades and conduct nightly street patrols.

Muslim communities are abuzz with rumours, especially after the fire in an Islamic school in Yangon that claimed the lives of 13 children in the early hours of April 2. Few people believe the official line that the fire was accidental. The haste of the authorities to say it was, and their inability to find any eyewitness accounts further contributed to people’s suspicions.

Neighbours interviewed recently in the quarter said that, under the cloak of dark, people roam the streets in cars shouting threats and insults. Many of them are afraid that during the annual Songkran-like water festival there might be an attack similar to those in Meiktila and Bago. Many men sleep only a few hours a night, as they have to work at day and patrol the streets in the evening. Every entrance to the neighbourhood from the main streets is blocked with makeshift barricades manned by local men.

All of the men interviewed by Spectrum were keen to emphasise that their relations with an overwhelming majority of Buddhists have always been and continue to be peaceful and friendly. They put the blame on ill-defined groups of ”Buddhist terrorists”.

Like many other Muslims around the country, the residents of Mingalar Taungyungnunt feel unprotected and abandoned by local authorities and the central government. During two visits to the quarter at night, only a minimal police force could be seen on the streets.

”We don’t know who these people are, but we are not afraid. If they attack us, we will fight back,” said a young man in one of the barricades.

The anti-Muslim sentiment finds its expression in a campaign called 969, which encourages Buddhists to shop only in Buddhist outlets and calls for a defence of Buddhism in Myanmar against the supposed threat of a Islamisation. The campaign is named after the ”three jewels” of Buddhism _ the nine attributes of Buddha, the six attributes of his teachings, and the nine attributes of the Sangha. There are many 969 stickers in shops, taxis and cars around Yangon and other cities.

The most visible face of the 969 movement is Ashin Wirathu, a monk from Mandalay who is famous for his anti-Muslim speeches. The boyish-looking 45 year old with a calm demeanour and soft voice was jailed in 2003 for inciting anti-Muslim riots and released under an amnesty in 2012. Spectrum met him in Masoeyein, a monastery in Mandalay whose monks are famous for their political activism.

Sitting beneath several huge portraits of himself, Ashin Wirathu explained the ”Muslim conspiracy” which, according to him, threatens to engulf Myanmar.

A man full of contradictions he seems consistent only in his criticism of and dislike for Islam. He denied at first that he mentions Muslims in his speeches at all, but later admitted that he does speak about them, but only because he wants to inform people of the reality.

At one point he even claimed that 100% of rapes in Myanmar are committed by Muslims, disregarding the fact that the army is known to use rape as a weapon in its wars against ethnic insurgents.

He traced his anti-Muslim activism to 1996, when a Muslim who had converted to Buddhism gave him a supposed ”secret message” circulated among Myanmar Muslims laying out their conspiracy to Islamise the country. The message included a plan to marry Buddhist women in order to convert them, and taking over the economy. Ashin Wirathu also warned that if Myanmar Buddhists do not take action, by 2100 the whole country will resemble the Mayu region of Rakhine state, an area mostly populated by Muslim Rohingya.

WHIRLWIND OF HATE: The destroyed Mingalar Thiri Muslim quarter in Meiktila.

Ashin Wirathu recognised that Buddhists have committed acts of violence, but refused to admit that his incendiary speeches have anything to do with them. He also refused to acknowledge that his discourses incite hatred towards Muslims, stating that he is just ”informing the public”.

He even claimed that, should people listen to him, no Buddhist would engage in violence, despite the fact that he gave one of his trademark speeches in Meiktila just four months before the recent violence. Eventually, as a solution to the ”Muslim problem”, he presented a simple formula: ”Buddhists can talk with Muslims, but not marry them; there can be friendship between them, but not trade.”

Ashin Wirathu’s words enjoy widespread publicity in the country and he is well supported by the Buddhist community, which reveres monks as the ultimate depositaries of wisdom. According to Win Htein, the NLD MP from Meiktila, Ashin Wirathu’s speeches are shown in the buses operated by companies owned by the military.

In a house in Meiktila, Aye Aye Aung, a 43-year-old Buddhist woman who owns three shops in the town, showed Spectrum a DVD of one of Ashin Wirathu’s speeches in which he warns against the Muslim conspiracy. She also showed us the weapon, a knife tied to a long iron bar, that her husband made the day the violence started to defend his family and property against possible Muslim attackers. She said that she was willing to let Muslims live in Meiktila, but they should be completely segregated from the rest of the population.

Ashin Wirathu claimed that 969 is a grass-roots movement without funding from powerful or wealthy people. Its publicity stickers are printed and distributed by ordinary people who act out of concern for their country, he said.

Despite his claims, several vendors at Mandalay market said the stickers are distributed by monks from Ashin Wirathu’s monastery.

Ashin Gambira, a former monk and leader of the 2007 ”Saffron Revolution” is one of Ashin Wirathu’s main critics. He said the monk is breaking the Buddhist precept of ”right speech”, which exhorts followers in part to avoid saying anything that could prove harmful to others. According to him, anti-Muslim sentiment was actively promoted by the army during its five decades of dictatorship and the hatred is now ”instilled in the minds of the people” to such a degree that it would not take much of an effort to ”revive it at any moment”.

It is a mystery who is behind the campaign and Ashin Wirathu, but many believe they enjoy the financial support of powerful people. There are also claims that they are following the plans of hard-line elements in the military who are unwilling to renounce their power and are posed to create unrest to reassert their position. The fact is that the authorities have allowed him to go around the country preaching his hatred at a particularly delicate time.

Ashin Pum Na Wontha is a 56-year-old Buddhist monk with a long history of political activism dating back to 1988. He now belongs to the Peace Cultivation Network, an organisation established to promote understanding between different faiths and communities.

In a recent interview conducted at his monastery in Yangon, he told Spectrum that Ashin Wirathu is a merely a puppet ”motivated by his vanity and thirst for fame”.

”Wirathu and the 969 movement receive financial support from the cronies,” he said, referring to a group of about 30 rich men linked to the military and the government who control the nation’s economy. Several Muslim businessmen have huge assets and, according to Ashin Pum Na Wontha, the cronies would like to get their hands on them.

He said he also believes the military is involved in the violence, as a way to destabilise the country and have the chance to present itself as the sole institution capable of re-establishing the law and order. According to his analysis, the military does not want to recover full power, as it had following the 1962 coup of Gen Ne Win, but to ”go back to 1958”.

In that year, Ne Win took power temporarily from U Nu, the first prime minister of Myanmar, and established a caretaker government that lasted 18 months. At that time, the army was able to present itself as the defender of democracy and stability in the country.

Inter-religious and communal tensions had long existed in Myanmar before Gen Ne Win took full power in 1962. Anti-Indian and anti-Muslim riots exploded in Yangon in 1930 and 1938 due to the resentment of the Myanmar people towards Indians who had entered the country with the arrival of the British colonisers. As today, the riots were often incited by Buddhist nationalist monks.

Ne Win and the military junta that replaced him played this religious ultra-nationalist and racist card for the entirety of their rules. Muslims and other non-Buddhists were barred from the upper echelons of the army and, almost immediately after Ne Win’s coup, he expelled hundreds of thousands of Indians from the country.

He also fostered a sense of a Myanmar identity strongly linked to ethnicity and religion, which has been the breeding ground for waves of anti-Muslim violence, like this most recent one, which threatens to spiral out of control and spread to large parts of the country.

LAST DEFENCE: Barricades manned by Muslim residents in Mingalar Taungyungnunt, the main Muslim quarter in Yangon. Following the violence in Meiktila, residents there have begun conducting patrols at night.

LUNCHTIME LULL: Most of those displaced by ethnic violence are in government-controlled camps, however others are in unofficial camps such as this one.

(Source / 14.04.2013)

Settlers spray graffiti on Bethlehem-area mosques

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Settlers sprayed racist graffiti on two mosques in a village near Bethlehem early Sunday, locals said.

The graffiti on the Tuku village’s Bilal bin Rabah mosque included a threat that Palestinian stone-throwers would “pay the price” unless they stopped. They sprayed similar slogans on the Salah al-Din al-Ayoubi mosque.

Settlers also slashed the tires of two cars that were parked in the street, locals said.

Residents also said Israeli soldiers had guarded the settlers who participated in the vandalism.

An Israeli military spokeswoman did not say if troops were present in the area at the time of the incident, but she said security forces were looking into the attack.

She confirmed that graffiti was found and the tires of two cars were slashed.

The mayor of Tuqu, Taysir Abu Mfareh, told Ma’an that the Israeli side informed Palestinian workers in the nearby settlements that they would be banned from working in Israel if Israeli cars continued coming under rock attack.

The Palestinian Islamic-Christian commission denounced the incident.

It called the attack a “flagrant violation” of international law, freedom of worship, and the obligations of Israel as the occupying power in Palestine. Israel should respect places of worship, it said.

Israel returns land to Palestinians

Also Sunday, Israeli media reported that a Tel Aviv court ordered 100 dunams of land within the illegal Alfei Menashe settlement to be returned to their Palestinian owners.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said the court ruled that the contracts purportedly documenting the sale of the land were forged.

The land originally belonged to Palestinians who fled to Jordan when Israel entered the West Bank in 1967, and the territory was catagorized as abandoned, according to the report.

The judge in the case sided with the Palestinian owners and said it should be re-registered under their names, Haaretz said, basing the decision in part on the Civil Administration’s lack of approval.

The verdict was considered significant because the main organization representing settlers in the occupied West Bank do not typically receive Civil Administration approval for outposts they later seek to convert to “legal” under Israel’s law.

(Source / 08.04.2013)

Israeli settlers deface two mosques in West Bank

 

A Palestinian looks at Hebrew graffiti sprayed on the walls of a mosque on 7 April 2013 in the West Bank village of Tuqua.

Two mosques in a West Bank village were defaced with racist graffiti, a local official said on Sunday, marking the latest hate crime by suspected Jewish settlers.

“Settlers came in the middle of the night and wrote threats in Hebrew on the walls of two mosques and slashed the tires of a car,” said Adel al-Shaer, a councilor for Tuqua, a village east of Bethlehem.

At one site in Tuqua, the attackers scrawled: “Adele Biton’s revenge” – an Israeli toddler injured during a stone-throwing incident in March – and “Price tag for throwing stones,” and drew two Stars of David around the front entrance with the words: “Regards from Adele,” an AFP correspondent said.

Similar slogans were tagged on another mosque in the village.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri confirmed details of the attack, adding that two cars, not one, had had their tires slashed.

Residents told Ma’an news agency that Israeli soldiers had guarded the settlers who participated in the vandalism. A military spokeswoman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Villagers threw stones at police and troops sent to the village to investigate the crimes, damaging some of their vehicles, she added.

Such incidents are known as “price tag” attacks, a euphemism for hate crimes against Palestinians by Israeli extremists.

The attacks began in response to Israeli government moves to dismantle settler outposts in the West Bank – which are deemed illegal under international law – but over the past 18 months they have targeted anyone seen as hostile to Jewish settlers.

Perpetrators of such crimes are rarely caught.

In late March, Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet said it had arrested five teenagers over the March 14 attack which caused a woman in a car with her three young daughters to lose control and crash into a parked lorry.

(Source / 07.03.2013)

US MUSLIMS SACKED FOR PRAYING AT WORK

A US Muslim advocacy group has filed federal complaints against an American company for sacking eighteen Muslim workers for performing prayers at work.

“They wouldn’t even discuss any type of accommodation,” Jennifer Nimer, legal director for the Ohio branch of the Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, toldColumbia Dispatch, according to OnIslam.net report monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).

“They said, ‘You pray at a scheduled break, and that’s it.”

The umbrella group has filed a complaint earlier this week against Exel Inc., a subsidiary of Deutsche Post DHL, for sacking 18 Muslim workers from e Westerville-based logistics company.

The workers, of Somali origin, were fired because they prayed twice during work hours for about 10 minutes each time.

The complaint accuses the company of denying requests to adjust break times for the workers to allow them perform their prayers.

Though previous managers had made modifications to the break schedule, new supervisors refused to do so.

“It’s not accommodating when they were aware the break times made them miss the prayer,” Nimer said.

Company officials, however, deny any wrongdoing, saying that Exel is dedicated to ensuring its workplaces are sensitive and respectful to employees’ religious and ethnic practices. ”The allegations … neither conform nor align with the way we do business in any of our sites,” Exel officials said in a statement.

“Rather, Exel goes to great lengths to ensure employees’ religious practices are understood and, as appropriate, accommodated.  “In both policy and practice, Exel has established a culture in which discrimination of any kind is not tolerated.”

Discrimination

The sacked workers complain that the company has a history of discrimination against Muslims. ”This company has a history of discriminating against Muslims, especially Muslims of Somali origin,” Nimer said. ”This type of blatant discrimination cannot be tolerated,” he added.

The workers said they were initially denied access to the company’s human-resources department. One manager is also alleged to have told employees to pray in a restroom so they would not be seen.

The Muslim advocacy group said the sacking of some workers prompted a Feb. 8 meeting at which a manager told other employees that policies would not be changed. As workers insisted on performing their prayers, more employees were subsequently fired.

Nimer said the accusations come on the heels of complaints filed last year by two other fired Exel employees, both Muslims.

One man said he was fired after requesting the continuance of prior accommodations that allowed him to attend mandatory Friday prayer services while another said he was fired for praying during a break.

The United States is home of a Muslim minority of between six to eight million.  State and federal laws require employers to accommodate the religious practices of workers unless they unduly burden the company.

(Source / 31.03.2013)

Palestinians blocked from al-Aqsa for Friday prayers

 

Israeli police forces announced restrictions on Muslim Palestinians who seek to enter Al-Aqsa mosque for Friday prayers, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported Friday.

The newspaper stated that intelligence information, which reveals that Palestinians might seek to commit “riot acts”, came behind such decision.

The order allows only Palestinians carrying Israeli identity cards and above 50 years old to enter the mosque. Palestinians who cannot meet these criteria are banned to pray in the mosque, with an exception granted to women.

The Jerusalem-located Al-Aqsa mosque is the third holiest site in Islam. Israel’s recurrent violations against the mosque have historically been a major source of tension and anger among Palestinians.

On 3 March, an Israeli officer attacked Palestinian female students inside the mosque and desecrated a copy of the Holy Quran, according to Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage.

“One of the Israeli officers located inside the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque attacked two students from a girls’ school near Buraq Mosque next to the Mughrabi Gate,” the media department chief at the Foundation Mahmoud Abu Atta said.

Abul Atta quotes the girls’ account that the officer tried to chase them away to prevent them from reciting the Quran. When they refused, the officer kicked and walked on a copy of the Holy Quran.

He said that a number of men and women gathered near the Mughrabi Gate to condemn the crim, chanting “God is great.”

Al-Aqsa Foundation condemned the “heinous crime” against the students, blaming the Israeli occupation forces of the consequences of what might happen and called for prompt action to defend the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Three days later, clashes erupted in Jerusalem on Wednesday after eight Jewish settlers entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of Israeli police.

The settlers prayed in front of the mosque before clashes broke out with Palestinian Muslims, a guard at the mosque told Egypt’s state news agency MENA.

“Israeli authorities allow military troops, settlers and even tourists to enter Al-Aqsa, which provokes the feelings of Muslims praying in the mosque,” the guard added.

A Palestinian man was shot during the clashes and transferred to a medical clinic. Also, An Israeli soldier removed a Palestinian woman’s veil after she prevented a settler from photographing her.

These tensions came ahead of US President Barack Obama’s three-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories that will begin on 20 March.

A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bureau said Obama was due to arrive Wednesday, March 20, at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv and then head to Jerusalem for talks with President Shimon Peres and a dinner meeting with Netanyahu.

According to AFP, Israeli media reports and a Palestinian official have said that it will run from March 20-22 and take in talks with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Jerusalem and Ramallah.

According to the official Israeli programme released by Netanyahu’s office, Obama is due to visit on Thursday the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and then travel to Ramallah in the West Bank to meet Palestinian Authority officials.

(Source / 17.03.2013)

97 Rohingya-moslims sterven op zee

De marine van Thailand zou de boot van de moslims hebben gesloopt.

Uit Myanmar gevluchte en vorige week door de marine van Sri Lanka geredde Rohingya-moslims zeggen dat zij 25 dagen op zee gedobberd hebben nadat de Thaise marine hen had onderschept en de motor van hun boot had gesloopt. Terwijl zij in de Baai van Bengalen ronddreven zouden 97 opvarenden van honger zijn omgekomen. De Thaise marine ontkent de beschuldiging.

De overlevenden, 32 mannen en een jongen, verblijven nu in een vreemdelingendetentiecentrum bij de Sri Lankaanse hoofdstad Colombo. Zij voelden zich niet veilig meer in Myanmar en wilden in een wrakke houten boot naar Maleisië varen. Zij waren al ernstig uitgedroogd toen ze afgelopen zaterdag door de Sri Lankaanse marine werden gered.

De 24-jarige Shofiulla verklaarde dat de groep op 10 januari 130 man sterk scheep was gegaan. Na tien dagen varen bereikten ze Thaise wateren en werden ze door twee patrouilleboten van de Thaise marine onderschept. De motor werd van hun boot gehaald en de groep werd zonder eten of drinken op zee achtergelaten.

“Wij dronken alleen zeewater”, zei Shofiulla. Zevenennegentig mensen overleden voordat de rest van de groep door de Sri Lankaanse marine na 25 dagen werden gered. De lichamen van de overledenen werden in zee geworpen. Het Thaise ministerie van defensie ontkent de beschuldiging. “Officieren van de Thaise marine zouden dit nooit doen”, zei woordvoerder Thanathip Sawangsaeng.

“Rohingya’s kunnen op twee manieren worden benaderd: hun voedsel en hulp geven en ze daarna hun zeereis laten vervolgen, of ze oppakken wegens illegale binnenkomst. Maar het bestaat niet dat de Thaise marine iets zou hebben gedaan waar ze nu van wordt beticht.” Rohingya’s worden in Myanmar niet als een aparte etnische bevolkingsgroep beschouwd, maar als illegale immigranten uit Bangladesh.

Ze zijn moslim, spreken een Bengaals dialect en zien er uit als Bengalezen, die over het algemeen donkerder van huid zijn dan de meeste mensen in Myanmar, die overwegend boeddhistisch zijn. Bij sektarisch geweld in het westen van Bangladesh zijn sinds juni honderden doden gevallen en meer dan honderdduizend mensen uit hun woonplaatsen verdreven.

(Source / 23.02.2013)

Christian Zionism promoting Islamophobia in US

It is found mainly in the bible belt region of the United States, from the south to the midwest.

“The growing movement of Islamophobia in the United States is a troubling phenomenon for many. But the factors contributing to it are less well-known. Experts say one of these factors is Christian Zionism.” 

The zealous efforts of evangelical Christians has spurred more publicly discussed subjects such as their anti-abortion and anti-evolution campaigns.

But a lesser discussed issue is their often anti-Islamic views, which experts state correlate with their support for Israel.

Christian Zionists are believed to number around 40 or 50 million in the United States.

The movement’s support for Israel derives from a desire for the return of Jesus on earth, which many Christian Zionists say can only happen if Jews are returned to the Holy Land.

Therefore, supporting Israel is a necessary part to many Christian Zionists’ faith. This has led well-known evangelical leaders, like John Hagee and Pat Robertson, to label those opposed to Israeli policies as enemies.

Analysts say this ideology has made its way into the US government, and has been influencing US policy, most recently with their opposition to Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary.

Christian Zionists have also supported the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and have called for a war with Iran.

(Source / 20.02.2013)