UN SR warned of dangerous levels of continuing instigated violence against religious minorities in Myanmar
Anti-Muslim violence spiraled across Myanmar across the past week, even as the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, Yanghee Lee has warned of "tensions along religious lines remain pervasive across Myanmar society" "This is precisely the wrong signal to send. The government must demonstrate that instigating and committing violence against ethnic or religious minorities has no place in Myanmar," he said at the end of a 12-day visit to the country.
Nearly 100 police guarded a northern Myanmar village on Saturday, July 2 after a Buddhist mob burned down a mosque, a police officer said, in the second attack of its kind in just over a week as anti-Muslim sentiment swells in the Southeast Asian nation.The state-owned Global New Light of Myanmar said security forces in Hpakant in Kachin state were unable to control Friday’s attackers, who were armed with sticks, knives and other weapons.
It said the mosque’s leaders had failed to meet a June 30 deadline set by local authorities to tear down the structure to make way for construction of a bridge. Earlier, on June 23, a mob demolished a mosque and a Muslim cemetery in a village in Bago Region, about 60 kilometers northeast of Yangon, reportedly as a consequence of a personal dispute.
Tensions are also simmering in western Rakhine, a state scarred by deadly riots in 2012 that left communities almost completely divided along religious lines. The region is home to the stateless Rohingya, a Muslim minority largely relegated to destitute displacement camps and subject to host of restrictions on their movements and access to basic services, AFP reports.
Suu Kyi, a veteran democracy activist who championed her country’s struggle against repressive military rulers, has drawn criticism from rights groups for not taking swifter moves to carve out a solution for the ethnic minority. Her government recently ordered officials to refer to the group as “people who believe in Islam in Rakhine State” instead of Rohingya — a term whose use has set off protests by hardline Buddhists who insist the group are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
Yet even the government’s broad phrase has failed to placate local Rakhine Buddhists, who demand the group be referred to only as “Bengalis” and say they are preparing to rally in protest at the order on Sunday. The UN Special Rapporteur (SR) Yanghee Lee urged the country’s new civilian government to make “ending institutionalised discrimination against the Muslim communities in Rakhine State… an urgent priority”. A mob has burned down a mosque in northern Myanmar in the second attack of its kind in just over a week.
Police are reported to be guarding the village of Hpakant in Kachin state, after failing to stop Buddhist villagers setting the mosque ablaze. Last week, a group of men destroyed a mosque in central Myanmar in a dispute over its construction. The UN has earlier, too, warned the government led by Nobel Peace Prize Aung San Suu Kyi to crack down on religious violence. The latest attack took place on Friday, when a group of villagers stormed the mosque and set it on fire. Reports said they attacked police officers guarding it, and stopped the fire brigade from reaching the site.
"The problem started because the mosque was built near a (Buddhist) pagoda. The Muslim people refused to destroy the building when the Buddhists discovered it," Moe Lwin, a local police officer, told AFP. He said around 90 police officers are now stationed in the village, where the situation has calmed. In a similar incident in central Bago state last week, the Muslim community was forced to seek refuge in a neighbouring town, after their mosque was burnt down and a Muslim man was beaten up. It happened in a village called Thayel Tha Mein.
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Why is there communal violence in Myanmar?
Myanmar lifts Rakhine emergency four years after communal violence