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A
survivor of the recent communal and religious violence in Myanmar says
mistreatment, mass slaughter, rape and torture of ethnic Rohingya Muslims is
rife in the western sector of the Southeast Asian country.
In
an exclusive interview with Bangla Radio of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting (IRIB) World Service on Wednesday, Zainul Abideen said Myanmarese
authorities imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in four places of the Rakhine state,
including the capital Sittway and Thandwe, Kyaukphyu as well as Ramree towns,
on June 10.
The
government officials initially urged Muslims not to perform the mid-day prayers
on Friday; however, they later tightened the ban and announced that Muslims
were not allowed to celebrate any of their religious ceremonies in mosques, he
said.
“Security
forces arrested four imams soon after the start of the holy fasting month of
Ramadan, and took them to an unknown place. Their fate remains unclear, and
they are most likely subjected to excruciating torture,” Zainul Abideen pointed
out.
The
Rohingya Muslim further said that most of those detained by government troops
must have been murdered.
“Extremist
Buddhists in Rakhine state have raped at least one thousand Rohingya Muslim
girls. Some three thousands corpses have been dumped into a canal in the area,
and between 25,000 and 30,000 Muslims remain missing,” Zainul Abideen noted.
He
highlighted that local officials have razed all homes to the ground in a
Rakhine village, and even uprooted the trees.
“The
Rakhine Buddhists placed the dead body of a woman near a Muslim village. They
then accused Rohingya Muslims of the murder and attacked them, killing ten
people on a bus. The fact is that they (Rakhine Buddhists) had killed the woman
and put her corpse close to a Muslim village only to use it as an excuse to
accomplish their plot,” Zainul Abideen commented.
He
said the government of Myanmar has thrown its weight behind extremist
Buddhists, and resorted to ethnic cleansing against Rohingyas.
Zainul
Abideen argued that even though Rohingyas have been in Myanmar since the 7th
century, the government does not recognize them as the country’s citizens.
He
concluded that security forces have called on Rohingya Muslims to leave Rakhine
state amid their inability to restore law and order in the area.
The
government of Myanmar refuses to recognize Rohingyas, who it claims are not
natives, and classifies them as illegal migrants. This comes while the
Rohingyas are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and
Pathan origin, who migrated to Myanmar as early as the 8th century.
Myanmar’s
President Thein Sein said on July 19 that the "only solution" to the
plight of Rohingya Muslims is to send the country’s nearly one million Muslims
-- which the UN says is one of the world's most persecuted minorities -- to
refugee camps run by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
However,
the UN refugee agency has snubbed the idea of setting up refugee camps to
accommodate the Rohingyas.
"We
will send them away if any third country would accept them," Sein added.
"This is what we are thinking is the solution to the issue."
Over
the past two years, waves of ethnic Muslims have attempted to flee by boats in
the face of systematic oppression by the Myanmar government.
(press tv)
Pakistan Cyber Force
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