Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims are threatened by an increase in sectarian violence.

Will the people of Myanmar soon have their own derivative for the Nazi term Judenrein? For those who do not know what Judenrein means, it literally translates to "free of Jews", and was the term used by the Nazi administration when they had removed entire Jewish communities from Germany in the lead up to the Holocaust.

Two months of horrific escalations of violence have engulfed western Burma's Rakhine State. While the conflict lurches between reproach and revenge, the media seems to be at a crossroads between better reportage and being forgotten by the drive of the news cycle. The violence threatens to extinguish the tentative embers of hope that have been kindled by the last year's incomplete reform process.

(Washington, DC - July 12, 2012) The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) expresses its profound concern about the current violence against members of the Rohingya Muslim community, which have long experienced great hardship and oppression in their home country of Myanmar.  In addition, Rohingya Muslims require government permission to marry, are forbidden from having more than two children per family, and are subjected to modern-day slavery through forced labor.  Because the national government denies them the right to citizenship in their homeland, many Rohingyas have their land confiscated and they are restricted from travel.

Aid workers have warned of an impending humanitarian catastrophe in western Burma as authorities attempt to isolate tens of thousands of the displaced ethnic Rohingya minority in camps described by one aid worker as "open air prisons".

Aid has struggled to reach those affected by sectarian unrest in early June, as abusive treatment by Burmese authorities continues. The UN announced on Friday that 10 aid workers in Arakan state had been arrested, five of whom were UN staff. Some have been charged, although the details remain unclear.