NEW DELHI: ARAB NEWS

Thursday 11 April 2013

Indian Muslim organizations and human rights bodies protested against the atrocities and cruel activities being meted out against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
The protest organized by All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat condemned the Myanmar government for its inaction to stop violence against Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine (Arakan) state.

A Burmese imam is being investigated for possible negligence after 13 children died in a fire at a Muslim school in Rangoon, police said.
Authorities were also quizzing a Muslim teacher in the case, reports said.

Police earlier blamed an electrical fault for the blaze. Most of the children escaped unharmed.

Riot police were deployed to the area as people gathered, concerned that the fire was linked to recent communal violence in other parts of the country.

At least 40 people have been killed since 20 March in the attacks which have mainly targeted minority Muslims.

The school’s imam and a Muslim teacher were being investigated but no arrests had been made so far, Rangoon police chief Win Naing told the AP news agency.

Maung Zarni
Institutionalized racism against the Rohingya Muslims led Burma to genocide

For those outside Burma, the broadcast images of the Theravada monks of the “Saffron Revolution” of 2007 are still fresh. Backed by the devout Buddhist population, these monks were seen chanting metta and the Lovingkindness Sutta on the streets of Rangoon, Mandalay, and Pakhoke-ku, calling for an improvement in public well-being in the face of the growing economic hardships afflicting Burma’s Buddhists. The barefooted monks’ brave protests against the rule of the country’s junta represented a fine example of engaged Buddhism, a version of Buddhist activism that resonates with the age-old Orientalist, decontextualized view of what Buddhists are like: lovable, smiley, hospitable people who lead their lives mindfully and have much to offer the non-Buddhist world in the ways of fostering peace.

Posted by Alex Caring-Lobel
In 2007, inspiring images of Burmese Buddhist monks leading their compatriots in demonstrations of civil resistance flooded the Western media. Just five years after the series of protests curiously referred to as the “Saffron Revolution” (Burmese monks wear maroon robes, not saffron-colored ones), Buddhist-led violence erupted in the western Rakhine state. Following a monk-led campaign against the Rohingya Muslim minority of Burma, recognized by the UN as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, reports of rioting, killing, and the blocking of humanitarian aid to the Rohingya surfaced here and there in the media, devoid of the enthusiasm that the Burmese monks attracted back in 2007.