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.

YANGON: Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims living in squalid, flood-prone camps in western Myanmar after fleeing communal unrest face “imminent danger” from looming monsoon rains, the UN warned on Friday.
An estimated 125,000 Rohingya and other Muslims have languished in insanitary camps since violence flared last year with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, leaving scores dead and whole neighbourhoods in ruins.
They “are now in imminent danger of yet another tragedy when the monsoon rains hit…. We must act immediately to prevent a predictable tragedy,” said John Ging of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
With the monsoon expected to start in May, Ging called on the government to release new land for camps and to help rebuild shattered community relations, highlighted by the deadly outbreak of anti-Muslim violence in central Myanmar this month.
“The gravity and urgency of the situation cannot be overstated. Community and religious leaders also have a major role in promoting a culture of peace and mutual respect in multicultural and multi-ethnic Myanmar,” he added.

(AP)
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar’s government on Saturday rejected remarks by a U.N. human rights official suggesting that the authorities bear some blame for recent mob attacks by Buddhists on minority Muslims that killed dozens of people.

The U.N. official, Tomas Ojea Quintana, urged Myanmar’s government on Friday to investigate allegations that security forces watched as Buddhist mobs attacked Muslims. He also said the government needed to do more to protect the country’s Muslims.

Deputy Information Minister Ye Htut said on his Facebook page Saturday that he “strongly rejected” the comments by Quintana, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Myanmar.

Ye Htut, who is also the presidential spokesman, wrote that it was “saddening that Mr. Quintana made his comments based on hearsay without assessing the situation on the ground.”

by Agence France Presse
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia – The head of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation said on Saturday that ministers from OIC states will meet on April 14 in Saudi Arabia to discuss deadly violence against Muslims in Myanmar.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said in a statement that a contact committee of OIC foreign ministers would gather in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.

State media in Myanmar reported on Saturday that the death toll from communal violence in the centre of the country over the past 10 days has risen to 43 with more than 1,300 homes and other buildings destroyed.

An OIC statement said Ihsanoglu addressed a contact group meeting on violence against Myanmar Muslims known as Rohingya on Saturday and said the organisation was “ready to take all necessary measures and actions to deal with it”.