Saskatoon protest decries ‘genocide’ of Muslims

Canada urged to put pressure on Myanmar

SASKATOON Members of Saskatoon’s Muslim community and supporters have joined the international outcry over the Rohingya crisis.

Saturday afternoon dozens of people rallied outside city hall, calling for an end to what many are calling the genocide of the Rohingya, a minority group of Muslims in Myanmar (formerly Burma).

Conservative MP Kevin Waugh, one of the invited speakers, declared “we believe this is a genocide.”

Both he and New Democrat MP Sheri Benson pledged to keep the issue at the forefront when Parliament resumes later this month.

Deputy premier Don Morgan also spoke about the need to stop the violence and killing, urging Myanmar to stop the abuses.

The rally’s emcee Daniel Kuhlen said he wants Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland to ask Russia and China specifically to intervene.

Kuhlen also announced that the local branch of the Islamic Association, which organized the rally, has raised $25,000 to aid the Rohingya.

In a separate interview, an Islamic Association spokesman Mateen Raazi said “first … the loss of life has to stop on all sides.”

Canada can play its part by putting pressure on the Myanmar government, and also providing humanitarian relief, he continued.

“That has to happen first. The question of refugees comes later, and it is something that we should discuss,” Raazi said.

However, another participant is calling on Canada to admit Rohingya refugees.

“They ’re really helpless, desperate. And the atrocities are unbelievable that are occurring against them,” Memuna Moolla said in an interview.

Identified as the only Burmese Muslim in Saskatchewan, she travelled from her home in Battleford to speak on her own behalf at the rally.

She arrived with a supply of her memoir of growing up in Burma, “Where Flowers Bloom” which she is selling to raise money for Rohingya refugees.

So far she has raised about $1,300.

Her goal is $40,000 which she plans to personally bring to the refugees, to cut administrative costs.

Meanwhile, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is also speaking out against the persecution of Rohingyas.

National President Lal Khan Malik was in Saskatoon Friday on a tour of Western Canada.

He said most Ahmadiyya Muslims come from Pakistan where they are also persecuted, “so we feel the pain which (the Rohingya) are experiencing.”

But, he said the main reason for speaking out “is that our faith tells us that we should stand up against injustice.”