City to march for Rohingya
ONE of the biggest marches will take place in the city today as the Muslim Judicial Council South Africa (MJC) and other local faith-based organisations called on all members of the public to join them in a march to Parliament to put more pressure on Myanmar to end violence that has sent about 370 000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh.
More than 400 people have died and about 160 000 Rohingya displaced since violence erupted in Myanmar last month, says humanitarian organisation Islamic Relief South Africa.
This emerged at a press conference held by the MJC, other faith-based organisations and activists in Athlone yesterday.
Islamic Relief ’s Shanaaz Ebrahim-Gire said all humanitarian organisations are being denied entry into the most conflict-affected region of Myanmar.
“Thousands of Rohingya flee the region daily and a further 400 000 people are estimated to be trapped in conflict zones in western Myanmar.
“Our members are conducting a rapid needs assessment in the makeshift camps close to Cox’s Bazar in order to assess the support needs of those who have fled across the border,” said Ebrahim-Gire.
The Rohingya are a Bengali-speaking and mostly Muslim minority in Myanmar, the Buddhist majority nation in south-east Asia previously known as Burma.
Violence broke out in the northern Rakhine state on August 25, when militants attacked government and security forces supported by Buddhist militia retaliated.
The UN on Monday called the response excessive and warned that Myanmar’s treatment of its Rohingya minority appeared to be a “textbook example” of ethnic cleansing.
This has moved Nobel Peace Prize laureates including Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama to call for an end to the persecution of the Rohingya.
In the open letter addressed to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Tutu said: “I am now elderly, decrepit and formally retired, but breaking my vow to remain silent on public affairs out of profound sadness about the plight of the Muslim minority in your country, the Rohingya.
“In my heart you are a dearly beloved younger sister. For years I had a photograph of you on my desk to remind me of the injustice and sacrifice you endured out of your love and commitment for Myanmar’s people. You symbolised righteousness.
“In 2010 we rejoiced at your freedom from house arrest, and in 2012 we celebrated your election as leader of the opposition.
“Your emergence into public life allayed our concerns about violence being perpetrated against members of the Rohingya. But what some have called ‘ethnic cleansing’ and others ‘a slow genocide’ has persisted – and recently accelerated. The images we are seeing of the suffering of the Rohingya fill us with pain and dread.
“As we witness the unfolding horror we pray for you to be courageous and resilient again. We pray for you to speak out for justice, human rights and the unity of your people. We pray for you to intervene in the escalating crisis and guide your people back towards the path of righteousness.”
Yesterday, pressure mounted on Myanmar to end violence, with the US calling for protection of civilians and Bangladesh urging safe zones to enable refugees to go home.
MJC deputy president Moulana Abdul Khaliq Allie said: “We are grateful for the support we have received from the interfaith community of what we feel is the duty of South Africans to highlight the atrocities against the Rohingya,” said Allie.
“Although the Rohingya people are Muslim, this is not a Muslim matter only but rather a human rights violation,” said Allie.
The march organised by the MJC and Al-Quds founation will start from Kaizergracht Street to Parliament at 11am.
The protest will be attended by several faith organisations, including the Western Cape Religious Leaders Forum, Cape Town Interfaith Initiative, the Worker’s International. – Additional reporting by Reuters
ISLAMABAD: Until recently, most Pakistanis knew little to nothing about the problems of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Except in one place: an impoverished pocket of Karachi, the huge port city on the Arabian Sea, where tens of thousands of Rohingya migrants have lived peacefully for half a century, working on fishing boats or docks. The older ones originally fled a repressive military regime, escaping on foot or by boat.
Two weeks ago, word began to reach the Rohingya community in Karachi that something terrible was happening in their homeland. On social media, relatives described military troops raiding and torching homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. News videos showed thousands of people leaving. Soon almost 300 000 had fled to Bangladesh, a coastal neighbour on the Bay of Bengal, which was once part of Pakistan.
In Karachi, a Rohingya fisherman named Noor Mohammed, 50, told a news agency that three members of his family had been killed in Rakhine in the past week. A woman said her sister had tried to reach Bangladesh by boat but was being held by boat owners demanding a large payment.
The Rohingya Muslims are a stateless minority in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which has a powerful military. After political violence erupted last month, the military said its crackdown was in response to insurgent attacks on police posts.
Yesterday the UN human rights commissioner called the repression “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.
By last week, the outrage had spread far beyond Karachi’s fishing community. In cities and towns across Pakistan, people were suddenly organising demonstrations to protest Rohingyas’ plight – lawyers, tradesmen, civic groups, clerics, journalists, tribal leaders and university communities all joined in.
The phrase “Rohingya genocide” flashed across nightly newscasts.
“This is a human crisis of grave proportions. It is hard for me to believe what I am reading, hearing and watching,” said Sajid Ishaq, chairman of the Pakistan Interfaith League. “I urge the UN to stir from its slumber and react as it did in the case of East Timor,” he said.
The former Portuguese colony faced bloody suppression in a struggle for independence from Indonesia, which it won in 2002.
On Friday, thousands of demonstrators converged on Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, after weekly prayer ceremonies, clashing with riot police near the high-security diplomatic zone. They attempted to reach the Myanmar embassy but were stopped by shipping containers placed across key streets. The march turned into a peaceful sit-in that lasted until late evening.
On Monday, leaders from religious and secular political parties joined rallies across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to urge the “civilised world to stop the mass execution of Burmese Muslims”; call on the government to cut ties with Myanmar; and condemn Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s de facto leader and former democratic crusader, for her “criminal silence” on the repression.
Pakistani officials, while trying to contain public demonstrations, lodged formal protests with Myanmar diplomats.