Arakan News Agency
Myanmar government refuses to change its policy on the ‘Bengalis’ as no other country is willing to take them in…
Protests against the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar have intensified across the Muslim world today as protesters took to the streets of Kabul to speak out against the ‘persecution’.
Afghan activists launched a rally in the country’s capital to express their anger at the ‘deliberate discrimination’ against the Muslim community in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
They also lashed out at the West for ‘turning a blind eye’ to the plight of the Rohingya minority, with one protestor, Parvez Hameedy, saying: “It is horrendous the way religious fanatics in Burma have been killing Rohingya Muslims and the entire world is watching the horror unfold with silence.”
Another activist, Farhad Mahmoudi, added: “Persecution against Burmese Muslims has reached its peak, yet most western and Muslim countries have not broken their silence.”
The government of Myanmar says it is determined to stop migrants from fleeing religious persecution from the country – but is accused of consistently refusing to acknowledge the reasons behind what is causing the people to cross the sea under dangerous conditions.
Insisting that most of the migrants do not belong in Myanmar – and referring to them as “Bengalis” – the government says it has no plans to change policies that strip them of basic rights and detain more than 140,000 in a crowded government camp.
A deputy director general of the Myanmar president’s office, U Zaw Htay, said this week: “There is no change in the government’s policy toward the Bengalis.”
Tens of thousands of Rohingya have attempted to flee the country in recent months and, just a few weeks ago, a wooden vessel – which was jam-packed full of men, women and children – was spotted adrift in the Andaman Sea between Thailand and Malaysia.
The New York Times reported how, when a boat of journalists approached the wooden vessel, cries of: “Please, help us” and: “I have no water” rose from the deck as the migrants told of how they had been on the boat for three months.
With no country willing to take them in, the migrants described how their captain and the crew had abandoned them six days previously and how they dealt with ten fatalities during their voyage: by throwing the dead overboard.
Source : independent
