Inter-Communal violence and discrimination - Myanmar - General articles and analysis

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Title: Bangkok Bank joins the Republic of the Union of Myanmar in celebrating her national day
Description: "Connecting Myanmar with Asia for 26 years, Bangkok Bank has been a part of the Myanmar business community, connecting business and promoting trade flows and investment from ASEAN and beyond..."
Source/publisher: "Bangkok Post" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-01-07
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Title: Myanmar Ministry Orders Monastery to Remove Buddha Statues Designed Using Occult Practices
Description: "Myanmar’s Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture has ordered the removal of sitting Buddha statues donated by members of the country’s former military regime, as the stone idols were sculpted according to occult practices that go against Theravada Buddhism, the country’s dominant religion. The 66 statues with “unusual hand gestures” are located in the compound of the Seindamuni Monastery on Mt. Min Wun in Naypyitaw’s Pyinmana Township. The compound also hosts a number of small stupas with strange titles like “May power be long established” and “Let the throne be long established.” The donors of the stupas include the family of Myanmar’s former dictator Senior General Than Shwe, and U Thein Swe, a former major general who served as transport minister under the military regime and is the current minister of labor, immigration and population. Among the donors of the statues are general-turned-politician Thura Shwe Mann; senior members of the country’s former ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP); military commanders; and high-ranking government officials. The statues are described as having “one hand behind the back and the other in front with the palms facing outward.” According to Tampawaddy U Win Maung, a prominent scholar on traditional Myanmar design and architecture, the positions and gestures of these Buddha images are intended to signify that the Buddha is protecting worshipers from misfortune from both behind and in front, and that donating to it or worshiping it will afford such protection to the devotee..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2020-07-09
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Title: Myanmar jails doctor for insulting monks over sex education
Description: " A Myanmar court has sentenced a doctor to 21 months in jail after convicting him of insulting Buddhist monks in connection with a debate about a proposal to teach sex education in schools. Kyaw Win Thant, 31, was arrested in May after angry scenes at a monastery in the central city of Meiktila, where he apologised to monks for deriding them in Facebook posts, a senior monk said at the time. A court in the city of Mandalay sentenced him under sections of the Penal Code that outlaw insulting religion, a spokesman told reporters on Tuesday. “He feels regretful and admitted his crime so the court gave this decision,” said court spokesman Kyaw Myo Win, according to video footage published by the Irrawaddy news outlet. Kyaw Myo Win declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. He told media Kyaw Win Thant did not have a lawyer and he was not available for comment on Thursday. Kyaw Win Thant’s Facebook posts were in response to comments posted by numerous other monks denouncing a government proposal to teach sex education at school, the senior monk said earlier. The posts have been deleted and could not be verified by Reuters. A senior official from Mandalay district religious affairs department confirmed the sentence. “We filed the lawsuit because he violated the law,” the official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-06
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Title: Myanmar doctor jailed for insulting religion
Sub-title: Nationalists including Buddhist monks have objected government’s plan to introduce sex education to school syllabus
Description: "A Myanmar doctor Tuesday was found guilty of insulting religion for his criticism of conservative monks over a proposal to include sex education in the school syllabus. A 31-year-old physician, Kyaw Win Thant was arrested in Myanmar’s central town of Meikhtila on May 21 after he shared several posts on Facebook criticizing Buddhist monks who oppose the plan to teach sex education in schools. Then he was sent to the city of Mandalay from Meikhtila for security reasons. A court in Mandalay ordered prison term for Win Thant, who is himself a Buddhist, on charges of insulting Buddhist religion. “He was given a one year and nine months jail imprisonment today,” said Ko Ko Aung, an official from Religious Affairs Office in Meikhtila. Win Thant apologized senior monks in the town on May 21 before he was charged under section 294 and 295 of the country’s Penal Code that prohibits insulting a person’s religion and carries a jail sentence up to two years. In one of his Facebook posts, he said monks are strong and healthy, but just live off others without working. “Buddhist monks who complain about the curriculum have no idea about sex education, but do all the same things that laypeople do such as betting and watching porn movies,” he wrote on Facebook on May 19. Nationalists including Buddhist monks objected to a government plan to introduce sex education to the school syllabus for the upcoming academic year that is scheduled to start on July 15. The issue recently went viral on Facebook, the most popular social media platform in Myanmar, becoming a hot debate among users. The Education Ministry recently announced that it has been reviewing the sex education curriculum following the complaints..."
Source/publisher: "Anadolu Agency" (Ankara)
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-03
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Title: Myanmar police arrest Canadian pastor for defying coronavirus ban
Sub-title: Dozens of confirmed cases traced back to service held by Myanmar-born David Lah
Description: "Myanmar police have arrested a Canadian pastor for allegedly holding a service in defiance of a coronavirus ban on mass gatherings – after which he and dozens of his followers and their families became infected. The south-east Asian nation has so far only confirmed 193 cases and six deaths from the disease, although experts fear the true figures could be far higher. The Myanmar-born preacher, David Lah, 43, is based in Toronto, Canada, but often visits his motherland to give sermon tours. Myanmar introduced a ban on mass gatherings in mid-March. Footage emerged early April showing Lah leading services in which he claimed Christians would be spared from the pandemic. “If people hold the Bible and Jesus in their hearts, the disease will not come in,” he told a roomful of faithful followers. “The only person who can cure and give peace in this pandemic is Jesus.” Shortly afterwards Lah tested positive with coronavirus and figures released by the government show dozens of confirmed cases could be traced back to his followers. Myo Gyi, lead singer of Myanmar’s most famous rock band Iron Cross, was among those infected. After emerging from quarantine, Lah was arrested on Wednesday morning and taken to a Yangon court, where he was charged with violating the Natural Disaster and Management Law. He could face three years in prison if convicted. “The police procedure was delayed because he was recovering from the disease,” a police officer told AFP. Three others will also face charges in connection with the same events when they recuperate, he added. The scandal even touched Myanmar’s Christian vice-president, Henry Van Thio, and his family, who had attended an earlier service with Lah in February, although they later tested negative. About 6% of Buddhist-majority Myanmar’s population identifies as one of the various Christian denominations in the country..."
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-21
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Title: The Law And Policy Reforms Myanmar Needs To Combat Intolerance And Discrimination Based On Religion Or Belief
Description: "The recent atrocities perpetrated against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar (and against other religious minorities in Myanmar) require investigation and the prosecution of those responsible. The atrocities have included the forcible deportation of over 700,000 people from Myanmar to Bangladesh “through a range of coercive acts and that great suffering or serious injury has been inflicted on the Rohingya through violating their right of return to their state of origin.” The International Criminal Court (ICC) is already looking into the atrocities after on November 14, 2019, Pre-Trial Chamber III authorized the Prosecutor to proceed with an investigation. The court has recognized its jurisdiction to consider the situation despite the fact that Myanmar is not a party to the Rome Statute. Similarly, the International Court of Justice (the ICJ) will be considering the atrocities perpetrated in Myanmar, after the Gambia initiated proceedings against Myanmar. Yet, it will take many years before some of those responsible for the atrocities face justice. However, the long pursuit of justice should not distract us from advocating that other steps be taken to ensure that the minorities that were targeted by the recent atrocities are safe in Myanmar and can re-establish their lives..."
Source/publisher: "Forbes" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-24
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Title: Myanmar town offers glimmer of hope for Muslims enduring 'apartheid'
Description: "Htoo Maung sits down to lunch, sharing a bowl of traditional noodle soup with old friends, an ordinary act that has become extraordinary in Myanmar's Rakhine state -- because he is Muslim, and they are Buddhist. They used to live side by side as neighbours. But now he can only visit them under a strict curfew enforced by armed guards before he must return to the muddy camp where he and the rest of Kyaukphyu town's Muslims have been confined for seven years. In 2012 inter-communal unrest swept through swathes of western Myanmar, including Htoo Maung's home town, after allegations spread that a Buddhist woman had been raped by Muslim men. Mobs ransacked homes and police rounded up Muslims for their "own safety" to sites that would later be turned into camps. More than 200 died, tens of thousands were displaced and the stage was set for the bloody purge of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine five years later. Many fear the enduring deep sectarian suspicions and religious divisions are irrevocable and authorities claim any attempt to reintegrate communities could trigger new unrest..."
Source/publisher: "Yahoo News"
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-22
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Title: It Isn’t Just the Rohingya. Myanmar Is Now Attacking Buddhists in Rakhine State, Too.
Sub-title: This latest battle could be the army’s undoing.
Description: "MRAUK U, Myanmar—Here in the town of Mrauk U, in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state, there has been little to celebrate during this October’s Thadingyut, the second-most important annual festival of the Buddhist calendar. Normally, the auspicious full moon would be hailed with a floating armada of delicate candlelit paper lanterns and song, theater, and dance. Yet this year, there are no celebrations. Instead, at 9 p.m. sharp, a curfew falls as soldiers from the Myanmar Army, known as the Tatmadaw, emerge from their posts to pull barbed wire and steel barricades across roads. Shops and businesses shutter, the streets empty and lights flickering out. Under the looming gaze of hundreds of medieval temples—relics of a time when this was the capital of one of the richest and most powerful states in Southeast Asia—parents gather up their children by flashlight and head into makeshift bunkers, dug into the soft clay beneath their houses. These gimcrack dugouts, ringed with old sand-filled cement bags, may not look much, but they provide at least some shelter from the shells, rockets, and bullets now increasingly flying between the Tatmadaw and local rebels, up above..."
Source/publisher: "Foreign Policy" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-01
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