KALADAN NEWS

Dated: Thursday, September 16, 2004

 

Demolition of Mosques in Northern Arakan

 

Buthidaung, Sept 16, 04: Recently a total of 9 mosques had been demolished while many more are about to destroy completely in Arakan, said Rashid (nicknamed), a villager of the locality of Ba Da Gar village tract in Buthidaung Township, Arakan State. 

 

The Nasaka troops had forced the villagers into demolishing 9 mosques on 12 and 13 August that include 1 from Kinusi, 2 from Fatiya, 4 from Panze, 1 from Tanzama Dia and 1 from Nan Mraung villages, he further said.

 

Nasaka officials said, “ It is not necessary to have many mosques in one village, one big mosque is enough for prayers. Soon many mosques will be demolished.”

 

The repeated destruction of mosques, other places of worship and religious schools make the Muslims of Arakan upset and demoralized. But they are helpless having no opportunity to protest against these actions of the government, said another villager.

 

4 people from Rohingya Taung (Ywet Nyo Taung) village in Buthidaung Township, who were earlier arrested for repairing the village mosque, were sentenced to 5 years imprisonment in the first week of September 2004. They are Mostafa, 50, former Chairman of the Village Peace and Development Council (VPDC), Moulavi Arifullah, principal of a religious school, Hafez Salamat Ullah and the incumbent VPDC Chairman of the village, said a villager of Ywet Nyo Taung village.

 

Burma under military rule has been criticized by the US and international community for abuses of religious freedom. The recent report of the Christian Solidarity Worldwide: “BURMA: Religious freedom Survey, August 2004,” dated 17th August 2004 stated:

 

“The Christians have sometimes been forced to contribute financially to the construction of Buddhist pagodas...Any construction or renovation for religious purposes requires a permit. Since 1994, all applications for permission for the construction of new church buildings have been denied.

 

…Muslims have been targeted. A report released by Amnesty International earlier this year, called ‘Myanmar: The Rohingya Minority – Fundamental Rights Denied’, claims that the Muslim Rohingya people in Rakhine (Arakan) State in western Burma, along the Bay of Bengal coast, are virtually stateless. They are effectively denied their citizenship rights, freedom of movement as severely restricted, and they are subjected to arbitrary taxation, land confiscation, forced eviction, destruction of property and forced labor. Thousands have fled across the border to Bangladesh.”

 

A trader said, “The SPDC officials and Nasaka forces used to launch vitriolic attacks on the Rohingya villagers saying that the lands belonging to their mosques, cemeteries and religious schools are fertile and so are to be taken over for the benefit of the government.” # #

 

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