Fact-finding mission to investigate violence against Rohingya

The Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (second from left). 

OIC fact-finding mission travels to Myanmar to investigate violence against Rohingya Muslims

JEDDAH:THe Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has announced a mission is traveling to Burma (Myanmar) today to investigate the recent violence against Rohingya Muslims.

The fact-finding mission is scheduled to last for ten days and will also investigate any repression and human rights violations committed against the Rohingya minority.

The mission will visit the regional capital Naypyidaw to meet government officials and from there it will visit villages in Rakhine (formerly Arakan) affected by the violence, including Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Sittwe.

The mission will also set up the visit by the OIC's Secretary General, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, which will follow soon.

The mission is expected to prepare a report on its findings, which will be presented to the Contact Group on Burma that will meet in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly at the end of this month.

The decision to send a fact-finding mission and form a contact group at the ministerial level was made at the extraordinary meeting of the Executive Committee held on August 5th at OIC Headquarters in Jeddah and adopted by the 4th Extraordinary Session of the Islamic Summit held in Makkah on August 14.

Among the participants at the summit was Dr Wakar Uddin, Director General of the Arakan Rohingya Union, which was founded in May 2011 and is an umbrella of 25 Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and associations that represent the Rohingya minority.

Myanmar monks back president's anti-Rohingya plan

Khin Maung Win / AP Photo

Myanmar Buddhist monks stage a rally to protest against ethnic minority Rohingya Muslims and to support Myanmar President Thein Sein's stance toward the sectarian violence that took place in June between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in western Myanmar, in Mandalay, central Myanmar, on Sunday, Sept. 2, 2012.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/09/02/4780150/myanmar-monks-back-presidents.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy

YANGON, Myanmar -- Hundreds of Buddhist monks  in Myanmar have staged a rally in support of the president and his proposal to send the members of a Muslim minority group to another country.

Sunday's rally in Mandalay is the latest indication of deep sentiment against the Rohingya minority after June violence with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists that left 80 people dead and tens of thousands displaced.

The monks held a banner saying, "Save your motherland Myanmar by supporting the president."

President Thein Sein suggested in July that Myanmar send all Rohingya to any country willing to take them, a proposal quickly opposed by the U.N. refugee agency.

Myanmar considers the Rohingya to be illegal migrants from Bangladesh but Bangladesh also rejects them, rendering them stateless.

The U.N. estimates that 800,000 Rohingya live in Myanmar.


Source: http://www.sacbee.com