(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Myanmar was formerly known as Burma, with a population of more than eight million Muslims out of 55 million people. The rest of the population includes other minorities like Christians and Hindus as well as the majority of Buddhists.
The Muslims are the poorest of the population, despite the fact that Myanmar is considered fourth place in exporting rice in the world, in addition to maize, rubber, sugar cane, tea and wood because of the large forests it has.
Also, Myanmar has been recognized recently as one of the oil reserve countries in the word.
Islam reached this country at the beginning of the Abbasid period (in the seventh century) by Muslim travelers and traders. Muslims ruled the country for more than three hundred and a half centuries (between the years 1430 and 1784), until the Buddhist King "Budabay" occupied it and destroyed many of the Islamic sites including mosques and schools. He killed and imprisoned many Islamic scholars; also the Buddhists continued killing the Muslims and looting their goods.
After that came the British colonialism in 1824, which encouraged Buddhists to further oppress Muslims. The British provided the Buddhists with arms, leading to the renowned massacre of 1942, which claimed the lives of more than one hundred thousand Muslims, mostly women, elderly and children.
Moreover, hundreds of thousands of Muslims were displaced so that the Buddhists who seem to be the "majority", take over power once the British withdrew. Since then, the heinous practices exercised against Muslims got worse after the military coup that characterized fascism in 1962.
Muslims in Myanmar are not allowed to rebuild their demolished homes, as is the development of Muslim schools prohibited and not recognized by the government. The government does not acknowledge any certificate or degree from any Muslim school, and thus imposed the Buddhist culture forcibly.
Similar is the case in Palestine and al-Quds (Jerusalem), where the demolished houses are not allowed to be rebuilt, in order to acquire demographic change in service of Judaizing the city. Targeting Islam in Myanmar is not much different from targeting Islam in al-Quds (Jerusalem); where the British education made its way in targeting Islam in both places.
Extraditing Muslims from their villages to places of arid agriculture never stopped, and this system makes them subservient to serve in the construction of model villages built by the Buddhists in light of the demographic change.
It is proposed that Muslims are forbidden to travel even to perform the Hajj, so it prevents them moving from village to village, from city to city; even inside Myanmar, without prior permission. Muslims are not allowed to receive or host anyone in their homes even if they are relatives, under the threat of demolishing their houses and imprisoning them.
The whole world moved to support the Buddhist monks' revolution against the military rule in 2007, while the international community and all Muslim countries remained silent regarding the practices against Muslims in Myanmar.
In a phone interview with moqawama.org, "Hajar", a student from Myanmar, said that she and her family cannot respect the call of the United Nations to achieve democracy in the world.
"What democracy are they talking about, we are slaughtered in Myanmar while everybody is watching? Is it just because we are Muslims?"
"They killed, displaced, and prevented Muslims from working; all that in order to erase the presence of Islam in Myanmar. They resort to the most horrible practices and issue laws to prevent the legality of "Muslim marriage", and therefore causing chaos, and forcing Muslims to commit taboos. If we paid the money to pass on the treatment of marriage, the age of the couple must not be less than thirty years", she added.
"After legalizing the war on terrorism, which later became war on Islam, injustice and war against Muslims in Myanmar was doubled; first because we are accused of terrorism; another pretext to kill us as Muslims," Hajar went on to say.
What Hajar said is confirmed by journalist Michel J., who wrote an article in the newspaper "Le Journal", which read, "Some regimes, after the September 11, 2001 events, found that the accusation of terrorism targeting Muslims is only a pretext to eliminate its opponents, especially if those opponents are a minority that is easy to eliminate."
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The Muslims are the poorest of the population, despite the fact that Myanmar is considered fourth place in exporting rice in the world, in addition to maize, rubber, sugar cane, tea and wood because of the large forests it has.
Also, Myanmar has been recognized recently as one of the oil reserve countries in the word.
Islam reached this country at the beginning of the Abbasid period (in the seventh century) by Muslim travelers and traders. Muslims ruled the country for more than three hundred and a half centuries (between the years 1430 and 1784), until the Buddhist King "Budabay" occupied it and destroyed many of the Islamic sites including mosques and schools. He killed and imprisoned many Islamic scholars; also the Buddhists continued killing the Muslims and looting their goods.
After that came the British colonialism in 1824, which encouraged Buddhists to further oppress Muslims. The British provided the Buddhists with arms, leading to the renowned massacre of 1942, which claimed the lives of more than one hundred thousand Muslims, mostly women, elderly and children.
Moreover, hundreds of thousands of Muslims were displaced so that the Buddhists who seem to be the "majority", take over power once the British withdrew. Since then, the heinous practices exercised against Muslims got worse after the military coup that characterized fascism in 1962.
Muslims in Myanmar are not allowed to rebuild their demolished homes, as is the development of Muslim schools prohibited and not recognized by the government. The government does not acknowledge any certificate or degree from any Muslim school, and thus imposed the Buddhist culture forcibly.
Similar is the case in Palestine and al-Quds (Jerusalem), where the demolished houses are not allowed to be rebuilt, in order to acquire demographic change in service of Judaizing the city. Targeting Islam in Myanmar is not much different from targeting Islam in al-Quds (Jerusalem); where the British education made its way in targeting Islam in both places.
Extraditing Muslims from their villages to places of arid agriculture never stopped, and this system makes them subservient to serve in the construction of model villages built by the Buddhists in light of the demographic change.
It is proposed that Muslims are forbidden to travel even to perform the Hajj, so it prevents them moving from village to village, from city to city; even inside Myanmar, without prior permission. Muslims are not allowed to receive or host anyone in their homes even if they are relatives, under the threat of demolishing their houses and imprisoning them.
The whole world moved to support the Buddhist monks' revolution against the military rule in 2007, while the international community and all Muslim countries remained silent regarding the practices against Muslims in Myanmar.
In a phone interview with moqawama.org, "Hajar", a student from Myanmar, said that she and her family cannot respect the call of the United Nations to achieve democracy in the world.
"What democracy are they talking about, we are slaughtered in Myanmar while everybody is watching? Is it just because we are Muslims?"
"They killed, displaced, and prevented Muslims from working; all that in order to erase the presence of Islam in Myanmar. They resort to the most horrible practices and issue laws to prevent the legality of "Muslim marriage", and therefore causing chaos, and forcing Muslims to commit taboos. If we paid the money to pass on the treatment of marriage, the age of the couple must not be less than thirty years", she added.
"After legalizing the war on terrorism, which later became war on Islam, injustice and war against Muslims in Myanmar was doubled; first because we are accused of terrorism; another pretext to kill us as Muslims," Hajar went on to say.
What Hajar said is confirmed by journalist Michel J., who wrote an article in the newspaper "Le Journal", which read, "Some regimes, after the September 11, 2001 events, found that the accusation of terrorism targeting Muslims is only a pretext to eliminate its opponents, especially if those opponents are a minority that is easy to eliminate."
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