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Two police officers guard one of the closed madrasas
in
Thaketa Township, Rangoon, after authorities
inspected the building, April 29,
2017.
© 2017 Richard Weir/Human Rights Watch
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Islamic Schools Are Kept Closed on Eve of Holiest Month
Richard Weir @rich_weir
Fellow, Asia Division
26/05/2016
On the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Muslims
in Burma’s Thaketa Township in Rangoon will have even fewer places to pray or
study their faith. Late last month, the township’s two Islamic schools, or
madrassas, were chained shut after a Buddhist ultranationalist mob pressured
authorities to close them. The schools have not been allowed to reopen and some
fear they will suffer the fate of other madrassas shut by the authorities, and
stay closed.
This is just a small fraction of the pressure facing the
Muslim community in Burma, but it is felt acutely. As Muslim minority communities
increase, they have fewer places to pray. The Burmese population is 90 percent
Buddhist, with the percentage of Muslims estimated to be in the lower single
digits.
Although Buddhist ultranationalists have, in the past,
pressured madrassas not to allow people in for prayers, Muslims in Thaketa
Township told me that for several years they’ve received permission to pray
there during Ramadan. Now they have no such option and are faced with crowded
mosques – the closest is a 30-minute walk away – and staggered prayer sessions.
“It has been a long time since we have been able to build
new mosques in this country,” said Kyaw Khin, head of a national Muslim group.
“Others are destroyed in violence, and some are closed by the government.”
The Burmese government has placed opaque and onerous
restrictions on the construction or renovation of religious structures, as well
as limits on the practice of religion, elements of the systemic discrimination
facing Muslims, including the ethnic Rohingya in Rakhine State, that we have
documented for decades in Burma.
The government needs to allow all people in Burma to
worship freely, including by reopening religious schools and protecting
minorities from mobs. Meanwhile, the residents of Thaketa Township will be forced
to walk hours every day just to make it to daily prayers.