2 Madrasahs were chained shut on April 28
May 31, 2017
Muslim residents in
Myanmar’s largest city Wednesday protested the closure of their two religious
schools as they have fewer place for worship in the month of Ramadan -- the
ninth and holiest month of the Islamic lunar calendar.
Local authorities --
following negotiations with local Muslim leaders -- chained shut two madrasahs
in Yangon city on April 28 after a mob led by ultra-nationalist Buddhist monks
demanded an immediate closure of religious schools in the area.
On Wednesday
evening, some 100 Muslims gathered on the street in front of one of the two
madrasahs to pray and protest the closure as the madrasahs stayed closed until
now though the authorities said it was just temporary.
Tin Shwe, the head
of the madrasah, told Anadolu Agency that authorities also barred Muslim
residents from worshiping in six other schools in Thakayta Township without
giving any proper reasons.
“We requested them
to let us worship in these schools during Ramadan. But it went unanswered,” he
said on Wednesday.
He added local
Muslims were performing prayer at their individual places such as houses and
shops since the ban.
“This is not the way
we should perform prayers, especially in the month of Ramadan,” said Tin Shwe,
adding the closest mosque was about a 45-minute walk away.
Min Naung, a
32-year-old Muslim resident of Thakayta, who joined the protest, said he has
worshiped in the schools since he was a child.
“This is the first
time we are not able to gather during the Ramadan month,” he told Anadolu
Agency after the street prayer.
“The ban makes us
shocked,” he said.
New York-based Human
Rights Watch earlier this month said the closure was "the latest
government failure to protect country’s religious minorities".
"The government
should immediately reverse these closures, end restrictions on the practice of
minority religions, and prosecute Buddhist ultra-nationalists who break the law
in the name of religion," said HRW’s deputy Asia director, Phil Robertson.
HRW said Myanmar
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 Muslims in western Rakhine State.
Anti-Muslim
movements have been on the rise in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar since an
outbreak in communal violence in the western Rakhine state in 2012.