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Rohingya Muslims face severest discrimination: US Report
The constitution, laws
and policies in Myanmar (formerly Burma) restrict religious
freedom and Rohingyas Muslims face ‘severest’ form of
discrimination and restrictions including on access to education
and health, a US report on the state of religious freedom said. »
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Jeddah: The Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation
(OIC) Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu expressed disappointment over
the inaction of the international community to stop the massacres,
injustice and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Myanmar
government against Rohingya Muslims in the Arakan region.
In his speech at the extraordinary meeting of the OIC Executive
Committee on this issue on Sunday, Ihsanoglu explained the steps
being taken by OIC to protect Muslim minority in Myanmar.
He said
that the neglect of the rights of Rohingyas by the international
community and the lack of unity among Rohingya organizations
spurred the OIC to exert earnest efforts to unite these
organizations for the first time at the OIC headquarters in May
2011.
The OIC General Secretariat had directed its offices at the United
Nations in New York to coordinate with its member states which are
also non-permanent members of the UN Security Council (Azerbaijan,
Morocco, Pakistan and Togo) to urge the Council to consider the
plight of the Rohingyan minorities, he noted.
The secretary general condemned the
continued repression and ethnically-motivated oppression of the Rohingyan Muslims as well as to demand restoration of their
legitimate rights and request member states, particularly those
with representation with the Myanmar government, to do all within
their means to convince the Myanmar government to repeal the
arbitrary 1982 Citizenship Law which led to withdrawal of
citizenship from Rohingyan Muslims.
Ihsanoglu also urged countries, especially Myanmar’s neighboring
countries, as well as Islamic organizations and bodies to provide
urgent assistance to the Rohingyan Muslims.
He proposed that the
Islamic Group in Geneva should dispatch and urgent request to the
Human Rights Council to send a fact-finding mission to investigate
the massive violation perpetrated against the Muslims inhabitants
of Arakan.
The OIC Secretary General also proposed that setting up of an
Islamic fact-finding committee on the events should be considered,
and that a report in that regard should be submitted to the next
ministerial conference.
He also proposed that an Islamic
ministerial contact group should be established to find a just
radical solution to this pending issue by contacting all relevant
parties, including the government of Myanmar, as well as
international and regional organizations and bodies.
Ihsanoglu called on the OIC Independent Permanent Human Rights
Commission to consider the issue at its next session to be held in
Turkey at the end of August.
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