24-30 June: “National Race Protection Law” Protects No One

At a convention of over 1,500 monks from around the country in Rangoon on 27 June, senior Buddhist monks said that they endorse a draft law that would place restrictions on marriages between Buddhist women and non-Buddhist men, ostensibly “to protect our race and religion.”

The proposed “national race protection law” states that non-Buddhist men wishing to marry a Buddhist woman would have to convert to her religion. They must also obtain permission from the woman’s parents and local authorities before marrying or risk 10 years in jail.

The proposed bill is in clear violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which states in Article 16(1) that, “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.”

The bill also violates the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Article 16(1) of CEDAW states:

State Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and in particular shall ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women:

(a) The same right to enter into marriage;

(b) The same right freely to choose a spouse and to enter into marriage only with their free and full consent;  

Supporters of this bill hold alarming views of women: Aung Myaing, chairperson of the Theravada Dharma Network, a Burmese religious network, said, “Our Buddhist women are not intelligent enough to protect themselves.” A statement by 9 women’s groups in Burma criticized the bill as being “an insult to women’s ability of reasoning.”

One of the monks attending the convention last week, Ashin Wimala Buddhi from Moulmein’s Mya Sadi monastery, went so far as to threaten politicians who may oppose the bill, saying, “I would want to know which representatives turn down the national race protection law when it is proposed [in parliament] – I will make it so that they get no votes in 2015.”

The monks who are tabling the national race protection law and their supporters insist that it is a means to resolve ongoing tensions in Burma. However, it is clear from their disturbing comments that this bill is more likely to foment divisions and hostilities.

Worryingly, the government has expressed its support for Ashin Wirathu. In his public speech in response to the TIME Magazine cover story about the monk, President Thein Sein called Ashin Wirathu a “son of Buddha” and defended him as a “noble person” committed to peace. The Minister of Religious Affairs has a similarly distorted sense of reality. Sann Sint told Reuters, “Wirathu’s sermons are about promoting love and understanding between religions. It is impossible he is inciting religious violence.”

In an interfaith meeting held on the same day as the monks’ convention, leaders representing Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists, expressed concerns about the draft law and affirmed that peace is the only way forward for the country. Archbishop Charles Bo said that, “no religion promotes hatred” and that it is the task of leaders and representatives of various faiths “to refrain from speech that fosters hatred, targets someone because of their faith, causes damage or injury, affects specific groups.” It is imperative for leaders and communities to heed this message of genuine peace, for the sake of national reconciliation and transition towards a truly democratic country that respects the rights of all its peoples equally.

The government of Burma has a specific obligation as a signatory to CEDAW to protect the rights of women in the face of such a chauvinist law. Similarly, Members of Parliament must not give in to threats from extremist monks but reject any draft law that does not protect the fundamental human rights of all the people of Burma, including religious minorities and women.

News Highlights

President Thein Sein defends radical monk Ashin Wirathu in a public statement and the government bans Time Magazine’s 1 July issue with Wirathu on the cover while hundreds protest, saying that the piece has insulted Buddhism

Inside Burma

The Parliament calls for an urgent meeting with national defense and security agencies amid concerns over the peace process

Clashes in Kachin State erupt over the weekend, in more than 20 incidents since the peace talks last month

60 Burma Army personnel visit the headquarters of the Chin National Army to verify if the camp was set up according to the agreement reached between the Chin National Front and the government

Two Rohingya are killed and six injured after security forces open fire in a camp in Arakan State’s Pauktaw Township after they supposedly “attacked” officers

Two houses are burnt and three Muslims injured after small riots in Thandwe, Arakan State

Five more private daily newspapers are approved for publication as of 1 July

Burma awards cell phone licences to Telenor of Norway and Ooredoo of Qatar which elicits anger because the latter company is from a Muslim country

Regional

Malaysia urges Burma to stem anti-Muslim violence

Bangladesh police arrest 11 Rohingyas and send them to the jail

International

US and Burma reach a new bilateral agreement on economic cooperation, including provision of aid and development assistance

Opinion

Dangerous Days for Burma’s Age of Reforms
By Aung Zaw
The Irrawaddy

One Year On, the Burmese Military Continues to Recruit Children
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DVB

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Statements and Press Releases

အမ်ဳိးေစာင့္ဥပေဒ မူၾကမ္းတင္သြင္းရန္ၾကိဳးပန္းမႈႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ သေဘာထားထုတ္ျပန္ခ်က္
By RAINFALL – အမ်ဳိးသမီးအဖြဲ႕; အခရာအမ်ဳိးသမီးအဖြဲ႕; အနန္႕သဇင္မင္း (Colourful girls); KWEG – ကရင္အမ်ဳိးသမီးဖြဲ႕ျဖိဳးေရးအဖြဲ႕; ဖန္တီးအိမ္ – Phan Tee Ein (Creative Home); ၈၈ – မ်ဳိးဆက္ (အမ်ဳိးသမီးအဖြဲ႕); တကၠသိုလ္ေက်ာင္းသားမ်ားသမဂၢ (တ-က-သ); Triangle Women Support Group and Safety-Net

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