Statement on the Destruction of Thaye Thamein Mosque, Waw Township, Bago Division, Burma

1. We were informed that a mosque, a children school and some Muslim-­‐owned properties in Thaye Thamein village, Waw township, Bago division, Burma were destroyed by a Buddhist terrorist group on June 23, 2016.

2. We also learned that all Muslim families in the village had to leave their houses in fear of their lives immediately after the incident and are still hiding in undisclosed locations and a police station.

3. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi always claims, “Rule of law is the number one priority of the country”. We believe that this is the litmus test for her current ruling NLD government to prove what she means is what she says.

4. The first duty of a government is to protect all of its citizens equally across the board regardless of their races, colors and what they believe.

5. This incident is not the first of its kind in Burma. The whole world have known that the Islamophobic groups in the country carried out frequent incidents like this orchestrated by the group(s) that wants to install the military dictatorship back in Burma.

6. Furthermore, Burmese government is required to respect and recognize the identities of its citizens abiding by the international norms; it needs to respect and use the name of a person or a group or a race identified by his/her self or themselves exercising their birthright.

7. Therefore, our Burmese American Muslims Association (BAMA) asks Burmese government to compensate the victims, launch an immediate investigation to this hate crime and take actions on the criminals and the supported extremist organization, Ma-­‐Ba-­‐Tha including the institution(s) which backs Ma-­‐Ba-­‐Tha.

Saw Hlaing President

Burmese American Muslims Association (BAMA)

Download the press release in English here.

သတင္းထုတ္ျပန္ခ်က္ ျမန္မာဘာသာကုိ ဤေနရာတြင္ ရယူႏုိင္သည္။

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