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Monday 6 August 2012 - 09:41

OIC proposes probe into Myanmar massacres of Rohingya Muslims

Story Code : 185340
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu
Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told an executive committee meeting of the world's largest Islamic body, which is based in the Saudi city of Jeddah, on Sunday that the OIC would try to convince Yangon to allow an OIC fact-finding mission, AFP reported.

According to a statement, issued by the 57-member organization, the secretary-general “expressed disappointment over the failure of the international community to take action to stop the massacres, violations, oppression, and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the government of Myanmar against the Rohingya Muslims.”

“The OIC has directed its offices at the United Nations in New York to urge the Council to look into the suffering of the Rohingya minority,” he in the statement.

    The government in Yangon refuses to recognize Rohingyas, whom, it claims, are not natives and classifies them as illegal migrants, although, the Rohingyas are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pathan origin, who migrated to Myanmar as early as the eighth century.

The United Nations says decades of discrimination have left the Rohingyas stateless, with Myanmar implementing restrictions on their movement and withholding land rights, education, and public services from them. The UN has also described the Muslim community as the Palestine of Asia and one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

    Myanmar’s President Thein Sein said on July 19 that the “only solution” to the plight of the Rohingya Muslims is to send the nearly-one-million-strong community to refugee camps run by UN High Commissioner for Refugees. “We will send them away if any third country would accept them,” he added. “This is what we are thinking is the solution to the issue.”

However, the UN refugee agency has snubbed the idea of setting up refugee camps to accommodate the Rohingyas.
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