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Issue of the day: Mobs spread fear in Myanmar

May 30, Online/APIt was a terrifying sight: hundreds of angry, armed men on motorcycles advancing up a dusty street with no one to stop them

The Jakarta Post
Sat, June 1, 2013 Published on Jun. 1, 2013 Published on 2013-06-01T16:16:58+07:00

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M

strong>May 30, Online/AP

It was a terrifying sight: hundreds of angry, armed men on motorcycles advancing up a dusty street with no one to stop them.

Shouting at the top of their lungs, clutching machetes and iron pipes and long bamboo poles, they thrust their fists repeatedly into the air.

The object of their rage: Myanmar's embattled minority Muslim community.

Residents gaping at the spectacle backed away as the Buddhist mob passed. Worried business owners turned away customers and retreated indoors.

And three armed soldiers standing in green fatigues on a corner watched quietly, doing nothing despite an emergency government ordinance banning groups of more than five from gathering.

Within a few hours on Wednesday, at least one person was dead and four injured as this northeastern town of Myanmar became the latest to fall prey to the country's swelling tide of anti-Muslim unrest.

Your comments:


The champions of human rights in Indonesia who are usually so critical against attacks on churches and the like, where are you?

Why have you disappeared?

Nono Sampurno

It isn't just about religion but also that the minority in question is ethnically Bangladeshi as well.

It happens in most countries throughout history when economies falter: Indonesia in 1998, Fiji at the turn of the century, Nazi Germany, Egypt recently and so on. Humanity is at its worst.

Nate

It is absolutely disgusting behavior. I am amazed in a country that has had such strict military rule that the government has not done more to protect the Muslim minority. Could it be that the government are not dealing with this as they should so at to deflect attention?

Why can people not try harder to live in peace ' why must it always be the minorities (the weakest) who suffer at the hands of misguided bigots who draw strength from their numbers alone?

All nations should do more to demand that a stop is put to this barbarism.

Simon

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