DDHK News, Myanmar - Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar (Burma) are still oppressed. The Myanmar government is still taking a stand against these unrecognized Muslims.
This was stated by a senior US diplomat, Anne Richard, after visiting the refugee camps in Rakhine. Anne Richard criticized the Myanmar government's policy of imposing restrictions on the Muslim community in Rakhine.
Violence between Buddhists and minority Muslim communities tore through the West in 2012. More than 200 people died and thousands of Muslims were displaced.
According to the US Assistant Secretary of State, after a visit to Rakhine, he said the atmosphere there was "very repressive".
"That's really what we want to see, but structurally the policies that are being carried out are really oppressive," he told reporters.
As many as 140.000 people, mainly Muslims, are trapped in miserable refugee camps around the state capital Sittwe after losing their homes to the 2012 riots.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya living in isolated North Rakhine are also subject to restrictions governing where they can travel, what jobs they can do and how they can educate their children.
The Rohingya are viewed by the Myanmar government and many local people as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh and most are denied citizenship.
"To repair that (hostile Buddhist-Muslim) relationship it cannot be locally, it must be fixed with the involvement of Naypyidaw," he said.
The United Nations recently passed a resolution urging Myanmar to grant citizenship access to Rohingya citizenship which sparked controversy in the Buddhist-majority country. (jnn /thejakartapost).
