Thursday, May 30, 2013

Burma's Buddhist mobs sow fear amid widening unrest...

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, iron pipes and long bamboo poles, they thrust their fists repeatedly into the air.

The object of their rage: Burma's embattled Muslims.

Gaping residents 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 the north-east region of Burma became the latest to fall prey to the country's swelling tide of anti-Muslim unrest.

Two days of violence in the city of Lashio have cast fresh doubt over whether President Thein Sein's government can or will act to contain the racial and religious intolerance plaguing a nation still struggling to emerge from half a century of military rule. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Religious violence erupts in Myanmar...
  2. Video shows Burmese police standing by as Buddhists attack Muslims...
  3. Myanmar imposes two-child limit on Rohingya Muslims...
  4. HRW says anti-Rohingya unrest in Myanmar was organized ‘ethnic cleansing’
  5. Buddhist monk Wirathu uses racism and rumours to spread hatred in Burma...
  6. Fear stalks Yangon's Muslims after Buddhist-led killings...
  7. Burmese neo-nazi movement rising against Muslims...

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