You have commented 338 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Southeast Asia
Mob Burns School in Riot-Hit Myanmar City
2014-07-06
[AnNahar] Mohammedans in Myanmar's second-largest city accused police on Saturday of standing by as a Buddhist mob went on a rampage, torching a school and other buildings.

Angry mourners, some carrying crude weapons, rioted in Mandalay after the funeral of a 36-year-old Buddhist victim of the country's latest eruption of religious unrest, witnesses said.

A school and dormitory in the Mohammedan area of a cemetery on the outskirts of the city were seen charred and damaged on Saturday.

"More than 70 police were here but did nothing," said Win Naing, a Mohammedan donor to the school, who watched the attack from his hiding place in the home of a Buddhist friend.

He said some of the rioters were armed with sticks, metal pipes and even saws.

No children were believed to be in the school at the time and nobody was thought to have been injured in the attack.

Several days of violence, sparked by an accusation of rape, have also left a Mohammedan dead and 14 other people injured.

"Police could have stopped the mob but they did not," said Zaw Zaw Latt, a Mohammedan member of an interfaith group in the city.

There was no immediate comment from police.

At least 250 people have been killed across Myanmar since 2012 in Buddhist-Mohammedan festivities that have cast a shadow over the country's political reforms.

Police have been accused of inaction in the past and the government has deployed soldiers in some cases to restore order.

A nighttime curfew has been imposed in Mandalay and nine people have been nabbed
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
in connection with the recent violence.

Police said they were boosting security measures as a precaution in other cities, including the main city Yangon which has a diverse population of religious and ethnic minorities.

Social media users were unable to access Facebook for the second straight evening Friday, amid speculation that Myanmar had blocked the site to curb the spread of inflammatory comment online. The website was working normally on Saturday.

Radical monks have been accused of whipping up religious tensions, with fiery
...a single two-syllable word carrying connotations of both incoherence and viciousness. A fiery delivery implies an audience of rubes and yokels, preferably forming up into a mob...
warnings that the country's main religion is under threat from Islam.

A friend of the slain Buddhist man told Agence La Belle France Presse that a Mohammedan gang had used a "sword" in the attack.

The dead Mohammedan man, a popular local bicycle shop owner, was later killed while on his way to attend early morning prayers.
Posted by:trailing wife

00:00