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| Southeast Asia |
| Myanmar arrests 30 over killing of 10 Muslims |
| 2012-07-03 |
[Pak Daily Times] Police in Myanmar have placed in durance vileDon't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! 30 people in connection with the vigilante killing of 10 Moslems that helped spark days of sectarian violence in Rakhine state last month in which at least 80 people were killed and tens of thousands were displaced. The 30 suspects were in detention and "action is being taken against them according to the laws", the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said on Monday, referring to the incident on June 3, when the Moslems were hauled off a bus, beaten and killed. The riots and killings underline the big challenges facing Myanmar's first civilian government since the end of five decades of authoritarian military rule. The 15-month-old administration says it wants to forge peace and unity among the many ethnic groups and religions in Myanmar. Northwestern Rakhine state in particular is fraught with longstanding communal tension. The lynching of the Moslems was apparently retribution for the gang rape and murder of a Buddhist woman six days earlier, an attack they had no connection with. Three Moslem youths were found guilty of murdering the woman. One did away with himself and the other two were sentenced to death on June 18. The two incidents and the subsequent riots in Rakhine have drawn attention to the bad blood between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Moslems. |
| Posted by:Fred |