NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar's president blocked a world Islamic body from opening an office
in the country, an official said Monday, bowing to rallies against its efforts
to help Rohingya in unrest-hit Rakhine state.
"The president will not
allow an OIC office because it is not in accordance with the people's
desires," said an official from Myanmar leader Thein Sein's office, after
thousands of monks held the latest protests against the Organisation of the
Islamic Conference in two major cities on Monday.
The official, who asked not to be
named, declined to comment on an agreement signed with the OIC, the top world
Muslim body, which confirmed to AFP last week that it had obtained the green
light to open an office in the country.
Around 3,000 maroon-robed
clerics, some shouting and holding banners reading "No OIC", marched
through the country's commercial hub Yangon, according to an AFP photographer.
Thousands more protested in the
second-largest city Mandalay, with another demonstration in the town of Pakokku
in Magway region in central Myanmar, according to organisers.
"We cannot accept any OIC
office here," Oattamathara, a monk leading the Mandalay protest, told AFP.
"Not a temporary office and not a permanent office."
Sectarian tensions are running
high following clashes with Rohingya in June in western Rakhine which left
dozens of people dead and forced tens of thousands to seek refuge in temporary
shelters.
Monks were at the vanguard of a
2007 pro-democracy uprising that was brutally crushed by the former military
government. They have been involved in a series of protests against the OIC and
Myanmar's 800,000 stateless Rohingya, who are described by the UN as one of the
world's most persecuted minorities.
Members of the 57-member OIC
toured Rakhine last month after accusations from rights groups that security
forces opened fire on Rohingya during the sectarian unrest, prompting concern
across the Islamic world.
Myanmar's Rohingya, who speak a
dialect similar to one in neighbouring Bangladesh, are seen by the government
and many Myanmar nationals as illegal immigrants.
The tensions in Rakhine have
spread to neighbouring Bangladesh, where police said recently they had arrested
nearly 300 people in connection with a wave of violence targeting Buddhist
homes and temples.
- AFP/al
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