This confusing story comes to us from a publication which I was glad to discover called The Muslim News. You can read it and try to sort it out for yourselves, but the gist of it is that two Muslim organizations in the Arakan region of Myanmar (Burma) are fighting over who is most popular with the Rohingya. Huh?
One organization alledgedly turned in the other for having a meeting at an unregistered location.
When Salim Ullah (U Than Htun), the Chairman of the district branch of the Myanmar Muslim Organization was hosting a meeting in an unrecognized office with some local people on March 30 and some other members were arrested from their homes on April 1 on allegation that they had connection with the meeting, he added.
The acquitted are Dr. Kamal alias Dr. Hla Myint son of Md Sayed of Ward No.4 of Maungdaw town and Dr. Zahir alias Dr. Zaw Nyint, a dentist. There are two categories of members —Township and District level.
Some locals believe that Dr. Nurul Hoque alias Dr. Tun Aung, the Chairman of Township Islam Religion Council (IRC) of Burma complained to the authorities against the MMO. The two organizations (MMO and IRC) are into parallel work for the Rohingya community. Dr. Nurul Hoque does not want the MMO to be popular.
This article interested me on a bunch of levels. First, note that everyone has an alias, what is up with that? Is this standard practice in Burma? Is this how unauthorized Muslims are getting into refugee camps throughout the region, by confusing the UN about who they are?
Then most everything I’ve read about the Rohingya Muslims is that they are persecuted and mostly out of Arakan and out of the country (living in squalor) looking for third country resettlement to the West (they want to live in a city near you). Now here comes a story about how they are not only apparently still in Arakan in substantial numbers that they have at least these two competing organizations working for them. And, the ‘evil’ Burmese junta allows groups like these to operate, how repressive is that?
Are the Rohingya outside of Burma persecuted or simply economic migrants? Economic migrants are not eligible for third country resettlement.
And, then my final question is why are these groups competing? This is just a guess, but I’m wondering if one is a more radical Islamic group and the other less so.
Note to Rohingya readers: Since we have heard from you before, maybe you could shed light on what the story is here with two competing Muslim groups? Why are they fighting over which group will be the most “popular” with the Rohingya of Arakan?
See my original post on the Rohingya here. And for more information, note we have a whole category called Rohingya Reports.