Buddhist hardliners stop Myanmar Muslim ceremony

[FarCenter]

YANGON (AFP) -
Hardline Buddhist nationalists stopped a Muslim religious ceremony in Yangon on Sunday, witnesses and organisers said, as Islamophobic tensions boil over amid a bloody military campaign against Rohingya in northern Rakhine state.

Dozens of people, led by a handful of maroon-robed monks, marched to the YMCA in Myanmar's commercial capital to shut down a service marking the Prophet Mohammed's birthday.

"We have celebrated this festival for my whole life. Now this seems like an attack on freedom of religion," Kyaw Nyein, secretary of the Ulama Islam organisation, told AFP.

"The monks tried to stop the ceremony without saying what we had done wrong... Why aren't authorities taking action?"

Witnesses, who asked not to be named, said the monks barged into the ceremony shortly after it started demanding it be shut down.

Police were called, but did not intervene to stop the hardliners.

http://www.france24.com/en/20170108-buddhist-hardliners-stop-myanmar-muslim-ceremonyBuddhist hardliners stop Myanmar Muslim ceremony

"Buddhist hardliners"????

[Warpy]

1. Yeah, I know, it seems really inconsistent

with the core philosophy. I think Buddha would have snatched those robes clean off those guys, told them if they clung to political and religious attachments that strongly, they were disqualified from being monks.

[Coventina]

2. Sadly, yes, they do exist. Particularly in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and some other areas of SE Asia.

Buddhism in those areas is strongly connected to Nationalism, and Islam is seen as a threat to National Identity. Unfortunately, most Muslims in those areas are ethnic as well as religious minorities, and so are doubly seen as "other."

Buddhists are humans too, with all the nasty characteristics of the species, even when the religion is about trying to rid oneself of such things....

[jberryhill]

3. .