Parliament Warns of Killing Muslims in Myanmar, Urges IPU to Hold Urgent Meeting

TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iranian parliament on Tuesday voiced serious concern about the massacre of Muslims in Myanmar, and called on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to hold an urgent meeting in a bid to find a solution to the current crisis and protect the basic rights of the Muslim minority in the Southeast Asian country.

The Iranian parliament's Research Center, in a report issued after thorough investigations about the crisis in Myanmar, urged the OIC to consult with heads of Muslim states and hold an urgent ministerial meeting to discuss ways to end the massacre of the Muslims in Myanmar. The research center also asked other Muslim world bodies, including the Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union (IIPU), to take action through holding summit meetings and condemn the killings of the Muslims by the ruling regime in Myanmar. The report also stressed that potentials of the UN, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) should be utilized to press international organizations to find a way to put an end to the massacre of the Muslims in the Southeast Asian state. More than 22,000 people from mainly Muslim communities have been forced to flee their homes in Western Myanmar after a fresh wave of violence and arson that left dozens dead, the UN said in a report on October 29. The whole neighborhoods were razed in Buddhists' attack on Muslims in Rakhine state a week earlier. Some 75,000 people are already crammed into overcrowded camps following clashes in June. The United Nations chief in Yangon, Ashok Nigam, said government estimates provided in late October said that 22,587 people had been displaced and 4,665 houses set ablaze in the latest bloodshed. "These are people whose houses have been burnt, they are still in the same locality," he told AFP, indicating that thousands more who had fled in boats towards the state capital Sittwe may not be included in that estimate. "It is mainly the Muslims who have been displaced," he said, adding that 21,700 of those made homeless were Muslims. The latest attack against Muslims has killed more than 80 people, according to a government official, bringing the total death toll since June to above 170. Late November, Human Rights Watch released satellite images showing "extensive destruction of homes and other property in a predominantly Rohingya Muslim area" of Kyaukpyu. Myanmar's 800,000 Rohingya are seen as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh by the government and many Burmese - who call them "Bengalis". The United Nations considers Rohingya as one of the most persecuted minorities on the planet.   Source:Here