Monks who protested on Sunday in Yangon against the government’s official term for the Rohingya minority will be prosecuted under the peaceful assembly law for demonstrating along an unauthorized route, police told local media.
“We will take action as they protested in the area we didn’t allow,” Deputy Officer Win Bo was quoted as saying in the Voice.
Police stopped the march near Shwedagon Pagoda for about 15 minutes but let them keep going. The monks appear to have only slightly deviated from their approved route, which was from Bahan township to Kyaikkasan stadium.
They were protesting against the term “The Muslim community in Rakhine State,” which was meant to be diplomatic, a way of avoiding Rohingya – which nationalist monks dispute – and Bengali – the term preferred by many Buddhists in Myanmar.
Unfortunately it seems to have backfired, with nationalist groups demanding “Bengali” as the word, making it clear that they are immigrants from Bangladesh and not citizens of Myanmar.
The protestors on Sunday were shouting slogans such “Remove the term ‘Muslims from Rakhine State’ immediately.”
A similar march was held about a week ago in Rakhine state shortly after the government announced the new terminology.
Myanmar’s Rohingya mostly live in IDP camps in Rakhine after deadly intercommunal violence in 2012. Aung San Suu Kyi’s government has been rebuked again and again for failing to act on resolving the crisis, but it has countered that it needs “space” to address the issue.
While it seems unlikely that the police will take action against the monks, patience with the various nationalist groups is wearing thin since one of the biggest organizations, Ma Ba Tha, threatened last week to protest against Yangon’s popular chief minister Phyo Min Thein for saying Ma Ba Tha was not needed.
