rohingya crisis sparks fear among bangladeshi buddhists
Last Updated : GMT 09:40:38
Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle
Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle
Last Updated : GMT 09:40:38
Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle

from their Muslim neighbours

Rohingya crisis sparks fear among Bangladeshi Buddhists

Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle

Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicleRohingya crisis sparks fear among Bangladeshi Buddhists

Bangladesh's small Buddhist community fears the recent Rohingya crisis
Ramu - Muslimchronicle

As thousands of Rohingya flee ethnic violence in Myanmar, Bangladesh's small Buddhist community fears the crisis could spark a violent backlash from their Muslim neighbours.

Many Bangladeshis are angry over the treatment in Buddhist-majority Myanmar of the Rohingya, a persecuted stateless minority who they see as Muslim brethren.

The anger is particularly acute in the southern district of Cox's Bazar near the border with Myanmar, where many people have close links with the Rohingya and share linguistic and cultural roots.

But the area is also home to a sizeable Buddhist minority that has suffered hate attacks in the past.

Authorities in Cox's Bazar have deployed 550 extra police in Buddhist areas to prevent a repeat of religious unrest in 2012, when Muslim mobs attacked temples and Buddhist homes.

Buddhist monk Proggananda Bhikkhu vividly remembers the night a Muslim mob torched a 300-year-old temple he looks after.

He fled when between 30 and 40 Muslims broke into his temple and began looting statues and other valuable artefacts, but he watched the violence from a nearby field.

"When the looting was over, they set fire to the temple," he told AFP at the Kendriya Shima Bihar temple, which had to be largely rebuilt after the 2012 attack.

"We never imagined this could happen, we had good relations with the local Muslims."

Bhikkhu said the monks had not received any direct threats, but he had seen some on the internet.

"People on social media are trying to portray this as a religious conflict. But like the Muslims, we are citizens of Bangladesh, and we condemn these actions (in Myanmar)," he said.

Many of the more than 420,000 refugees have accused Myanmar's ethnic Rakhine Buddhists of participating in the attacks on their villages that forced them to seek refuge in Bangladesh.

On Monday at least 20,000 Islamist hardliners took part in a demonstration in Dhaka to demand an end to what they termed a "genocide".

- 'Muslims want to kill us' -

Buddhists make up less than one percent of Bangladesh's 160 million people and are broadly well integrated.

But there have been attacks on the community in the past. Last year an elderly Buddhist monk was hacked to death, one of a series of gruesome murders targeting religious minorities that police blamed on Islamist extremists.

At a small food stall near the Kendriya Shima Bihar temple in Ramu, a cluster of villages in Cox's Bazar, a group of elderly men recalled the night Muslims angered by images on Facebook showing a desecrated Koran went on a violent rampage.

But they said the two communities now lived in harmony and blamed outsiders for the violence.

"These people are Muslims," said Manoda Barua, a retired businessman who lives in a large house next to the temple, as he gestured to two men standing nearby.

"We eat together, we study together. There are Muslim villages all around us."

Mohammad Ismail, a Muslim carpenter from the next village who had come for a plate of vegetable curry, said the two communities had "very good relations" and claimed the 2012 violence had been started by outsiders.

But some Buddhists in the village are quietly worried.

Prokriti Barua, a housemaid, said she had heard rumours of rising anger in the local Muslim community.

"We are feeling threatened," she said. "People are saying that the Muslims want to kill us."

- Blood donation -

Bangladesh's Buddhist leaders have said they will tone down celebrations for an upcoming religious festival and donate the money saved to the relief cause.

Last week, monks at the Kendriya Shima Bihar temple organised a blood donation drive for the Rohingya refugees.

But Barua, the businessman, said the Rohingya were "uneducated people" and expressed anger that their plight had brought difficulties to his community.

"There are differences between us and the moghs," he said, using a local term for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.

"We are just innocent Buddhists."

Some of the Rohingya who cross into Bangladesh travel to refugee camps through the Rakhine villages, where small Buddhist stupas dot the green paddy fields and line the banks of the Naf river that divides the two countries.

Ranga Babu Chakma, a Rakhine Buddhist, said some had tried to settle near his farming village of Dunga Khatta, but had been moved on by police who feared communal tensions.

"Bangladesh is a small country that is already overpopulated," he said.

"If they (Rohingya) settle here it will cause big problems."

source: AFP

themuslimchronicle
themuslimchronicle

Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

rohingya crisis sparks fear among bangladeshi buddhists rohingya crisis sparks fear among bangladeshi buddhists

 



Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle

GMT 05:43 2016 Thursday ,23 June

Copa America:Chile vs. Colombia

GMT 02:32 2017 Tuesday ,28 February

Film on Syria's White Helmets wins Oscar

GMT 15:02 2016 Thursday ,15 December

Kanye emerges from hospital to meet Trump

GMT 08:35 2017 Wednesday ,26 July

Top EU court upholds Hamas terror listing

GMT 12:43 2012 Tuesday ,17 January

Ice-locked Nome finally gets tanker fuel

GMT 05:25 2016 Sunday ,08 May

Leicester collects Premier League trophy

GMT 12:16 2015 Friday ,01 May

Damanhur festival shows Egypt stable, safe

GMT 14:29 2015 Monday ,29 June

Armed men attack Mali's southern town of Fakola

GMT 14:40 2016 Monday ,07 November

Lamjarred may be temporarily released

GMT 10:08 2017 Tuesday ,21 February

To probe sexual harassment claims

GMT 15:26 2017 Monday ,03 April

Palestinian detainees suffer under occupation

GMT 18:34 2017 Wednesday ,27 December

Shaath reveals opening date of Metro third line

GMT 11:16 2017 Wednesday ,01 February

Campus Party held in Sao Paulo, Brazil

GMT 00:00 2017 Thursday ,19 January

Algeria to reintroduce two-term limits

GMT 10:30 2017 Saturday ,05 August

E.Coudray unveils Rose Tubéreuse

GMT 13:03 2016 Thursday ,10 November

No gore or sex but German cult crime show still a hit

GMT 06:36 2017 Sunday ,10 December

HRH Premier condoles with Sultan Qaboos

GMT 12:16 2017 Thursday ,20 April

RAP, Isa Cultural Centre sign memo

GMT 09:40 2016 Tuesday ,22 March

Alonso walks away from horror crash in Australia
Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle
Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle
 
 Themuslimchronicle Facebook,themuslimchronicle facebook  Themuslimchronicle Twitter,themuslimchronicle twitter Themuslimchronicle Rss,themuslimchronicle rss  Themuslimchronicle Youtube,themuslimchronicle youtube  Themuslimchronicle Youtube,themuslimchronicle youtube

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2023 ©

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2023 ©

muslimchronicle muslimchronicle muslimchronicle muslimchronicle
themuslimchronicle themuslimchronicle themuslimchronicle
themuslimchronicle
بناية النخيل - رأس النبع _ خلف السفارة الفرنسية _بيروت - لبنان
themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle