Armed Burmese Monks Threaten Journalists in Meikhtila

MARCH 22, 2013—A group of young armed Buddhist monks on Thursday held and threatened several journalists who witnessed them damaging a mosque and a house in Burma's riot-torn Meikhtila city, according to eyewitnesses.

The monks destroyed the memory cards seized from digital cameras of the journalists before letting them go.

The monks spotted the journalists, including a reporter from Radio Free Asia, taking photographs from a car and surrounded the vehicle, demanding that they give up their memory cards.

A monk held a knife to the throat of one reporter and pulled the journalists out of the car.

Some of the journalists said they were just doing their job and knelt before the monks in obeisance while others gave up their SD [secure digital] cards. As they let them go, the journalists ran into a monastery where they were given refuge for several hours before police arrived.

"We saw a group of monks destroying a mosque and a house near Thiri Street as we were in a car taking some pictures in town," Kyaw Zaw Win, the RFA reporter in the media group, said.

"The monks saw us. Suddenly, they surrounded our car and forced us out. They put a knife to a reporter’s throat," he said.

"We begged for our lives saying we didn't do anything wrong. They said that they would destroy our cameras. We refused to give them our cameras. Two reporters in our group gave their memory cards."

The monks smashed the memory cards into pieces.

The Associated Press said in a report that one monk, whose faced was covered, shoved a foot-long dagger at the neck of its photographer and demanded his camera. The photographer defused the situation by handing over his camera's memory card.

It said the group of nine journalists took refuge in a monastery and stayed there until a police unit was able to escort them to safety.

The communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Meikhtila is a top news story in the local and international media as well in social media. It is the worst violence since a wave of Buddhist-Muslim clashes in the western state of Rakhine last year left at least 180 people dead and more than 110,000 displaced.

Burmese President Thein Sein on Friday declared a state of emergency in Meikhtila after police failed to contain three days of violence that has left more than 20 dead and dozens injured.

In the city Friday, angry mobs armed with knives and sticks roamed the streets, while houses and mosques burned and charred bodies lay in the streets. Thein Sein issued an order the same day, asking the military to rein in the violence.

A lawmaker and a resident told RFA that up to 26 people may have died in the riots.

“What I saw with my own eyes was 26 dead bodies,” local resident San Hlaing said.

Win Htein, a parliamentarian for Meikhtila township from opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), said he had learned that “three were killed on the first day, about 10 on the second day and eight today.”

Many of the city’s Muslim residents have fled their homes amid the violence, which sources said was triggered by a quarrel on Wednesday morning between a Buddhist couple and the Muslim owner of a goldsmith's shop in the city's main bazaar.

The authorities have converted a stadium and a monastery into temporary relief centers for victims and are helping those trapped in their homes, sending them to stay in the “safe” areas, San Hlaing said.

“About 1,000 Buddhist victims are staying at a monastery. About 3,600 Muslim victims were sent to a stadium,” he said.

San Hlaing said he saw “four blocks” of buildings burning in western Meikhtila and that some 1,000 victims of both communities from the city are now staying under trees and in open fields.

One mostly Muslim block, Thiri Mingalar, was “totally destroyed.”

MP Win Htein said authorities have begun arresting people behind the violence, such as those carrying weapons and breaking into and looting houses left behind by fleeing victims.

“The situation after this evening should be better,” he said on Friday.

More than a third of the 100,000 people in Meikhtila—a garrison city located halfway between Mandalay and the capital Naypyidaw—are Muslim.

Reported by Kyaw Zaw Win for RFA’s Burmese Service. Translated by Win Naing and Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.

View this story online at: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/burma/meikhtila-03222013191441.html

Radio Free Asia is a private, nonprofit corporation broadcasting and publishing online news, information, and commentary in nine East Asian languages to listeners who do not have access to full and free news media. RFA’s broadcasts seek to promote the rights of freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to “seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” RFA is funded by an annual grant from the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

If you no longer wish to receive RFA news releases, send an e-mail to engnews-leave@rfanews.org.  To add your name to our mailing list, send an e-mail to engnews-join@rfanews.org .

#####

All media inquiries may be sent to Rohit Mahajan at mahajanr@rfa.org.