Why Myanmar’s Junta Might Give Brief Reprieve to Embattled Muslim Minority

VOA

SOUTHEAST ASIA
Ralph Jennings
17 March 2021

In this June 26, 2014 photo, a girl, self-identified as Rohingya, stands close to her family's tent house at Dar Paing camp for refugees, suburbs of Sittwe, Western Rakhine state, Myanmar. Suu Kyi's many supporters overseas have been dismayed by her…

TAIPEI, TAIWAN —

Myanmar’s military government, seen as the chief force behind previous long-term violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority, is leaving the population alone for now as it battles protesters. But analysts say the junta is expected to resume the old crackdown over time.

The junta seized power in a February coup from a civilian government and has been focused on quelling protesters, rather than the Rohingya minority that lives in a western region of Myanmar and continues to push for civil rights. At least 11 protesters were killed on Monday and 57 over the weekend in the bloodiest period since the military coup last month, the United Nations says on its website.

Rohingya-based Party Urges Myanmar to Allow The Muslim Minority to Vote And Run For Office

Radio Free Asia
2020-07-09

A Rohingya Muslim woman displays her "white card" in western Myanmar's Rakhine state in an undated photo. RFA

A political party representing Myanmar’s persecuted ethnic Rohingya is pressing election authorities to allow members of the Muslim minority who hold temporary “white card” IDs to vote and to run in November nationwide elections.

Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya — more than 740,000 of whom were driven out of their communities in northern Rakhine state in a military-led crackdown and to refuge in Bangladesh in 2017 — has brought Western sanctions and war crimes charges against the country’s military in international courts.