• Burmese
Sunday, July 13, 2025
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Irrawaddy
25 °c
Yangon
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
No Result
View All Result
The Irrawaddy
No Result
View All Result
Home News Burma

Buddhist Mobs Spread Fear among Muslims in Lashio

Todd Pitman by Todd Pitman
May 30, 2013
in Uncategorized
Reading Time: 4 mins read
0 0
A A
Buddhist Mobs Spread Fear among Muslims in Lashio

A police officer stands near a mosque that was burnt during a riot between Buddhist and Muslims in Lashio on Wednesday. (Photo: Reuters / Soe Zeya Tun)

5.8k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

LASHIO, Burma — It was a terrifying sight: hundreds of angry, armed men on motorcycles advancing up a dusty street with no one to stop them.

Shouting at the top of their lungs, clutching machetes and iron pipes and long bamboo poles, they thrust their fists repeatedly into the air.

The object of their rage: Burma’s embattled minority Muslim community.

RelatedPosts

Pills Pour Over Border from India to Fuel Burma’s Narcotics Boom

Pills Pour Over Border from India to Fuel Burma’s Narcotics Boom

August 9, 2016
3.8k
Militia-Backed Rangoon High-Rise Defies Govt Suspension Orders

Militia-Backed Rangoon High-Rise Defies Govt Suspension Orders

August 5, 2016
6.2k
Lawmakers Blame Burma’s Drug Problem on Warlord-Govt Nexus

Lawmakers Blame Burma’s Drug Problem on Warlord-Govt Nexus

August 4, 2016
4.5k

Residents gaping at the spectacle backed away as the Buddhist mob passed. Worried business owners turned away customers and retreated indoors. And three armed soldiers standing in green fatigues on a corner watched quietly, doing nothing despite an emergency government ordinance banning groups of more than five from gathering.

Within a few hours on Wednesday, at least one person was dead and four injured as this northeastern town of Burma became the latest to fall prey to the country’s swelling tide of anti-Muslim unrest.

After a night of heavy rain, downtown Lashio was quiet Thursday morning. Soldiers blocked roads where Muslim shops were burned. At one corner where the charred remains of a building still smoldered, Muslim residents sorted through rubble for anything salvageable. One woman who had fled a mob a day earlier was still in a state of shock.

“These things should not happen,” said the woman, Aye Tin, a Muslim resident. “Most Muslims are staying off the streets. They’re afraid they’ll be attacked or killed if they go outside.”

The violence that started Tuesday in the northeastern city of Lashio is casting fresh doubt over whether President Thein Sein’s government can or will act to contain the racial and religious intolerance plaguing a deeply fractured nation still struggling to emerge from half a century of military rule. Muslims have been the main victims of the violence since it began in western Arakan State last year, but so far most criminal trials have involved prosecutions of Muslims, not members of the Buddhist majority.

The rioting in Lashio started Tuesday after reports that a Muslim man had splashed gasoline on a Buddhist woman and set her on fire. The man was arrested. The woman was hospitalized with burns on her chest, back and hands.

Mobs took revenge by burning down several Muslim shops and one of the city’s main mosques, along with an Islamic orphanage that was so badly charred that only two walls remained, said Min Thein, a resident contacted by telephone.

On Wednesday fires still smoldered at the ruined mosque, where a dozen charred motorcycles lay on the sidewalks underneath its white minarets. Army troops stood guard. The wind carried the acrid smell of several burned vehicles across town, and most Muslims hid in their homes.

When one group of thugs arrived at a Muslim-owned movie theater housed in a sprawling villa, they hurled rocks over the gate, smashing windows. They then broke inside and ransacked the cinema.

Ma Wal, a 48-year-old Buddhist shopkeeper across the street, said she saw the crowd arrive. They had knives and stones, and came in two separate waves.

“I couldn’t look,” she said, recounting how she had shut the wooden doors of her shop. “We were terrified.”

A couple hours later, the mobs were gone and two army trucks and a small contingent of soldiers guarded the villa. “I don’t know what to think about it,” she said. “More casualties are … not good for anybody.”

The government, which came to power in 2011 promising a new era of democratic rule, appealed for calm.

“Damaging religious buildings and creating religious riots is inappropriate for the democratic society we are trying to create,” presidential spokesman Ye Htut said on his Facebook page. “Any criminal act will be dealt with according to the law,” he said.

National police said nine people were arrested for involvement in the two days of violence, but didn’t say if they were Buddhists or Muslims.

After nightfall, authorities could be heard issuing instructions on loudspeakers across the city, reminding residents a dusk-to-dawn curfew was in effect. The voice bellowing into the night also said: “You are prohibited from carrying sticks or swords or any kind of weapon.”

A local freelance journalist, Khun Zaw Oo, said he was hit on the head with an iron pipe as he photographed mobs ransacking shops. He said he managed to flee but a companion also holding a camera was attacked and badly injured.

Burma’s sectarian violence first flared in western Arakan State last year, when hundreds of people died in clashes between Buddhists and Muslims that drove about 140,000 others, mostly Muslims, from their homes. Most are still living in refugee camps.

This month, authorities in two areas of Arakan announced a regulation limiting Muslim families to two children. The policy drew sharp criticism from Muslim leaders, rights groups and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. US State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell on Tuesday said the United States opposes coercive birth limitation policies, and called on Burma “to eliminate all such policies without delay.”

The clashes had seemed confined to the Arakan region, but in late March, similar Buddhist-led violence swept the town of Meikthila in centra Burma, killing at least 43 people. Earlier this month, a court sentenced seven Muslims from Meikthila to prison terms for their role in the violence.

Several other towns in central Burma experienced less deadly violence, mostly involving the torching of Muslim businesses and mosques.

Muslims account for about 4 percent of Burma’s roughly 60 million people. Anti-Muslim sentiment is closely tied to nationalism and the dominant Buddhist religion, so leaders have been reluctant to speak up for the unpopular minority.

Thein Sein’s administration has been heavily criticized for not doing enough to protect Muslims. He vowed last week during a trip to the United States that all perpetrators of the sectarian violence would be brought to justice.

Your Thoughts …
Tags: Drug & Crime
Todd Pitman

Todd Pitman

The Associated Press

Similar Picks:

Video Journalist Recounts a Death Amid the Chaos
Burma

Video Journalist Recounts a Death Amid the Chaos

by Myat Su Mon
September 27, 2013
9.5k

Yan Naing, a video journalist at the Democratic Voice of Burma tells of capturing the shooting of Kenji Nagai during...

Read moreDetails
Experts Reject Claims of ‘Rohingya Mujahideen’ Insurgency
Burma

Experts Reject Claims of ‘Rohingya Mujahideen’ Insurgency

by Paul Vrieze
July 15, 2013
21.6k

Security experts say it is possible that some militant Rohingyas have contacted Indonesian hardline Muslim groups, but they dismiss reports...

Read moreDetails
Wa Tycoon’s Jade Ties Exposed in New Report
Burma

Wa Tycoon’s Jade Ties Exposed in New Report

by Seamus Martov
December 4, 2015
9.1k

A new report by Global Witness exposes links between the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and Burma’s notoriously shady jade...

Read moreDetails
Actor Min Oak Soe Sentenced to Life for Employee’s Murder
Burma

Actor Min Oak Soe Sentenced to Life for Employee’s Murder

by Htun Htun
July 30, 2015
7.3k

Burmese actor and director Min Oak Soe is sentenced to life imprisonment for the brutal December murder of his former...

Read moreDetails
Activists Urge Harsher Penalty for Child Rape Case in Burma
Burma

Activists Urge Harsher Penalty for Child Rape Case in Burma

by The Irrawaddy
August 6, 2013
7.6k

A restaurant owner in Rangoon is sentenced to eight years in prison for raping a 15-year-old girl, the victim’s lawyer...

Read moreDetails
Book Details Coming Struggle to Kick Burma’s Drug Habit
Burma

Book Details Coming Struggle to Kick Burma’s Drug Habit

by Bertil Lintner
March 24, 2016
5.2k

Burma’s struggle to curb the illicit narcotics trade across its border with China and other neighbors is among the major...

Read moreDetails
Load More
Next Post
ABSDF Visits Burma to Investigate Its Killings of ‘Spies’ in 1990s

ABSDF Visits Burma to Investigate Its Killings of ‘Spies’ in 1990s

Plans Under Way to Repatriate Burma’s Refugees

Plans Under Way to Repatriate Burma’s Refugees

No Result
View All Result

Recommended

‘Reforms Are Not Optional’: Prominent Activist Urges NUG to Act Before It’s Too Late

‘Reforms Are Not Optional’: Prominent Activist Urges NUG to Act Before It’s Too Late

3 days ago
1.1k
Trump’s Tariffs to Hit Myanmar’s Garment Manufacturers Hard

Trump’s Tariffs to Hit Myanmar’s Garment Manufacturers Hard

4 days ago
1.1k

Most Read

  • Myanmar Junta Deploying Conscripts in Major Push to Reclaim Lost Territory

    Myanmar Junta Deploying Conscripts in Major Push to Reclaim Lost Territory

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar Junta Chief Thanks Trump for Shutting Down VOA and RFA

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Chinese Investment Reshapes Myanmar’s N. Shan as MNDAA Consolidates Power

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar Junta Airstrikes Kill 25 on Friday

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Parading Comedians and Machines for Election Circus; Rousing the Military Vote; and More

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter

Get The Irrawaddy’s latest news, analyses and opinion pieces on Myanmar in your inbox.

Subscribe here for daily updates.

Contents

  • News
  • Politics
  • War Against the Junta
  • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
  • Conflicts In Numbers
  • Junta Crony
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Asia
  • World
  • Business
  • Economy
  • Election 2020
  • Elections in History
  • Cartoons
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Commentary
  • Guest Column
  • Analysis
  • Letters
  • In Person
  • Interview
  • Profile
  • Dateline
  • Specials
  • Myanmar Diary
  • Women & Gender
  • Places in History
  • On This Day
  • From the Archive
  • Myanmar & COVID-19
  • Intelligence
  • Myanmar-China Watch
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Food
  • Fashion & Design
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Photo Essay
  • Donation

About The Irrawaddy

Founded in 1993 by a group of Myanmar journalists living in exile in Thailand, The Irrawaddy is a leading source of reliable news, information, and analysis on Burma/Myanmar and the Southeast Asian region. From its inception, The Irrawaddy has been an independent news media group, unaffiliated with any political party, organization or government. We believe that media must be free and independent and we strive to preserve press freedom.

  • Copyright
  • Code of Ethics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Team
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Burmese

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Business Roundup
  • Books
  • Donation

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.