The conflict between Buddhists and Muslims in Burma is about to escalate

After violent riots against Muslims took place in Burma, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) warns about a further escalation of the conflict between the Buddhist majority and the religious minority. "Burma's security forces are neglecting their duty of neutrality and the responsibility to protect the Muslims from new attacks effectively," said Ulrich Delius, the STP's expert on questions regarding Asia, in Göttingen on Thursday. On Wednesday, angry Buddhists had set fire to two mosques and an Islamic school in the town of Meikhtila. At least two people were killed. On Thursday, more than 1,000 Buddhist demonstrators managed to encircle a Muslim quarter and to harass the residents – despite a state of emergency. The Burmese authorities saw these riots merely as a safety issue and deployed more police forces to the city.

"But deploying more police forces alone will not be sufficient to solve the tensions between the Buddhists and the Muslims," said the human rights activist. "Burma should do more to promote reconciliations between the two religious communities and must finally put an end to the systematic exclusion of the Muslims from public life. The approximately 800,000 Rohingya must be recognized as equal citizens at last. "The members of Burma's largest Muslim minority group are being discriminated against and are treated as disenfranchised immigrants.

In 2012, more than 180 people got killed in clashes between the officially unrecognized Muslim minority of the Rohingya and the Buddhists or in attacks of the Buddhists against members of the officially recognized Muslim minority of the Kaman. Since then, about 110,000 people were forced to leave their villages and neighborhoods to seek shelter in refugee camps.