A year after Myanmar madrassas shuttered, street prayer organisers face Ramadan in jail

A year after Myanmar madrassas
shuttered, street prayer organisers face
Ramadan in jail

R

When Cho Nwe Soe went to a Yangon court
last month with her husband, she expected he
would be fined for organising prayers in the
street without a permit last year, and that
they could go back home to prepare for
Ramadan - the Muslim holy month.
Instead, her 41-year-old husband Aung San Lin
and six other Myanmar Muslims, who last year
organised the Ramadan street prayers after
local madrassas were shuttered by Buddhist
nationalists, were sent to jail for three months.
"I went insane. I didn't know what to do," said
Cho Nwe Soe, wiping away her tears. She was
speaking at the teashop the couple have run
together for 12 years in Yangon's eastern
Thaketa township, home to many of the city's
Muslims.
The prison terms have unsettled many
Muslims in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, and
prompted human rights monitors to urge the
government of Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Aung San Suu Kyi to guarantee religious
freedoms.
Global attention on the position of Muslims in
Myanmar has largely focused on the Rohingya
minority in the western state of Rakhine, after
an army crackdown sent nearly 700,000
fleeing to Bangladesh. Activists say the jailing
of the prayer leaders is a reminder that
Muslims across the Southeast Asian nation
face forms of discrimination and curbs on
basic rights.
"Clear religious discrimination, and blatant
violation of freedom of religion," said Phil
Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human
Rights Watch, in a tweet following the
sentencing.
Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay
was not available for comment.
Two Yangon madrassas, which served as both
religious schools and places of worship, were
closed by local authorities last May under
pressure from Buddhist nationalists, on the
grounds they were operating without official
approval.
SCARED TO PRAY
Now, Cho Nwe Soe, who is also 41 and
converted from Buddhism to Islam after
getting married some 25 years ago, has to run
the teashop and look after her children,
including a baby daughter, on her own.
Their shop is a small room with Islamic
prayers in Arabic hanging from the walls and
more than a dozen dilapidated tables perched
on an uneven wooden floor. One of the
madrassas shuttered in last year's crackdown
was close to the teashop, and since then
many customers have been lost.
Muslims in Myanmar began celebrating
Ramadan on Thursday. During the holy month,
Muslims fast from dawn to sunset.
"If praying is a crime, we need to imprison the
whole human race," said 56-year-old Tin Shwe,
a headmaster at one of the two closed
madrassas, whose son, Soe Moe Oo, was also
sentenced last month. "Now people are even
scared to pray together."
Cho Nwe Soe and Aung San Lin have always
spent their Ramadan praying and running the
business together, but this year she says she
will close the teashop. Cho Nwe Soe said she
cannot handle the workload - which means
waking up before dawn and working until after
sunset - alone.
"I also want to focus on prayers for my
husband during this holy month, even if my
customers want me to keep the place open,"
said Cho Nwe Soe, as she put on her black
hijab with pink and blue patterns.
During Eid al-Fitr, the celebration that marks
the end of Ramadan, the couple normally
celebrate by cooking snacks and visiting
relatives.
This year, however, Cho Nwe Soe has
cancelled all the visits - she will only cook
samai, a dish of sweet fine vermicelli noodles
mixed with warm milk, and take it to Aung San
Lin.
"I won't celebrate this year," she said. "I'll just
visit my husband in prison and spend time with
him."
source : bdnews24