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Saturday 28 Nov 2015 - 02:44 Makkah mean time-16-2-1437
Yangon, Myanmar (IINA) - Myanmar has arrested a Muslim publisher and four others on Wednesday for printing a calendar that used quotes to support the country's persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, Anadolu Agency reported citing local media.
The calendar used what it said were the words of former Myanmar Prime Minister U Nu to debunk the official view that the Rohingya are not a real ethnic minority.
It has angered Buddhist extremists who regard the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh and insist that they should be referred to as "Bengalis".
The Rohingyas are denied citizenship under a 1982 law that has been widely condemned by rights groups. Most members of the minority live under apartheid-like conditions in western Rakhine state following mob violence led by Buddhists in 2012. The Myanmar Times reported that publisher Kyaw Kyaw Wai and his associates were arrested in Myanmar’s main city of Yangon earlier this week, after quotes from the calendar were widely shared on social media by Buddhist nationalists.
The publisher and his associates face up to two years in prison for causing "fear or alarm to the public".It is noteworthy that Htin Lin Oo, a prominent member of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, was jailed after his speech on October, in which he criticized the use of Buddhism to justify extremism.
The NLD is due to take power around late March after winning a landslide victory in a November 8 election. Spokesperson Win Htein has vowed the party will make releasing political prisoners a "top priority".However, in a recent interview with Anadolu Agency, he declined to comment on the possibility of facing challenges from Buddhist extremists regarding the releasing of specific prisoners.
AG/IINA
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