Following attacks on Muslim worship places, Burmese officials have backtracked on statements seen as giving the green light for Buddhist attacks on mosques in the southeast Asian country.

“Burma has had a lot of buildings from different religions everywhere for a long time," Aung Kyi, the director of Yangon Region religious affairs, told Eleven Myanmar website on Tuesday, April 9.

Burmese officials have been under fire over statements seen as giving the green light for attacks by radical Buddhists on mosques.
Commenting on attacks on worship places, Kyi said earlier this week that his religious department had not given permission for mosques and religious schools to be built in the country.

But his remarks sparked fire for giving justification for radicals to attacks mosques and Islamic schools in Burma.

Reversing his statements, Kyi argued that his statements were meant to clarify that the department’s role was not to give or deny permission.

“Actually it was meant to say that the department does not have the authority to [give approval to build mosques],” he said.

“It was only meant to say that the department is not the kind of department that gives permission.”

Scores of mosques and Islamic schools were burnt down in the past days in a new wave of attacks against Muslims in central Burma.

Last week, 13 Muslim children were killed in a fire that gutted an Islamic school and mosque in Rangoon.

At least 43 people were killed and thousands left homeless in sectarian violence that engulfed central Burma after an agreement between a Buddhist couple and gold shop owners.

U-turn

The U-turn on the anti-mosque remarks followed a meeting between Muslim leaders and officials.

"We met the director general of the department on April 6 concerning the statement made by the director during the conference,” Wonna Shwe of the Islam Religious Council said.

“We have no plan to protest as he told us the department will explain further and that mosques have been built in Myanmar (Burma) for a long time without [needing] any permission."

Tension between Buddhists and Muslims in Burma has been simmering since last year’s sectarian violence in western Rakhine state, which displaced thousands of Rohingya Muslims.

Many have heaped the blame on Buddhist monks for inciting violence against Muslims in the Asian country.

The latest round of violence was triggered after monks preached a so-called “960 movement”, which represents a radical form of anti-Islamic nationalism that urges Buddhists to boycott Muslim-run shops and services.

Burma’s Muslims -- largely of Indian, Chinese and Bangladeshi descent -- account for an estimated four percent of the roughly 60 million population.

Muslims entered Burma en masse for the first time as indentured laborers from the Indian subcontinent during British colonial rule, which ended in 1948.

But despite their long history, they have never fully been integrated into the country.
http://www.onislam.net/english/news/asia-pacific/462172-burma-officials-retract-anti-mosque-remarks.html

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