{"id":44103,"date":"2014-07-07T12:00:58","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T11:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=44103"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:33:41","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:33:41","slug":"hate-crime-racism-on-the-rise-in-southeast-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/07\/hate-crime-racism-on-the-rise-in-southeast-asia\/","title":{"rendered":"Hate Crime, Racism on the Rise in Southeast Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Global Minorities Report Highlights Resurgence of ‘Ethno-Religious Nationalism’ <\/em><\/p>\n

\"Members<\/a>

Members of the Rohingya minority have faced harsh persecution in Myanmar, forcing huge numbers to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. (Photo ucanews.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

For the ninth year running, Myanmar has ranked as one of the worst countries where minorities are most under threat, while other Southeast Asian nations including Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia were singled out for growing ethnic tensions.<\/p>\n

Released today [3 Jul 2014], the annual State of the World\u2019s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples published by Minority Rights Group International presents case studies of 70 countries across the globe and ranks them based on the dangers faced there by minorities.<\/p>\n

The only Southeast Asian country to make the Peoples under Threat index, Myanmar is ranked 8th of ten \u2013 putting it below Somalia, ranked 1st, Afghanistan, 5th, and Pakistan, 7th.<\/p>\n

Despite the \u201cgradual thawing\u201d of Myanmar\u2019s government, notes the report, there has been \u201cgrowing hostility against minority Muslims\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most serious abuses have occurred against Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine state, but violence has also spread to other parts of the country, stoked by Buddhist extremist rhetoric. Most killings of Muslims have been carried out by local mobs or Buddhist gangs, but the government has also effectively cut\u2028off humanitarian aid to the 100,000 displaced Rohingya living in camps,\u201d it notes.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday [1 Jul 2014], sectarian violence broke out in Mandalay, Myanmar\u2019s second largest city after hundreds of Buddhists \u2013 including monks \u2013 began throwing rocks at a Muslim tea shop owner accused of the rape of a Buddhist women. Hundreds of police officers were sent to quash the mob, shooting rubber bullets into the crowd to break up the violence that saw two people killed and at least five injured.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Burma has made progress in some areas, it has stagnated or even regressed in others,\u201d said Hanna Hindstrom, Asia information officer at Minority Rights Group International.<\/p>\n

Hindstrom pointed to the ceasefire between the government and Karen National Union as one of the improvements seen since Myanmar began its reformation in 2011, but noted that violence in Kachin and Shan states showed scant signs of abating.<\/p>\n

\u201cBurma\u2019s Muslim minority has faced a dramatic surge in violence and hostility over the past two years, in no small part due to the unfettered proliferation of hate speech,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Across the board, Southeast Asia last year saw an uptick in \u201cethno-religious nationalism \u2026 leading to several attacks on minorities\u201d, the report states.<\/p>\n

In Thailand, anti-government forces accused Cambodians of conspiring with the Thaksin Shinawatra family to destabilize the country. More recently, the military junta has cracked down on illegal Cambodian and Myanmar migrant workers, leading to a mass exodus of the former and stirring up fears among both ethnic groups. Malaysia and Indonesia, meanwhile, saw hate campaigns leading to attacks against religious minorities and immigrants.<\/p>\n

After Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak barely squeaked by in the election, he was accused of fomenting racism by blaming a \u201cChinese tsunami\u201d for the poor showing. With the proliferation of militant groups in Indonesia, meanwhile, hundreds of Christians and minority Muslims have been attacked in the past year. Accused of doing too little to staunch the assaults, the government instead has rammed through a series of discriminatory laws \u2013 including one requiring all Aceh residents to practice Sharia law \u201cirrespective of their faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adiani Viviana, of the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy in Indonesia, said that minorities such as the Ahmadiya face persecution that \u201cincludes intimidation, violent acts, [and] bans on worshiping or holding religious activities\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far, the police have failed to protect followers of the Ahmadiya,\u201d added Viviana.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough ethno-religious nationalism is not a new phenomenon in Southeast Asia, we have seen an upsurge in many countries over the past year,\u201d said Hindstrom. \u201cIronically, many of the same patterns can be found across the region, with political leaders lashing out at communities perceived to be foreign.\u201d<\/p>\n

While intolerance and threats against minorities are relatively rare in Cambodia, the country has seen a worrying rise in anti-Vietnamese tension and ongoing marginalization of indigenous minorities.<\/p>\n

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy and his deputy Kem Sokha widely employed anti-Vietnamese rhetoric in the lead-up to and following the July 2013 election. Vowing to stop the invasion of Vietnamese, including \u201ccolonial\u201d takeovers of Cambodia\u2019s territory, Rainsy has blamed the Vietnamese for job loss, land loss and ruling party control. Sokha, for his part, has taken the issue even further, presenting conspiracy theories that the Vietnamese government was responsible for \u201cstaging\u201d the notorious Khmer Rouge security center, S-21, and of masterminding a 2010 Water Festival stampede in which more than 350 people died.<\/p>\n

Concurrently, anti-Vietnamese tension has been on the rise. In several polling stations across the country, ethnic Vietnamese and even those who looked Vietnamese were prevented from voting by mobs who termed them illegal. Vietnamese-owned shops were attacked in the wake of January\u2019s violent protests, while an ethnic Vietnamese man was killed the same month in what appeared to be a racist mob attack.<\/p>\n

Ang Chanrith, executive director for the Minority Rights Organization, said the ruling party government shares a portion of the blame for ethnic tensions, pointing out that it has done little to ensure those with legal rights to citizenship have been granted it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are eligible to apply or get the certificate to become the Cambodian citizen, but the law is not enforced or implemented at all, which leads them to become stateless,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As a result, the ethnically Vietnamese community of several hundred thousand has been unable to integrate with the rest of society \u2013 children without birth certificates are barred from schooling, jobs are closed off and exploitation is rampant.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth political parties always use the scapegoat of the Vietnamese to gain support from voters \u2013 the ruling party doesn\u2019t implement the law\u2026 so they can gain Vietnamese voters. And the opposition party attacks the Vietnamese because they want to get support from people who discriminate against them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Apart from its dealings with ethnic Vietnamese, the ruling party government has also been censured for failing to protect indigenous minorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cA rash of land grabs continued to plague Cambodia\u2019s minority and indigenous communities,\u201d the report notes, adding that the groups are often \u201cmarginalized by the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

While communal land titles are inscribed in law as an option for indigenous communities to protect large swathes of culturally valuable land, only five minority communities have been granted such titles in over a decade.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a meeting last week of indigenous minority representatives from around the country, 65-year-old Prim You \u2013 a member of the ethnic Kuoy minority in Kompong Thom province \u2013 said he had little faith that the government would protect his culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we have some trouble with getting the land registered. I feel like they don\u2019t want to give us the land title, they don\u2019t want to register us. No one has tried to take our land yet, but we\u2019re worried,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

___________________________<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by AFP and Katharina Lestari in Jakarta.
\n<\/em>
\n Go to Original \u2013 ucanews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Global Minorities Report Highlights Resurgence of ‘Ethno-Religious Nationalism’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}