News

On the 11th of May, the Wall Street Journal reported that "the plight of Myanmar's stateless Rohingya minority was absent from official discussions during a biannual summit of Southeast Asian leaders this weekend, despite growing concern of the issue's regional implications".

Comment

The ASEAN Summit gathers regional leaders to discuss common issues of security, economic and social concern, and ASEAN includes three countries with a predominantly Muslim population that represent more than one third of the regions peoples: Indonesia, Malaysia and Bhutan.

These three, along with Bangladesh, have turned their backs on the Muslim Rohingyas in their time of pain and need! The 2014 ASEAN Summit this week would have been an ideal time to help the Muslim Rohingyas, but instead there has never been such a shameful week of betrayal for the needy Rohingyas whose silent neighbours succored Myanmar's bloodthirsty Buddhist democracy and stabbed them in the back.

It is reported on the authority of Abu Huraira that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) observed:

«مَنْ كَانَ يُؤْمِنُ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الآخِرِ فَلا يُؤْذِ جَارَهُ ، وَمَنْ كَانَ يُؤْمِنُ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الآخِرِ فَلْيُكْرِمْ ضَيْفَهُ ، وَمَنْ كَانَ يُؤْمِنُ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الآخِرِ فَلْيَقُلْ خَيْرًا أَوْ لِيَسْكُتْ»

"He who believes in Allah and the Last Day should either utter good words or better keep silence; and he who believes in Allah and the Last Day should treat his neighbour with kindness and he who believes in Allah and the Last Day should show hospitality to his guest".

The Rohingyas deserved a good word at the ASEAN Summit, especially as this was the first time that it was hosted by Myanmar, but no word was spoken at all for them. All the good words were reserved for the persecutor of the Muslim Rohingyas! On the 11th May, Indonesia's Jakarta Post quoted the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Marty Natalegawa, praising the excellent relations between Indonesia (the world's most populous Muslim country) and Myanmar (where Buddhist mobs have repeatedly burnt Muslims alive in fires of hate), and his response to the massacres of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's Rakhine state was simply: "we have built four schools in Rakhine to boost the spirit of reconciliation among all communities". So, rather than be a strong protector of the Muslim Rohingyas, Indonesia is building schools! Perhaps next the Foreign Minister will boast about building schools for reconciliation between Palestinians and Jews in Jerusalem?

Indonesia, along with Malaysia and Bhutan, was silent when loud support was needed, but as for Bangladesh: its leaders have been outspoken in their hatred of the Rohingya. This was reflected in a nasty article on the 14th May from Bangladesh News24 entitled: "Bribed BGB let Rohingyas in." The article referred to Muslim Rohingyas fleeing persecution in Myanmar as "intruders" who are harming the Bangladeshi economy, and blamed the Bangladesh Border Guards for taking bribes to let in some Rohingyas. Surely the army should have been instructed to welcome them and to protect those that remain in Myanmar.

The greater shame is that where the media of Muslim countries has been largely silent, the Western media has spoken up. On the 12th of May, regional news outlets reported that: "Reporters with the Reuters news agency could face arrest in Thailand in connection with a Pulitzer Prize-winning article alleging Thai military involvement in people smuggling". Thailand did not feel a need to discuss the Rohingya issue at the ASEAN Summit because according to Reuters reporting, the Thai authorities have been secretly working with people smugglers to send Rohingya Muslims out of the country as slaves, and this is after the desperate Rohingyas arriving in Thai waters had been exposed to the Thai navy's policy of helping to drown them at sea.

The hadith of the Prophet (may peace be upon him) spoke also of kindness to neighbours and hospitality to guests, and of these there has been none. Muslim Rohingyas reaching the shores of Malaysia and Indonesia have been held for months and years as prisoners before gaining asylum as second class persons, and the detention camps for refugees in Bangladesh are the worst that foreign aid workers have ever seen. By contrast to the treachery of our rulers today, the Uthmani Khalifah, Bayazid II, sent his navy in 1492 to rescue Jewish refugees escaping Christian persecution in Spain, such was the kindness and generosity of ‘political Islam' towards all people, not just Muslims. Now we are in the month of Rajab, the fateful month in which the merciful Khilafah "Caliphate" state was destroyed, and now is the time for the Ummah to reflect and seek the victory and support of Allah (swt) to bring an end to the shame and humiliation that our secular rulers have brought upon us before the gaze of the whole world.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Dr. Abdullah Robin