UN inaction on Rohingya plight rooted in Islamophobia: Analyst

The UN Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution extending the mandate of the independent international fact-finding mission on the situation in Myanmar’s Muslim-majority Rakhine State, which has been the scene of an atrocious government crackdown over the past weeks. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres also denounced Myanmar recently for creating a humanitarian nightmare for its Rohingya Muslims. The world body has, however, come under fire for failing to go beyond words and take practical measures to end Rohingya sufferings. To discuss the issue, Press TV has interviewed Kevin Barrett, author and political commentator from Madison, Wisconsin, and Kyaw Win, executive director of Burma Human Rights Network from London.

Barrett said the United Nations turns a blind eye to the plight of Rohingya Muslims as it is being funded by the same powers that have been busy promoting an Islamophobia campaign worldwide.

The world body has resorted to “doublespeak” instead of taking proper action in the case of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, the analyst said.

Barrett also slammed the United Nations for pursuing a double standard strategy when it comes to the rights of Muslim nations.

The military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine State has forced more than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee their homes and cross into the neighboring Bangladesh.

Guterres told the UN Security Council on Thursday that “the situation has spiraled into the world’s fastest developing refugee emergency, a humanitarian and human rights nightmare.”

PressTV-End military ops against Rohingya: UN to Myanmar

The UN chief has called on Myanmar to halt military operations against Rohingya Muslims.

Barrett dismissed the Myanmar government’s allegations that Rohingya Muslims are terrorists, stressing that the “demonization of Muslims” is not limited to the Buddhist community in Myanmar, but it is a plot engineered by the Westerners aimed at promoting hatred against the Islamic world.

The commentator further stressed the need for the Muslim world to unite in the face of such Western plots and defend the persecuted nations.

Kyaw Win, the other guest on the show, further criticized the Myanmar government for refusing to cooperate with the international fact-finding mission, saying the mission is still struggling to get into the country.

He also urged the international community to take an “immediate action” to stop the massacre of Muslims in Myanmar.

The United Nations Security Council has held a couple of meetings over Rohingya’s situation, but it has done nothing to stop the carnage of Muslims and arson attacks against their villages in Rakhine, the activist said, adding that Myanmar uses a big propaganda machine “to demonize the whole Rohingya community as a threat to Buddhism.”

What is going on right now in the country is clearly an “ethnic cleansing” campaign and “genocide” against the minority Muslim community, he added.

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