Govt reports on aftermath of riots

The government claims 256 people have been killed in six major riots and incidents of public disorder in Myanmar in the three years since it came to power in 2010. 

Authorities have charged 1,500 suspects for the violence – much of it fuelled by tensions between the majority Buddhist population and  Muslim communities – and 541 have received prison sentences.

Government media on Tuesday identified six incidents of public disorder since 2010, including the Latpadaungtaung copper mine protests and Moe-hti-moe-mi gold mine protests.

During the two waves of anti-Muslim rioting that occurred in Rakhine state in June and October last year, 211 died and 270 were injured, official statistics state. Authorities reacted by jailing 507 suspects and seizing 977 guns. 

Elsewhere, four suspects were sentenced over the Latpadaungtaung copper mine protests of March 2012, state media said. Two suspects were sentenced over the conflict between gold mine companies and small business owners in Mandalay Region’s Moe-hti moe-mi, Yamaethin Township, in early May of 2012. 

The sectarian violence that started in Mandalay’s Meikhtila claimed the lives of 43 people including a monk, and left 64 injured. A total of 52 people have been found guilty, and action has been taken against 95 others for related activities. Twenty-five people are still in prison for their role in the Meikhtila riots. 

Officials said 48 suspects were arrested and put on trial for the Okkan violence which killed one and injured other nine people on April 30 this year. Two were convicted and jailed while the rest are still on trial. 

In Lashio, Shan State on May 28 this year, a fresh outbreak of sectarian violence killed one person and left six others injured. Of the 61 suspects arrested, one was convicted and sent to jail while the rest are still on trial.

A total of 1,500 suspects have been arrested in connection with the six major incidents of public disorder under the present government, with 541 convicted and sentenced.

State media also claimed that the majority of people convicted for their involvement in the religious violence were Buddhists. 

However, human rights groups contend that the judicial system is biased in favour of the country’s Buddhist majority, citing cases such as the two Muslim women in Okkan handed two years’ hard labour for “inciting riots” by touching a Buddhist monk. Sectarian violence has seen an estimated 150,000 people, most of them Muslims, flee their homes for refugee camps in the last three years.