Iran urges UN to prevent massacre of Muslims in Myanmar

The Iranian parliament has condemned the massacre of the Muslim minority in Myanmar, and called on the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) to take rapid action to stop the ongoing crime against the country’s Muslim community. “The Human Rights Commission (of the Iranian parliament) condemns the massacre and genocide (of Muslims) in Myanmar and asks the UNHCHR to enter the scene responsibly and call for a stop of the killings of the Muslims,” a statement by the Iranian Parliament’s Human Rights Commission said on Tuesday, Iran’s Fars news agency reported. The government of Myanmar refuses to recognize Rohingyas, who it claims are not natives and classifies as illegal migrants, although the Rohingya are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pathan origin, who migrated to Burma as early as the 8th century. Myanmar’s President Thein Sein said Rohingya Muslims must be expelled from the country and sent to refugee camps run by the United Nations. The UN says decades of discrimination have left the Rohingyas stateless, with Myanmar implementing restrictions on their movement and withholding land rights, education and public services. Since June, hundreds of members of the nearly-one-million-strong Rohingya Muslim minority have been killed and tens of thousands of others among them have been displaced in the west of the country due to a wave of communal violence. Over the past two years, waves of ethnic Muslims have attempted to flee by boats in the face of systematic oppression by the Myanmar government.