“Save Rohingya Day” Puts the Spotlight on Crimes Against Humanity in Myanmar (Burma)
Multifaith Gathering Commemorates One-Year Anniversary of Genocidal Violence
(New York, 8/22/2018) – “National Save Rohingya Day” is a national gathering taking place in cities around the United States to mark the one-year anniversary of the Burmese army’s brutal expulsion of 700,000 Rohingya women, children and men. In New York City the event will include an interfaith procession from the Islamic Cultural Center to a vigil at the Myanmar Mission in NYC’s Upper East Side.
WHAT: Save Rohingya Day Procession and Vigil
WHEN: 2:00-6:00 p.m., Friday, August 24th, 2018
WHO: Rohingya leaders, religious and community leaders, elected officials, concerned citizens
WHERE: Beginning corner of Third Avenue and 96th Street; proceeding to and ending at 10 East 77th Street.
The Rohingya refugee crisis is one of the greatest catastrophes of the current day, arising from a harshly restrictive persecution of the now stateless Rohingya minority. In August 2017, Burmese security forces waged a campaign of terror, committing innumerable crimes against the native Rohingya population. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to the Bangladesh, where they joined hundreds of thousands who had already sought refuge there.
Now approximately one million Rohingya refugees languish in stateless limbo across the sprawling camps of southeastern Bangladesh. The impact is felt even among the large Bangladeshi American community in New York. Meanwhile, Myanmar has shown neither the political will nor the good faith to repatriate this community with return of full rights, property and land. And the United States and the United Nations have been blocked from robust action. Rohingya refugees continue to suffer en masse.
“Save Rohingya Day” will encourage greater response to this humanitarian disaster by raising awareness among political leaders, media, faith communities, and the general public. A statement will be delivered to the Myanmar Mission and some of those few Rohingya refugees living in New York will tell their story. Faith leaders and elected officials will be invited to address the crowd and engage in prayer and ritual as well. The endorsing organizations listed on the accompanying flier suggests how extremely diverse support is for this urgent cause, including Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Jewish and Muslim institutions and well as secular groups opposing xenophobia, Islamophobia, militant nationalism, mass rape and violent conflict.
“The diversity of New York’s commemoration reflects the values of pluralism and peaceful coexistence that the government of Burma is attacking, along with seeking the destruction of the Rohingya community in Burma,” stated Imam Malik Mujahid, the Chairman of Burma Task Force. “Because Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi seeks to rationalize her military’s deadly policies by demonizing Rohingya Muslim families as a security threat, we are grateful for our multi-faith allies who stand with us in solidarity today. The Rohingya genocide is not only a Muslim issue. If we fail to protect the Rohingya, and to obtain justice for these suffering people, other ethnic and religious groups in Burma will also be murdered, raped and made stateless.”
Sponsored by Burma Task Force, JACOB: Jewish Alliance of Concern Over Burma*, and the Interfaith Center of NY. Endorsed by Saddha Buddhists for Peace; Sadhana Coalition of Progressive Hindus, World Rohingya Organization, Majlis Ash Shura Islamic Leadership Council of Metro NY, Social Justice Committee PJTF and UUJME of All Souls Unitarian Church, NYC Muslim-Jewish Solidarity Committee, Pax Christi Metro NY, The Holocaust, Genocide, & Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College, Civil Rights Movement for Burma, Manhattan Church of the Advent Hope Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Islamic Cultural Center of New York, Congregation Ansche Chesed, Congregation Beth Elohim, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, Kane Street Synagogue, SAJ: Stand in Justice for All; The Hebrew Institute of Riverdale – The Bayit; Romemu; Flushing Interfaith Social Justice Committee/Flushing Amnesty International Group; South Asian Fund For Education, Scholarship and Training ( SAFEST), Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County, Green Touch, Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA), SAJ: Judaism that Stands for All; Law on the Margins; T’ruah, the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights; Kane Street Synagogue; List in Formation
Contact:
Jamie Merchant
Media Director, Burma Task Force
jamie@justiceforall.org
(312)-750-1178
Adem Carroll
New York and UN Programs Director
adem@burmamuslims.org
(646) 251 0402