Interview of Wai Wai Nu - a Rohingya woman of courage against Buddhist fascism
Wai Wai Nu was an 18-year-old girl studying law when the Burmese authorities took her, her mom, and her sister to a private place where authorities could question them about the activities of her father Kyaw Min, who they had taken to jail two months prior. Kyaw Min was a Rohingya politician who had won 1990 election from the Rakhine (Arakan) state. The results of those elections, successfully led by Aung San Suu Kyi of the National League for Democracy, however, were ignored by the military that ruled Myanmar. Shortly thereafter, Min faced harassment so fierce it forced him to move his family from their home in Western Myanmar’s Rakhine State to Yangon, the former capital and the country’s largest city.
Wai Wai would spend the next seven years in the prison. Her crime? She and her family are Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority in a country, which I have been calling the worst den of hatred and intolerance in our time - with many Buddhist leaders who wield a military-backed, anti-Muslim Theravada Buddhism perhaps best described as a form of ethno-religious fascism.
Wai Wai was recently interviewed by a reporter from the WNN, which was supported by the Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative. Like many hopefuls, she believes that she would see a change for the better under Suu Kyi's rule.
Is it going to be a wishful dream or a reality in 2016?
I pray and hope for the latter.
You can read the full text of the interview by clicking here.
Wai Wai would spend the next seven years in the prison. Her crime? She and her family are Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority in a country, which I have been calling the worst den of hatred and intolerance in our time - with many Buddhist leaders who wield a military-backed, anti-Muslim Theravada Buddhism perhaps best described as a form of ethno-religious fascism.
Wai Wai was recently interviewed by a reporter from the WNN, which was supported by the Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative. Like many hopefuls, she believes that she would see a change for the better under Suu Kyi's rule.
Is it going to be a wishful dream or a reality in 2016?
I pray and hope for the latter.
You can read the full text of the interview by clicking here.
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