Anti-Islam sentiments: Myanmar blocks Islamic body office

President will not allow an OIC office because it is not in accordance with the people’s desires: Myanmar leader

NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar’s president blocked a world Islamic body from opening an office in the country, an official said Monday, bowing to rallies against its efforts to help Muslims in unrest-hit Rakhine state. “The president will not allow an OIC office because it is not in accordance with the people’s desires,” said an official from Myanmar leader Thein Sein’s office, after thousands of monks held the latest protests against the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in two major cities on Monday. Around 3,000 maroon-robed clerics, some shouting and holding banners reading “No OIC”, marched through Yangon, according to an AFP photographer. Thousands more protested in the second-largest city Mandalay. “We cannot accept any OIC office here,” Oattamathara, a monk leading the Mandalay protest, told AFP.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2012.