A Myanmar politician said this week that he was preparing to seek legal limits on interfaith and interethnic marriage, specifically targeting Chinese and Muslim minority groups and underscoring how ethnic and religious tensions still run deep in the Southeast Asian country.
Thein Nyunt, a parliamentarian and chairman of the New National League for Democracy – a breakaway faction of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy – said Thursday that he plans to put forth a bill restricting marriage along ethnic and religious lines, discouraging Buddhist women from marrying ethnic Chinese or Muslim men.
The politician said the bill would be paired with tougher legislation against those who are convicted of child abuse or sexual abuse, crimes he said he hopes will be punished by death.
Mr. Thein Nyunt's effort follows a push for similar marriage limitations in Myanmar earlier this year from a radical monk and his followers.
Myanmar's location "between Bangladesh and China, with much larger populations" makes such marriage curbs "very important" for the preservation of the country's Buddhist heritage, Mr. Thein Nyunt said.
"We can look at Mandalay city now, and see that it is full of Chinese people, rather than Myanmar people," he added, referring to the country's second largest city. In recent years, the former ancient capital of Burma has morphed into a key administrative city for many Chinese companies – the largest source of foreign direct investment in Myanmar – who base their local headquarters there.
The bill is still in its early stages, without a formal draft, and it is so far unclear how much support the proposals would enjoy in parliament. Ms. Suu Kyi has said that such efforts are unfair to women and are a violation of human rights. President Thein Sein has repeatedly called for tolerance as the government eases political restrictions in the country.
But the proposals – which will also be taken up by one of Myanmar's most prominent monks, the Venerable Wirathu, at a gathering of an estimated 5, 000 monks next week – show that potentially explosive ethnic tensions are still rife in the reforming nation, threatening to seep into its legislature.
The Venerable Wirathu and his supporters, who have espoused anti-Muslim teachings and referred to the minority group as dogs and parasites, have been accused of fanning hate speech that has left more than 200 dead and more than 100,000 others displaced in communal violence over the past two years.
The supporters of the Venerable Wirathu, broadly grouped together as the "969 movement," were a prominent and destabilizing force across Myanmar last year, analysts say, circulating paraphernalia and petitions encouraging Buddhists to shop exclusively at Buddhist-owned shops and marry only their co-religionists.
The monk's rhetoric has left Myanmar's Muslim community – roughly 5% of the country's 60 million people – isolated and vilified, with sectarian clashes destroying most of the few integrated communities in the country where both Muslims and Buddhists once lived in peace.
Mr. Thein Nyunt's new bill, however, also reflects anti-Chinese sentiment in Myanmar, as the country's northern neighbor struggles to push through large-scale investment in the country it once considered a staunch ally.
The explosion of inflammatory speech in Myanmar over the past year has largely been a product of freer media since the country embarked on a sweeping reform process, allowing these sentiments to be expressed after years of suppression.
But diplomats and analysts fear that these tensions could taint Myanmar's road to democratization, as human rights groups and watchdog organizations urge Western countries to be cautious in embracing the Southeast Asian country, after decades of punishing its former military government with harsh economic sanctions.
–Myo Myo contributed
Write to Shibani Mahtani at shibani.mahtani@wsj.com
http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/myanmar-politician-preparing-to-seek-legal-limits-on-interfaith-interethnic/
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