Time for OIC to End Repression of Rohingya

The Leader of Islamic Revolution censured global bodies and self-proclaimed human rights defenders for failing to give a proper response to the "catastrophic" tragedy in Myanmar, calling on Muslim governments to take "practical" measures to stop the repression of Rohingya Muslims by putting enormous pressure on the "ruthless" government.

Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei made the statements in a meeting with theological students in Tehran on Tuesday, his official website reported.

Recent weeks have seen an escalation of violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine State, the poorest state of Myanmar, after some of the country's army posts came under attack by an allegedly Muslim insurgent group.

The brutal repression of the Muslim minority by state security forces has so far left an estimated 1,000 people dead and forced more than 370,000 of the impoverished community to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

The Leader said the root of the conflict should not be reduced to religious hatred of Buddhists against Muslims, as politics is the leading cause behind the crackdown.

"Though religious fanaticism may be a factor at play, this is a political issue, because the government is behind it. That government is headed by a merciless woman [Aung San Suu Kyi], who has won the Nobel Peace Prize. These incidents sound the death knell for the Nobel Peace Prize," he said.

The Rohingya is believed to be the most persecuted in the world, as around a million of the Muslim minority, which is not included among 135 officially-recognized ethnic groups in Myanmar, have fled the country to escape harassment since the late 1970s.

The government brands Rohingya, who currently make up around one million of the total 50-million population, illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship.

The systematic violence against the community by the government and allied Buddhist extremists has escalated since 2012, in what is widely seen as a bid to push them out of the Southeast Asian country.

Suu Kyi says her troops are fighting "terrorists", while they have been reportedly burning Rohingya settlements, perpetrating extrajudicial killings and using landmines against civilians.

Her troops have laid a siege to Rakhine and she has alleged that reports of brutal violence against the Muslims are fake news.

Ayatollah Khamenei said it is up to Muslim states to ease the pains of the Rohingya, as the world bodies and the "hypocrite and liar" human rights pretenders remain silent.

"The so-called rights advocates, who now and then create controversy over the punishment of a convict in a country, keep mum on the killing and displacement of tens of thousands of Myanmar people," he said, alluding to western powers that have been accusing Iran of widespread rights violations since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

"Muslims must heighten their political and economic pressures on the government and cry out over these atrocities in international organizations," he said, calling for an extraordinary meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to stop Myanmar's genocidal violence.

The United Nations Security Council is to hold a closed-door meeting on the conflict today.

The UNSC also convened late August to discuss the violence, but the members issued no formal statement.