Angry Muslim protesters took to the streets from Jakarta to Dhaka on Friday to denounce Myanmar over allegations of indiscriminate killing and rape in a military crackdown on the country's Rohingya Muslim minority. Around 5,000 Bangladeshi Muslims demonstrated in the capital Dhaka after Friday prayers, with hundreds more protesting in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Bangkok to accuse Myanmar of ethnic cleansing and genocide in its northern Rakhine state.
Muslim-majority Malaysia's Cabinet also issued a statement condemning the violence, an unusually strong criticism against a fellow member of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). "Malaysia... calls on the government of Myanmar to take all necessary actions to address the alleged ethnic cleansing," the statement said. It said the Myanmar ambassador would be summoned over the crisis and that Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman would meet with de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other top Myanmar officials "at the earliest possible date."
Up to 30,000 Rohingya have abandoned their homes in Myanmar to escape the unfolding violence, the UN says, after troops poured into the narrow strip where they live earlier this month. Rohingya are denied citizenship and subject to harsh restrictions in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where many view them as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh, though many have lived been in Myanmar for generations. The Dhaka protesters gathered outside the Baitul Mokarram mosque, the country's largest, to demand an end to the violence, denounce Suu Kyi, and calling for Bangladesh to accept fleeing Rohingya.
Around 500 Malaysians and Rohingya marched through a heavy tropical downpour from a Kuala Lumpur mosque to Myanmar's embassy carrying banners denouncing the Rakhine "genocide."