Five fined over Rohingya Muslim calendar

YANGON: Five Myanmar men have been fined under a restrictive printing law for publishing a calendar that described the country’s persecuted Muslim Rohingya as a recognised ethnic minority, police said on Tuesday.
The men were arrested over the weekend in Yangon and fined $800 each on Monday after pleading guilty to an offence that carries up to two years in prison.
Myanmar’s government does not recognise the term Rohingya and insists the minority group does not face official persecution.
"They admitted and confessed very fast. So the court charged them one million kyat each," Khin Maung Let, chief police officer at Pazundaung township, told AFP.
The fine is no small sum in a country where the average per capita annual income is around $1,200.
Khin Maung Let said police were initially alerted to the calendar via Facebook with officers subsequently raiding a printing press on the outskirts of Yangon.
"The calendar contained words and photos saying the Rohingya are an ethnic minority of Myanmar. That is against the law and such activity threatens the law and order of the country," he added. A sixth suspect is on the run, he said.
Myanmar’s Printing and Publishing Law bans publishing materials that could damage national security and law and order.
The country’s Rohingya are a heavily persecuted Muslim minority who have been hardest hit by deadly bouts of communal violence in the Buddhist-majority nation at a time of surging religious nationalism.