Southeast Asia
Water fights, magical decapitated heads and family reunions – the Southeast Asian festival of Songkran has it all
By Andrew Alan Johnson — April 11, 2022
(The Conversation) — In Southeast Asia, Songkran is a time to celebrate the coming year with water fights, honoring elders and offering prayers.
Shrine to Vietnamese Lady of La Vang rises in Southern California
By Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil — November 16, 2018
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (RNS) — The new statue will commemorate the Marian apparition at La Vang in the late 1700s, a centerpiece of Vietnamese Catholic faith.
Myanmar bulldozes what is left of Rohingya Muslim villages
By Delta Systems — February 23, 2018
(AP) — Human rights groups say Myanmar's government is destroying crucial evidence of mass atrocities against the nation's ethnic Rohingya Muslim minority.
Massacre of Rohingya Muslims and mass graves in Myanmar
By Jerome Socolovsky — February 1, 2018
BALUKHALI REFUGEE CAMP, Bangladesh (AP) — The graves are the newest piece of evidence for what looks increasingly like a genocide in Myanmar's western Rakhine state against the Rohingya, a long-persecuted ethnic Muslim minority in the predominantly Buddhist country.
Renowned Buddhist scholar faces jail for ‘criticizing’ Thai monarchy
By Kimberly Winston — January 16, 2018
(RNS) — An internationally derided "lèse-majesté" law may send Sulak Sivaraksa to jail for 15 years.
AP: Rohingya methodically raped by Myanmar’s armed forces
By Jerome Socolovsky — December 12, 2017
UKHIA, Bangladesh (AP) — Interviews with 29 women and girls now in Bangladesh bolster the U.N.’s contention that Myanmar’s armed forces are systematically employing rape as a ‘calculated tool of terror’ aimed at exterminating the Rohingya people.
American evangelist leads rare event in communist Vietnam
By Jerome Socolovsky — December 9, 2017
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — More than 10,000 Vietnamese filled up a stadium in a rare Christian evangelistic event led by the Rev. Franklin Graham, who said he wants the communist government to consider Christians its best citizens.
With ‘instant divorce’ now banned in India, many cheer but some worry
By Siddhant Mohan — August 25, 2017
VARANASI, India (RNS) — Some wonder whether Muslims in poor and rural areas will abide by or even learn of the ruling. Others decry it as a violation of Muslim religious rights.
Rohingya Muslims tell of abuses during army crackdown
By guest — July 15, 2017
(Reuters) Myanmar's government, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has denied most of the claims, and is blocking entry to a U.N. fact-finding mission tasked with looking into the allegations.
At least 6 Hindu pilgrims killed in militant attack in Indian Kashmir
By Fayaz Bukhari — July 10, 2017
(Reuters) — The attack is likely to raise the ire of hard-line Hindu groups tied to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party who have long sought tough action against militants fighting Indian rule in Muslim-majority Kashmir.
Sri Lanka arrests monk, police officer for anti-Muslim violence
By Ranga Sirilal — June 18, 2017
(Reuters) The arrests are part of a crackdown on violence against Muslims, who are 9 percent of the mostly Buddhist nation.
India court affirms priests’ right to property despite poverty oath
By Rina Chandran — June 16, 2017
(Thomson Reuters Foundation) The ruling applies to all religions in the state, and to women in a religious order as well.
Sri Lanka arrests five over anti-religious violence
By Shihar Aneez — June 12, 2017
(REUTERS) The arrests come a week after diplomats condemned violence against Muslims in Sri Lanka and urged the government to uphold minority rights and freedom of religion.
Indonesia to disband hard-line Islamist group
By Kanupriya Kapoor — May 8, 2017
(Reuters) Islamist vigilante groups, though usually small and on the fringes of society, are widely seen as a threat to Indonesia's tradition of pluralism and moderate Islam.
Aid flotilla to help Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar
By guest — December 30, 2016
(REUTERS) The flotilla has yet to receive permission to enter Myanmar, sparking fears of a confrontation with security forces that could worsen Myanmar's already-frayed ties with predominantly Muslim Malaysia.
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