{"id":15750,"date":"2016-11-25T07:16:41","date_gmt":"2016-11-25T07:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=15750"},"modified":"2016-11-25T07:16:41","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T07:16:41","slug":"malaysia-decides-not-abandon-soccer-tournament-myanmar-rohingya-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/malaysia-decides-not-abandon-soccer-tournament-myanmar-rohingya-crackdown.html","title":{"rendered":"Malaysia decides not to abandon soccer tournament over Myanmar Rohingya crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Malaysia decides not to abandon soccer tournament over Myanmar Rohingya crackdown<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Malaysia decided on Friday to carry on with a regional soccer tournament co-hosted by Myanmar, days after a Malaysian minister said it was considering pulling out in protest against Myanmar&#8217;s bloody crackdown on ethnic Rohingya Muslims.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The decision came amid growing calls for Muslim-majority Malaysia to take a strong position and as protesters held simultaneous rallies on Friday in three Southeast Asian countries against Buddhist-majority Myanmar&#8217;s actions in Rakhine state.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">A withdrawal by Malaysia from the ASEAN Football Federation Suzuki Cup, which began on Saturday, would have run counter to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations&#8217; long-standing policy of non-interference in other members&#8217; affairs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;The cabinet decided today that we should proceed with our match tomorrow,&#8221; Malaysian Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin told reporters before attending Friday prayers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Khairy said on Wednesday that he had asked the cabinet at a pervious meeting about withdrawing from the tournament, and that Malaysia &#8220;must continue to speak up&#8221; regardless of the decision on Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">His comments were in response to a call by a Malaysian Islamic cleric for Malaysia to pull out of the tournament, which started on Saturday and is co-hosted by the Philippines.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The conflict in Myanmar&#8217;s northwestern state of Rakhine has sent hundreds of Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh and poses a serious challenge to Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who swept to power last year on promises of national reconciliation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Escalating violence has reportedly killed at least 86 people and displaced some 30,000. Myanmar soldiers have also been accused of sexually assaulting dozens of women from the persecuted minority.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The bloodshed is the most serious since hundreds were killed in communal clashes in Rakhine in 2012, exposing the lack of oversight of the military by Suu Kyi&#8217;s seven-month-old administration.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Protesters in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand were holding rallies at the Myanmar embassies of each country on Friday seeking an end to oppression of ethnic Rohingya.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Source:\u00a0http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-myanmar-rohingya-malaysia-idUSKBN13K0D3<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/malaysia-decides-not-abandon-soccer-tournament-myanmar-rohingya-crackdown.html\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground: #ffffff !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 630px !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Malaysia decides not to abandon soccer tournament over Myanmar Rohingya crackdown Malaysia decided on Friday to carry on with a regional soccer tournament co-hosted by Myanmar, days after a Malaysian minister said it was considering pulling out in protest against Myanmar&#8217;s bloody crackdown on ethnic Rohingya Muslims. The decision came [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5470],"tags":[9873,9871,6640,9870,9872,7229],"class_list":["post-15750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-aung-san-suu-kyi","tag-bangladesh","tag-indonesia","tag-malaysia-decides-not-to-abandon-soccer-tournament-over-myanmar-rohingya-crackdown","tag-malaysia-myanmar","tag-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}