Myanmar’s street prayer organisers face jail in Ramadan

YANGON, May 17 (Reuters): When Cho Nwe Soe went to a Yangon court last month with her husband, she expected he would be fined for organising prayers in the street without a permit last year, and that they could go back home to prepare for Ramadan - the Muslim holy month.

Instead, her 41-year-old husband Aung San Lin and six other Myanmar Muslims, who last year organised the Ramadan street prayers after local madrassas were shuttered by Buddhist nationalists, were sent to jail for three months.

“I went insane. I didn’t know what to do,” said Cho Nwe Soe, wiping away her tears. She was speaking at the teashop the couple have run together for 12 years in Yangon’s eastern Thaketa township, home to many of the city’s Muslims.

The prison terms have unsettled many Muslims in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, and prompted human rights monitors to urge the government of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to guarantee religious freedoms.