Calgary protesters gather to highlight persecution of Muslim minority in Burma

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Group calls on Canadians and government to help religious group

CBC News Posted: May 30, 2015 11:41 AM MT Last Updated: May 30, 2015 11:41 AM MT

A small group of people gathered outside city hall to highlight the plight of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority in Burma. (CBC)

A small group of protesters gathered at city hall Friday night to draw attention to what they say is the genocide of a religious minority in Burma.

The persecution of the roughly one million people, who make up the Rohingya, a Muslim minority in Burma, began in the early 1980s when the military government stripped the Rohingyas of citizenship, according to the United Nations.

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Greg Toews, with Partners Relief & Development, a non-profit organization working out of Thailand, says their plight has intensified in recent years. 

Toews says tens of thousands of Rohingya are living in squalid camps and are ravaged by starvation and disease, in the country also known as Myanmar.

"There have been standing community tensions between the two groups, and in 2012 it boiled over to race riots and the purge of over 140 thousand Rohingya from their own communities," he said.

Saima Jamal helped organize the protest.

"We need our Canadian government to stand up to the Myanmar government and tell them you have to grant full citizenship rights to the Rohingya people."

Jamal urges people to write to their MPs and to contribute to relief efforts for the Rohingya people.