Myanmar (March 07, 2018): A Buddhist leader facing treason charges connection to deadly riots appeared in a court on Wednesday.
This is a case that has aggravated ethnic tensions in a region also roiled by the crackdown on Rohingya Muslims.
Rakhine state has seethed with ethnic hatreds for years, with the persecution of the Rohingya minority culminating in a ruthless army campaign against them that started last August and sparked a mass exodus.
The deadly riots exposed the bitter and complex ethnic fault-lines in Rakhine , where some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims based further north have fled over the border into Bangladesh since a brutal military campaign began in August.
Members of the ethnic Rakhine Buddhist population are accused of assisting the military in a campaign of murder, rape, and arson against the Rohingya — violence the UN brands “ethnic cleansing”.
Myanmar staunchly denies the charges.
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