Hawzah News Agency(Yangon, Myanmar) - More than 100 self-described patriots, including Buddhist monks, showed up with sticks and knives last night at a temporary local Muslim prayer house in Yangon’s South Dagon neighborhood to stop their Ramadan prayers, according to local media reports.

The mob arrived in ten cars and multiple motorcycles to demand an end to the Ramadan prayers being held in the three houses that the local Muslim community in South Dagon’s 106th ward had set up to host nightly prayers, despite the community having acquired approval from local township administrators, according to Myanmar Now.

“About 100 people came and interrogated us with the township administrator and deputy administrator. The police chief was there too. We closed the prayer house even though we obtained permission from the state government to host prayers for one month during Ramadan. We have the permission letter too,” U Zaw Min Latt, a member of the Myanmar Muslim Association, told Khit Thit media.

In Myanmar’s Constitution, freedom of religion is guaranteed in Section 354 (d), which also guarantees citizens the right to practice “their language, literature, culture, religion and customs without prejudice to the relations between one national race and another or among national races and to other faiths.”

“They will never accept us. They deny our existence, they consider us as illegal immigrants,” Hla Aung said when asked whether or not Myanmar would ever accept the Rohingya, the country’s most persecuted Muslim minority group.

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