Top Sunni institution Al-Azhar calls world leaders to put political, economic pressure on Myanmar

Al-Azhar, the world’s top Muslim Sunni institution, has urged the global leaders to mount “political and economic pressures” on the Myanmar government to stop “religious and racial persecution”.

In a statement signed by Grand Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayyeb and published on Al-Azhar’s Facebook page, the organisation called on the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the European Union, the United Nations, and decision-makers in Arab and Muslim countries.

According to the Egyptian media, Al-Azhar also called on all international and human rights organisations to "take the required procedures to investigate in these shameful crimes, trace those who committed them, and deliver them to International Court of Justice as war criminals."

"The world has witnessed over the past few days reports circulating in the media of terrifying and horrifying photos of acts of murdering, displacement, burning, genocide, and brutal massacres."

"It also showed the killings of hundreds of women, children, youth, and the elderly, who have been besieged in Rakhine State in Myanmar," the Egypt-based institution said in the statement.

In the last two weeks alone 290,000 Rohingya civilians have fled to Bangladesh.

"This barbarian and inhumane scene would not have happened if the global conscience was not dead,” according to Al-Azhar’s statement.

The statement stressed that the denouncements from international organisations are not enough, according to ‘ahram’ online newspaper.

Adding that if the victims were "Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, or any other religion but Muslim" these organisations would have reacted more quickly and firmly.

The statement referred to Al-Azhar’s efforts in solving the conflict in Rakhine by bringing the different parties to peace talks in Cairo earlier this year.

However, the efforts that were made during the talks have been neglected, according to the statement, adding that these kind of crimes are “the strongest reasons” behind terrorism.

The Rohingyas have long been subjected to discrimination in mostly Buddhist Myanmar, which denies them citizenship and regards them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, despite they lived in the country for generations.

Bangladesh has struggled to cope with the latest influx, which takes the number of Rohingya refugees to around 700,000.