Dhaka protesters call for Myanmar to "free" Rakhine state

(18 Sep 2017) More than 10,000 Muslims belonging to a hardline Islamic group protested outside the Myanmar embassy in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka on Monday, demanding that Naypyitaw stop its crackdown on Rohingya Muslims who have fled their homes in Myanmar's Rakhine state.
The protesters chanted slogans and waved the Bangladeshi flag as they marched through the streets of the capital.
The protest organised by the Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam began from Bangladesh's main mosque but was stopped by police well before the protesters reached the embassy.
More than 412,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled their homes in Rakhine and are living in camps in Bangladesh after fleeing violence in Myanmar.
Ethnic Rohingya have faced persecution and discrimination in majority-Buddhist Myanmar for decades and are denied citizenship, even though many families have lived there for generations.
The government says there is no such ethnicity as Rohingya and say they are Bengalis who illegally migrated to Myanmar from Bangladesh.
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