February 11, 2017

Footage of Monk and Foreign Reporter Goes Viral

Footage has gone viral of a BBC correspondent questioning a Buddhist monk in Rangoon on Thursday in a manner netizens deemed impolite.

Jonah Fisher—the first resident correspondent in Burma for the British news outlet—questioned a monk protesting the arrival of a ship from Malaysia carrying aid to the troubled Maungdaw Township in northern Arakan State as it docked at the Myanmar International Terminals port in Thilawa near Rangoon.

Several dozen Buddhist monks and nationalists—including monks from the Ma Ba Tha-aligned National Coalition Group—demonstrated against the use of the name Rohingya, which is commonly used by a group of Muslims in northern Arakan State to describe their ethnicity. (Courtesy of irrawaddy.com)