Chechen People Stage Huge Rally in Support of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov brought tens of thousands of people to the streets of the capital Grozny on Monday to protest the "genocide of Muslims" in Myanmar.
Violence over the past few days in Myanmar's Rakhine state has killed nearly 400 Rohingya people and prompted thousands of ethnic Rohingya refugees to flee into neighboring Bangladesh.
State television footage showed tens of thousands rallying in Grozny's main square to support the Rohingya, AP reported. Chechnya is predominantly Muslim.
Officials and Muslim clerics cited verses of the Quran, in Arabic and Chechen, calling on all Muslims to unite.
Local police authorities reported that 1.1 million people attended the rally. The population of Chechnya is 1.4 million, according to official statistics.
The demonstrators chanted "God is great" and held posters with what appeared to photos of members of the Rohingya community taken from the Internet.
Hundreds of people held similar rallies on September 3 in front of Myanmar’s embassy in Moscow and in Makhachkala -- the capital of Daghestan, which is adjacent to Chechnya.
Nearly 90,000 mostly Rohingya refugees have arrived in neighboring Bangladesh since violence erupted in Myanmar on August 25, according to the United Nations.
