Thank you for your point-to-point rebuttals. That is what I like about HN.

I did not mean to personally accuse you of lying when I wrote the sentence. I meant to point out what many major media (BBC, Guardian, CNN) are insinuating. I apologize that I came across that way.
>One blatant lie is that of majority Buddhist persecuting the minority Muslims.

Also, I am not implying that population of Muslim correlates with the frequency of terror generally everywhere in the world. All I am pointing out is what is happening in troubled Maung Daw region. I am not in the camp that attacks Islam as a whole and formulates a general theory. The issue is more complicated than a simplistic correlation.

I disagree with your following statement.
>The government leverages anti-Muslim propaganda to legitimize the persecution of the Muslim population.

There are many Muslims in the other regions of Myanmar. Even in Rakhine state, there is another minority Muslim group, Ka-Mann, in the middle of the state. Ka-Man Muslims were recognized as an ethnic group by the government, and there was no alleged religious persecution of Ka-Man. If you visit Yangon, the biggest city in the country, you will see that there are several Mosques in downtown, and there are a lot of Muslim communities that are peacefully coexisting with Buddhists, Christians, and Hindu for a very long time. Unlike what media is portraying, the extremist monks, like U Wiyathu who was on the cover of Time magazine as Burmese Bin Laden, are unpopular in the country. This Rohingya issue is being mischaracterized by the media. Those in agenda-driven media who are framing this as one are fanning the flames. There are unverified accusations dumped on Rakhine Buddhists and the army who we do not support. We all are hoping unbiased international investigators to dig the truth out.

I agree 100% with you in letting international journalists and observers in and let them investigate and report without hindrance. That is what many people, including me, have been asking for years. There are several journalists from BBC, NYTimes, and some major news organization in the region. I do though want to point out one thing that many people in the region and the country as a whole are very distrustful of international media. There is resentment among Native Rakhine, and they feel that they have been framed and unfairly demonized for a particular agenda or narrative by these major news organizations. I am one of those people very much bothered by the narratives and very selective coverage of BBC and Guardian. I am all for welcoming international journalists and observers from all political spectrum and ideologies. People can have biases, but they need to be open about it.

I am ignorant of many things in the world. I just happen to know a bit about this particular issue since my grandparents, Rakhine Buddhists, lived their entire lives in the troubled region, and I happened to hear a lot of brutal heartbreaking stories from the other side ignored in the media. It is just a very odd moment in life when you became very cynical about everything in the media. I do not want to live my life that way.

I am aware of my background and bias. All I want to do is to point out that there are a lot more to the story than a very simplistic version painted in the media, just as you mentioned.

Thank you for your engagement. I appreciate your input.