We, members of the faith-based community of the Palouse, stand firmly with the Rohingya people. According to a Human Rights Watch report, this crisis is underreported due to the complicity of the Burmese government, which does not allow human rights groups to verify the number of those killed, ethnically cleansed and displaced in clear and accurate numbers. With de facto leader Suu Kyi denying the atrocities, the struggle of the Rohingya Muslims continues unabated. The Burmese military has blocked both the media and international humanitarian organizations from the region. We join the Network of Spiritual Progressives in committing to the following steps:
1. Stop the military's firing on and forced displacement of the Rohingya.
2. Allow media, relief agencies and human rights organizations immediate access to the region.
3. Pressure Bangladesh to allow Rohingya Muslims full access to humanitarian agencies on their own soil.
4. Support the U.N. investigation into mass rape, killing, and other abuses and permit the U.N. investigation team to enter the region.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, leader of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, has called for secular humanists, spiritual progressives and every religious believer in the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and other religious communities, as well as human rights supporters, to speak out loudly and clearly against the destruction of the Rohingya. We ask the members of the Palouse religious communities as well as secular humanists and human rights supporters to discern how we can, working together, resist the destruction of the Rohingya. Today it is the Rohingya facing displacement and death. Tomorrow it will be another group, and our religious, secular and human rights commitments can collectively make a difference in affirming the total humanity of a disrespected and oppressed group of vulnerable people. The next oppressed group might one day include any of us.
Raed Alsawaier, imam
Mohammed Islam, president
Robert Eddy, member
Pullman Islamic Association
Larry Fox, member
Jewish Community of the Palouse
Annie Reneau, member
Bahá'í community of Pullman
The Rev. C. Shane Moore
Simpson United Methodist Church
A. Stephen Van Kuiken, minister
Community Congregational United Church of Christ
Linda Young, rector
Patrick Siler, member
Elizabeth A. Siler, member
St. James Episcopal Church,
Kelly Shattuck, director
Interfaith House, WSU
Pullman
The Rev. Elizabeth Stevens, minister
Pat Rathmann, member
Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse
The Rev. Robin Biffle, rector
St. Mark's Episcopal Church
Rula Awwad-Rafferty,
Muslim and Interfaith communities
Moscow
