The organisers have confirmed that there won’t be prayer rooms at the 2018 Olympics [KTO]

by Haeyoon Kim & Faras Ghani, Al Jazeera

The Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) has cancelled plans for a mobile prayer room in Gangneung for tourists at the 2018 Winter Olympics after strong opposition by anti-Muslim campaigners, the city tourism department’s chief told Al Jazeera.

While just 0.2 percent of South Korea’s population of 51 million is Muslim, the KTO decided to build a prayer room to promote a “Muslim-friendly Korea” during the Winter Olympics, which start on Friday and increase the number of Muslim tourists.

But after “strong opposition” from some groups, city officials in Gangneung cancelled the plans.

“We had strong opposition from some religious groups who opposed the installation and threatened protests during the Winter Olympics,” Gangneung city government tourism division chief Kang Suk-ho told Al Jazeera.

“We sat down with them for talks, but in the end, we had to cancel the plans,” he added.

Kang also said he did not expect “such an extreme backlash from the group”.

“We thought it’d be nice to offer a prayer room facility at the Gangneung station,” he explained, adding that he thought the opposition to the plan was “very regrettable”.

Gangneung is set to host all indoor events.

Increase in Muslim tourists
South Korea has witnessed an increase in the number of Muslim tourists over the last few years. According to the KTO, a 33 percent increase was registered in 2016 compared with the year before, and the numbers reached 1.2 million by the end of 2017.

Tapping into this economic potential, the country has increased the number of Halal certificates for its restaurants and prayer rooms, and the Seoul Tourism Organization is promoting a series of videos showcasing Muslim-friendly restaurants around the capital.

A KTO press release last year confirmed one of its aims was that “the provision of travel convenience should be strengthened in order to increase their satisfaction and to encourage repeat visits”.

The Korean Muslim Federation (KMF) expressed its disappointment with the decision, adding that the “Olympic Games should go beyond a single nation, race, culture and religion to achieve harmonisation”.

“This decision demonstrates that we, as a host country, lack thoughtful understanding,” Lee Ju-hwa, a KMF representative, told Al Jazeera in a statement.

“Instead of claiming that the installation of a prayer room is preferential treatment given to a certain religion, we need to raise awareness that it was to consider others with different faith and beliefs,” he added.

KTO’s Director of PR Kim Yeong-ju said it was supposed to be a multi-faith prayer room.

However, the opposition group, the Pyeongchang Olympics Gangwon Citizens’ Islam Countermeasure Association, launched its protests specifically against Muslims who were coming for the Winter Olympics.

“If the room was for people of all religions, why would they have an ablution area,” the organisation’s secretary Seo said.

“From what I heard from Egyptians, there are exceptional cases when Muslims don’t pray, for example when they are on a plane or driving. So the same should be applied during the Games.

“The government has already spent too much of the taxpayers’ money on the Games, and we shouldn’t spend more building a prayer room.”

The organisation collected more than 56,000 signatures for an online petition that opposed the installation of the prayer room.

But for some Muslims families who are visiting South Korea for the Olympics, the decision to forgo the prayer room may set a dangerous precedent.

“While it would have been great to have a praying facility at the Games, the bigger worry for us is how this can set a precedent going forward,” one Muslim spectator, who asked not to be named, told Al Jazeera.

“We can offer our prayers in some corner or back at our hotel; I just hope the opposition realises what little it will achieve by not having a prayer room put up,” the visitor said.

Ten Rohingya Muslim men with their hands bound kneel as members of the Myanmar security forces stand guard in Inn Din village [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Two Reuters news agency journalists held for two months by Myanmar authorities were arrested over their investigation of a massacre of 10 Rohingya men, the news agency said in a report that detailed the killings.

It is the first time Reuters has publicly confirmed what Myanmar nationals Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were working on when they were arrested on December 12 on the outskirts of Yangon.

The pair are now facing up to 14 years in prison on charges of possessing classified documents in violation of the colonial-era Official Secrets Act.

Their plight has sparked global alarm over withering press freedoms in Myanmar and government efforts to curb reporting in northern Rakhine state – a crisis-hit region where troops are accused of waging an ethnic cleansing campaign against Muslim-majority Rohingya.

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled the area since last August, carrying stories of atrocities at the hands of troops and vigilante groups in the Buddhist-majority country.

Myanmar authorities deny the allegations but have virtually cut off northern Rakhine, barring independent media from accessing the conflict-hit areas.

On Thursday Reuters published a report describing how Myanmar troops and Buddhist villagers executed 10 Rohingya men in Rakhine’s Inn Dinn village on September 2, 2017 before dumping their bodies into a mass grave.

“The Reuters investigation of the Inn Din massacre was what prompted Myanmar police authorities to arrest two of the news agency’s reporters,” the report said.

The account was based on testimony from Buddhist villagers, security officers and relatives of the slain men.

It included graphic photographs of the victims, hands bound kneeling on the floor before the killing – and of their bodies in a pit after they were shot.

Their ages ranged from 17 to 45. Among them were students, fishermen, farmers and shop owners. They were all part of the same Rohingya community in Inn Din.

“When they were taking them away, they said ‘don’t worry. We will send your sons back soon. We are taking them for a meeting’,” the father of one victims, Abdu Shakur, said.

A month after the journalists’ arrests, Myanmar’s army issued a rare statement admitting that security forces took part in extrajudicial killings of 10 Rohingya “terrorists” in Inn Din village.

The Reuters report said witnesses denied there had been any major attack from Rohingya rebels before the alleged massacre.

A Myanmar government spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.

But Myanmar vehemently denies systematic abuses by its security officers, despite a mounting volume of evidence pointing to atrocities.

Judges have denied bail to the two reporters during a pre-trial hearing period, despite calls for their release from human rights groups and diplomats around the globe.