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pillars beneath an excessively heavy roof, but the trustee feared that a formal application would create
further problems over the mosque's land and ownership. The community carried out the urgent work
discreetly while watching for police and municipal officials. Other interviewees described leaking
roofs, weakened pillars, deteriorating brickwork, and other repairs that could not be completed
through a clear and predictable process.
After the earthquake, the Myanmar military junta continued to restrict the demolition, repair, and
reconstruction of damaged mosques. BHRN documented communities waiting for permission to
demolish unsafe structures, clear damaged sites, repair buildings, or rebuild destroyed mosques. In
Bone Oh Village, none of the damaged mosques had received demolition permission three months
after the earthquake . By September 2026, some applications had advanced, but many remained
unresolved. One Mandalay trustee said that more than 70 mosques had submitted applications, while
only four had received repair permission and Panthay Mosque was the only mosque he knew to have
received permission to rebuild from scratch. In Bago Region, a mosque received a demolition order
two months after the earthquake but later obtained a construction permit. Some communities were
still using temporary prayer spaces more than a year after the earthquake.
BHRN found no clear, uniform legal framework governing mosque repair and reconstruction. Instead,
communities described a system shaped by differing local requirements, official discretion, and
informal practices. Lawyers, mosque trustees, and construction professionals said applications could
pass through religious-affairs offices, municipal departments, land offices, the General
Administration Department, and other junta-controlled offices, with requirements varying by
location. One trustee who obtained approval said personal relationships and local influence were
important and that mosques without such connections faced considerable difficulties. BHRN also
documented allegations of payments connected to mosque repair and construction, although the
available evidence did not establish whether every payment was an official fee or an unofficial
payment.
Land and documentation requirements created further barriers. Some longstanding mosque
compounds lack the ownership or land-registration documents demanded during permit processes
because they pre-date current registration systems. BHRN found that recognised religious-land status
did not guarantee reconstruction permission, while communities without that status could be
required to obtain land documents before a building application would be considered. The
requirements varied between locations, leaving Muslim communities without a consistent route to
repair or rebuild their places of worship.
The restrictions documented in this report interfere with the right to freedom of religion or belief,
including the ability of Muslim communities to establish, maintain, and use places of worship.
Restrictions imposed because a site is Muslim, or applied more restrictively to Muslim places of
worship than to comparable religious sites without objective and reasonable justification, constitute
religious discrimination. The earthquake triggered the collapses, but BHRN documented how
discriminatory restrictions prevented or deterred some Muslim communities from addressing known
structural risks before the disaster and delayed work needed to make damaged sites safe afterward.
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