KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 — Myanmar could turn into a "breeding ground” for terrorism due to the humanitarian crisis involving Muslims there, a Burmese rights activist told a forum here today.

Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN) executive director U Kyaw Win said if disenfranchised Muslims in Myanmar sign up for terrorist groups, it could undo all the work that the international community has put in to advocate for their plight.

Speaking at a discussion following the release of a BHRN report on persecution of Muslims in Burma, he said that the issue surrounding Muslims in Myanmar should be seen as a humanitarian issue.

"See this is a humanitarian issue, not a religious issues,” he said while presenting his report at the Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies here.

He said that if Muslims there join terror groups, they would only validate the Myanmar military’s attempts to drive the community out of the country.

"The moment (those affected) sign up (with terror groups), they undo all the good work of the international community,” he said.

Myanmar has been embroiled in a crisis involving the Rohingya Muslim community since 2012, with allegations that the Buddhist-Muslim clashes in the Rakhine state and military operation against the Rohingyas having led to hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingyas either missing or displaced.

Malaysia has labelled the actions of the Myanmar military as "genocide”, but Kyaw Win has said that the Rohingyas are not the only Muslim community persecuted in Myanmar.

While the violence is mostly being reported in Rakhine, there is also denial of citizenship, sealing of mosques, and economic boycotts that has deeply affected Muslim communities in Central Burma and also the state of Karen, he said.