The Burmese military government has refused to renew the registration of three ethnic cultural groups, effectively closing them down.

Ethnic cultural groups have to renew their registration annually with the Ministry of Home Affairs, but three organizations representing Mon, Karen and Shan communities say the authorities have refused to accept their applications, giving no reason for the action.

Nai ong Ma-Nge, a spokesman of the New Mon State Party, told The Irrawaddy on Friday: “They [the military regime] didn’t announce officially the closure of our cultural organizations, but they stopped the renewal of registrations. So it means they closed the organizations down.”

Kyaw Win, a committee member of the Karen Literature and Culture Committee, told The Irrawaddy the authorities had also refused to reregister his organization. The Shan Literature and Culture Committee reported that it, too, had had its application blocked.

“We will not allow this action, and we will try to get pour registration back,” Kyaw Win said, “Our culture will live as long as there are Karen people.”

Nai ong Ma-Nge said the authorities had recently changed the name of the Mon Culture Museum in Moulmein, capital of Mon State, to the Archaeology and Culture Museum, dropping the word “Mon.”

The so-called Brahminy Duck, a traditional Mon symbol, had also been removed from a large symbolic alms bowl that stands at an entrance to Moulmein, Nai ong Ma-Nge said.

The Mon people felt injured by the authorities’ action, he said. “They should not restrain and destroy our culture while restoring national reconciliation and building ethnic unity.”