February 7, 2016

Radical Buddhist Firebrand Ba Ma Tha Monks Anti Muslim Campaign Growing Stronger in Myanmar

A sordid video from 2012, in Myanmar displays the brutal murder of a woman at the hands of Muslim assailants. The attackers raped the woman as well.

ABC News reports that her death served a catalyst, of sorts, regarding the growing hostility between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar. For the most part, the relationship between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims are globally overlooked in the Southeast Asian nation as tensions continue to rise.

The video received thousands of views until Facebook effectively blocked it on Feb. 1. However the video still ignited widespread violence between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims in the Southeast Asian nation. (Courtesy of inquisitr.com)

Malaysian Authorities Crackdown on Refugees at UNHCR Office

Malaysian Police, Immigration and other enforcement authorities have been jointly conducting operations against illegal migrants at many places in the country for a few days now.

The joint authorities also launched crackdowns on the refugees queuing up before UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) Office in Kuala Lumpur and subsequently arrested many of them respectively on February 4 and 5, which left many in shock. Among the Refugees arrested, most of them were from Myanmar including Rohingya and Chin Refugees.

“They nabbed everyone lined up to enter UNHCR Office. After verification, the Refugees with UNHCR Cards were released. Those without UNHCR Cards, with Asylum Seeking Documents and expired UNHCR cards (and went to the office for renewing cards) were arrested.

They also demanded UNHCR authorities to hand over the Refugees waiting within the office premise for different refugee issues. However, UNHCR didn’t do that. (Courtesy of Rohingya Vision TV)

NLD appoints Shwe Mann to head legal advisory panel

Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party has nominated Mr Shwe Mann, one of the country's most powerful politicians, to head a prominent legal advisory panel, as the freshly elected Parliament prepares to choose a new president.

Mr Shwe Mann, the No. 3 in the junta that ran Myanmar for half a century before giving way to a semi-civilian government in 2011, grew closer to Ms Suu Kyi in the legislature's last term, becoming a key adviser after her massive election win in November.

The election, in which Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won 80 per cent of the elected seats, kicked off a lengthy transition that will end on April 1, when the new government officially begins its term. (Courtesy of Straits Times)

In the Shadow of the Rohingyas of Myanmar

In June of 2015, though the global media was riveted to the sight of Syrian refugees crossing by boat into Europe, for a few days its attention shifted to a solitary boat adrift in the Andaman Sea. Its deck too was packed with refugees, members of the Rohingya community attempting to escape Myanmar and find asylum anywhere else in South East Asia.

For a few days, the world was aware of a different kind of stranded people – not ones escaping the country of their citizenship, but ones who have been denied the citizenship of any country. The stateless are treated as illegal aliens in the places they live, but refused passports or papers that allow them to leave (so they rarely do). The most basic documents of modern life, like marriage certificates and drivers licences, are kept beyond their reach.

It’s a global tragedy, Greg Constantine writes in the foreword to Nowhere People, his book of photographs of stateless communities across the world. Statelessness can have many origins – shifting borders, changing laws, the collapse and creation of states – but in every case, ethnic difference “leads governments and people in power to use citizenship as a weapon to disenfranchise those who they feel threaten their political, ethnic or personal interests.” (Courtesy of The Wire)

Myanmar’s military and its proxy armies

Karl Marx’s celebrated reflection over the twists of 19th century French politics had it that history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce.

Had he had the chance to consider recent events in Myanmar he might have been surprised to learn that sometimes history repeats itself as both forms of drama at the same time.

The latest act in the long-running tragedy of Myanmar’s ethnic conflict features the intervention of a major armed group, which only last October committed to a so-called Nation-wide Cease-fire Agreement (NCA), in what’s looking remarkably like a new war. Only now the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) is not fighting the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, but rather alongside it against another ethnic faction which declined to join the NCA. (Courtesy of Bangkok Post: Opinion)

Myanmar’s parliament opens next Monday

Myanmar’s newly-elected Union Parliament made up of House of Representatives (Lower House) and House of Nationalities (Upper House) is due to begin its first session in Nay Pyi Taw next Monday, a week after the two houses began, parliament sources confirmed Friday.
Sessions of regional or state parliament will be held separately in 14 respective regions or states on the same day.

During the session, the Union Parliament will also set the announcement date of presidential nomination list to elect the country’s president and vice presidents.

The new parliaments started their first sessions with electing the speakers and deputy speakers of the House of Representatives and the House of Nationalities. (Courtesy of The Manila Times Online)

Myanmar: Lawsuit to be filed over Suu Kyi death threat

Myanmar’s election-winning National League for Democracy (NLD) party revealed Saturday its plans to file a lawsuit against a pro-military man who threatened online to assassinate its leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

A Facebook comment posted under the name of Ye Lwin Myint this week warned that if a constitutional article barring Suu Kyi from the presidency were suspended, “I’ll just need an AWM [a sniper rifle] or an AS 50 gun and a month of training”.

“I will surely kill her. I am serious,” the poster said.

He also revealed that he was planning to launch a Facebook group called “Those dying to assassinate Daw Suu,” using a local honorific that means “aunt”, and that he had been sleeping with a rifle since age 10.

The post included a photo of two men posing with assault rifles, one said to be Ye Lwin Myint. (Courtesy of aa.com.tr)