As some of you may know I was fired from the Myanmar Times this week after the presidential spokesman Zaw Htay named me personally on his face book page last Friday and accused me of bias in a report I wrote on alleged military rapes of Muslim women in northern Rakhine.
As would be expected given sensitivities in Myanmar, the posts generated a considerable amount of hate speech against myself and the paper.
The reason given for my sacking was that the rape allegations story and "several" other unidentified articles I had written breached company policy by damaging national reconciliation and the paper's reputation. (Courtesy of yangon.coconuts.co)
November 5, 2016
Myanmar freedom of speech under threat amid Rakhine violence: monitors
Human rights monitors have raised concerns about press freedom in Myanmar after a journalist at an English-language newspaper said she was fired following government criticism of her reporting of allegations of rape by soldiers.
Violence in the north of troubled Rakhine State, which began with deadly attacks on border police posts on Oct. 9, has sparked the biggest crisis of de facto Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi's seven months in power.
Troops poured into the region after the attacks, which the government says were carried out by minority Rohingya Muslims with links to militant Islamists overseas.
The military operation has sharpened the tension between Suu Kyi's civilian administration and the army, which ruled the country for decades and retains key powers, including control of ministries responsible for security. (Courtesy of reuters.com)
Violence in the north of troubled Rakhine State, which began with deadly attacks on border police posts on Oct. 9, has sparked the biggest crisis of de facto Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi's seven months in power.
Troops poured into the region after the attacks, which the government says were carried out by minority Rohingya Muslims with links to militant Islamists overseas.
The military operation has sharpened the tension between Suu Kyi's civilian administration and the army, which ruled the country for decades and retains key powers, including control of ministries responsible for security. (Courtesy of reuters.com)
October 31, 2016
Arakan govt to form new militia to police border
The Arakan State government says it will form a militia to bolster defenses along Burma’s border with Bangladesh in the wake of a series of deadly attacks earlier this month, according to Maungdaw Township’s new border police commander.
Police Brig-Gen Thura San Lwin, who was appointed to the position two week ago after his predecessor was sacked for failing to prevent the 9 October attacks that left nine border police dead, said the new “volunteer police force” would operate under the supervision of the border police.
Police are “working to train local young people to safeguard their own areas and villages and State Chief Minister [Nyi Pyu] also gave advice,” he said, adding that new recruits would be aged between 18 and 35 and have at least a primary-school education. (Courtesy of dvb.no)
Police Brig-Gen Thura San Lwin, who was appointed to the position two week ago after his predecessor was sacked for failing to prevent the 9 October attacks that left nine border police dead, said the new “volunteer police force” would operate under the supervision of the border police.
Police are “working to train local young people to safeguard their own areas and villages and State Chief Minister [Nyi Pyu] also gave advice,” he said, adding that new recruits would be aged between 18 and 35 and have at least a primary-school education. (Courtesy of dvb.no)
Myanmar's Suu Kyi under pressure as Rohingya crisis deepens
Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi faces mounting criticism for her government's handling of a crisis in Muslim-majority northern Rakhine State, where soldiers have blocked access for aid workers and are accused of raping and killing civilians.
The military operation has sharpened the tension between Suu Kyi's six-month-old civilian administration and the army, which ruled the country for decades and retains key powers, including control of ministries responsible for security.
Exposing the lack of oversight of the armed forces by the government, military commanders have ignored requests for information about alleged misconduct by soldiers for more than 10 days, according to a senior civilian official.
Troops moved into northern Rakhine, near the frontiecr with Bangladesh, after militants killed nine border police in coordinated attacks on Oct. 9. (Courtesy of reuters.com)
The military operation has sharpened the tension between Suu Kyi's six-month-old civilian administration and the army, which ruled the country for decades and retains key powers, including control of ministries responsible for security.
Exposing the lack of oversight of the armed forces by the government, military commanders have ignored requests for information about alleged misconduct by soldiers for more than 10 days, according to a senior civilian official.
Troops moved into northern Rakhine, near the frontiecr with Bangladesh, after militants killed nine border police in coordinated attacks on Oct. 9. (Courtesy of reuters.com)
October 30, 2016
Chilling silence surrounds Rohingya
For much of last week, the silence was disconcerting. After a series of coordinated attacks on border posts in western Myanmar's troubled Rakhine state left nine soldiers and police dead on Oct 9, a crackdown followed and the hunt for some 400 suspects turned bloody. The violence in the two weeks which followed left a further five officers dead, which is unforgivable, but the crackdown from authorities against the unrecognised Rohingya Muslim minority was more brutal: officially 33 accused insurgents were killed, including several suspects in custody, but given the secrecy there are fears the toll is much higher. (Courtesy of bangkokpost.com)
In Myanmar, Military Action Forces Some to Flee: ‘We Just Had to Run Away to Save Our Lives’
The owner of a small grocery store in western Myanmar, Ko Thu Ya fled his home nearly three weeks ago with his family and has been on the run ever since.
Mr. Thu Ya, 25, is from Maungdaw Township, a coastal town on the Bangladesh border, where military action has left scores of people dead and forced thousands of people from their homes, rights groups have said. Most of the victims, like Mr. Thu Ya, are members of the Rohingya ethnic group.
The Myanmar government has described the action by the army and the border police as a counterinsurgency response to an attack this month on a nearby border post that killed nine police officers.
Rights groups in the region say they have received reports that soldiers and police officers have shot unarmed people, raped women, looted shops and burned homes. Local officials deny those reports. (Courtesy of nytimes.com)
Mr. Thu Ya, 25, is from Maungdaw Township, a coastal town on the Bangladesh border, where military action has left scores of people dead and forced thousands of people from their homes, rights groups have said. Most of the victims, like Mr. Thu Ya, are members of the Rohingya ethnic group.
The Myanmar government has described the action by the army and the border police as a counterinsurgency response to an attack this month on a nearby border post that killed nine police officers.
Rights groups in the region say they have received reports that soldiers and police officers have shot unarmed people, raped women, looted shops and burned homes. Local officials deny those reports. (Courtesy of nytimes.com)
October 29, 2016
Suu Kyi must stop Arakan ethnic cleansing
MYANMAR’S government said that the October 9 raids were conducted by the Aqamul Mujahidin organisation, which it described as being affiliated with an extremist group. On the other hand, a previously unknown group — Faith Movement — released a press statement on October 15 in which it claimed itself as the sons of Arakan soil who were compelled by the dire situation that they faced to make their own destiny through uprising, self-determination in self-defence. ‘We stand as an independent body which is free from all elements of terror in any nature’, the press release stated ‘that seeks fundamental but legitimate rights and justice for all ARAKANESE including our innocent Rohingyas and OTHER civilians dying from the continuous military assaults.’
An outcome like this was only waiting to happen given that history has repeatedly shown that such prolonged encampment in IDP concentration camps creates a sense of ultimate abandonment by the state, pushing even the most moderates to take violent means to redress their plight. The initial attacks, in which three border police outposts were overrun by hundreds of people, most only lightly armed, showed a degree of sophistication not seen before in violence involving the Rohingya, but did not suggest the group was especially well-funded or armed, diplomats said. (Courtesy of newagebd.net)
An outcome like this was only waiting to happen given that history has repeatedly shown that such prolonged encampment in IDP concentration camps creates a sense of ultimate abandonment by the state, pushing even the most moderates to take violent means to redress their plight. The initial attacks, in which three border police outposts were overrun by hundreds of people, most only lightly armed, showed a degree of sophistication not seen before in violence involving the Rohingya, but did not suggest the group was especially well-funded or armed, diplomats said. (Courtesy of newagebd.net)
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