Despite the U.S.-led rolling back of economic sanctions and internationally backed national elections taking place early next month, more than a million people in Burma are facing state-sponsored genocide, according to a new report.
The Rohingya Muslim community of the military-dominated Southeast Asian nation, which is now officially known as Myanmar, has been systematically persecuted and expunged from the national narrative — often at the behest of powerful extremist groups from the country’s majority Buddhist population and even government authorities — to the point where complete extermination is a possibility, according to a damning new study by the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) at the Queen Mary University of London.
“The Rohingya face the final stages of genocide,” concludes the report. (Courtesy of time.com)
October 28, 2015
August 13, 2015
Bangladesh plans census for thousands of Rohingya who have fled persecution in Myanma
Bangladesh is to hold a census of hundreds of thousands of undocumented Rohingya who have crossed into the country seeking refuge from persecution in neighbouring Myanmar.
Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque said the government had earmarked US$2.7 million for the census to be carried out in Bangladesh’s southeast, near the border with Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
Official estimates have put the number of undocumented Rohingya in Bangladesh at between 200,000 and 500,000, in addition to around 32,000 registered Rohingya refugees living in two UN-managed camps.
“The procedure (census) will commence any time during the second half of this year,” Haque said after briefing diplomats about the move.
The mainly Muslim Rohingya minority started crossing into Bangladesh in the early 1990s from Myanmar. (Courtesy of South China Morning Post)
Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque said the government had earmarked US$2.7 million for the census to be carried out in Bangladesh’s southeast, near the border with Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
Official estimates have put the number of undocumented Rohingya in Bangladesh at between 200,000 and 500,000, in addition to around 32,000 registered Rohingya refugees living in two UN-managed camps.
“The procedure (census) will commence any time during the second half of this year,” Haque said after briefing diplomats about the move.
The mainly Muslim Rohingya minority started crossing into Bangladesh in the early 1990s from Myanmar. (Courtesy of South China Morning Post)
May 26, 2015
In Myanmar, Muslims Arrested for Joining Terror Group That Doesn’t Exist
The government of Myanmar, cracking down on the country’s minority Muslims, has arrested at least a dozen people on charges of belonging to a terrorist group that defense lawyers and security experts say does not exist.
The administration of President Thein Sein has refused to disclose any evidence that the “Myanmar Muslim Army” is real — raising the prospect that the government invented an Islamic terrorist threat to justify a new front in its longtime persecution of Muslims. The exact number of people arrested is unclear, but The Intercept has obtained documents and conducted interviews in Myanmar about three cases — one of them involves 12 people accused of having links to the alleged group, the second involves five people accused of plotting to plant bombs in several unspecified places in the country, and the third is against a man accused of funding the group. All of them were arrested between September and November.
“The accused have received training in Myanmar Muslim Army camps, which has been launched and is operating illegally,” reads one of the court documents obtained by The Intercept. (Courtesy of theintercept.com)
The administration of President Thein Sein has refused to disclose any evidence that the “Myanmar Muslim Army” is real — raising the prospect that the government invented an Islamic terrorist threat to justify a new front in its longtime persecution of Muslims. The exact number of people arrested is unclear, but The Intercept has obtained documents and conducted interviews in Myanmar about three cases — one of them involves 12 people accused of having links to the alleged group, the second involves five people accused of plotting to plant bombs in several unspecified places in the country, and the third is against a man accused of funding the group. All of them were arrested between September and November.
“The accused have received training in Myanmar Muslim Army camps, which has been launched and is operating illegally,” reads one of the court documents obtained by The Intercept. (Courtesy of theintercept.com)
November 8, 2014
The threat to Burma’s minorities
Burma’s Rohingya people are being slowly squeezed from their homeland by decades-long government policies that critics say deny them citizenship, health care, work, and schooling, with such tactics punctuated by killings, destroyed homes, and tens of thousands sent to camps.
That was the picture painted by Harvard scholars and Burmese activists who gathered in Cambridge to discuss what they described as the slow genocide of Burma’s Rohingya, a Muslim minority in the Buddhist-majority country that has endured a wide array of abuse at the hands of the former military government.
Though the international community has welcomed steps toward Burmese democracy in recent years, the situation for the Rohingya has improved little, speakers said Tuesday. The Rohingya, who have a long history in Burma, which is also known as Myanmar, remain a stateless people, denied citizenship and subject not just to official oppression, but also to violence from the local Rakhine people, as evidenced by the 2012 riots that displaced 90,000 inhabitants. (Courtesy of news.harvard.edu)
That was the picture painted by Harvard scholars and Burmese activists who gathered in Cambridge to discuss what they described as the slow genocide of Burma’s Rohingya, a Muslim minority in the Buddhist-majority country that has endured a wide array of abuse at the hands of the former military government.
Though the international community has welcomed steps toward Burmese democracy in recent years, the situation for the Rohingya has improved little, speakers said Tuesday. The Rohingya, who have a long history in Burma, which is also known as Myanmar, remain a stateless people, denied citizenship and subject not just to official oppression, but also to violence from the local Rakhine people, as evidenced by the 2012 riots that displaced 90,000 inhabitants. (Courtesy of news.harvard.edu)
November 5, 2014
Myanmar Policy’s Message to Muslims: Get Out
The Myanmar government has given the estimated one million Rohingya people in this coastal region of the country a dispiriting choice: Prove your family has lived here for more than 60 years and qualify for second-class citizenship, or be placed in camps and face deportation.
The policy, accompanied by a wave of decrees and legislation, has made life for the Rohingya, a long-persecuted Muslim minority, ever more desperate, spurring the biggest flow of Rohingya refugees since a major exodus two years ago.
In the last three weeks alone, 14,500 Rohingya have sailed from the beaches of Rakhine State to Thailand, with the ultimate goal of reaching Malaysia, according to the Arakan Project, a group that monitors Rohingya refugees. (Courtesy of nytimes.com)
The policy, accompanied by a wave of decrees and legislation, has made life for the Rohingya, a long-persecuted Muslim minority, ever more desperate, spurring the biggest flow of Rohingya refugees since a major exodus two years ago.
In the last three weeks alone, 14,500 Rohingya have sailed from the beaches of Rakhine State to Thailand, with the ultimate goal of reaching Malaysia, according to the Arakan Project, a group that monitors Rohingya refugees. (Courtesy of nytimes.com)
November 4, 2013
Aung San Suu Kyi and the world of Buddhist Islamophobia
Aung San Suu Kyi, one of the contemporary world's most celebrated icons of human rights, non-violence and reconciliation, crossed the line into Myanmar's world of "Buddhist" Islamophobia. Disturbingly, on BBC Radio Four's flagship programme, "Today", she characterised the waves of organised violence and Nazi-like hate campaigns currently being committed by her fellow Buddhists - the lay public and clergy alike - as violence of two equal sides, claiming that Burmese Buddhists live in the perceived fear of the rise of great Muslim power worldwide.
As a revered dissident, Aung San Suu Kyi's idea of 'freedom from fear' inspired millions both in Myanmar and world-wide. I think she herself has succumbed to a different type of fear, namely Islamophobia.
Far from recent waves of violence being horizontal communal violence, the truth is that the country's Rohingya Muslims - numbering 1.3 million out of the country's 60 million people - have been the subject of a slowly unfolding genocide. This is the conclusion I have drawn from a three-year study that I have just completed with a researcher colleague at the London-based Equal Rights Trust. (Courtesy of Aljazeera)
As a revered dissident, Aung San Suu Kyi's idea of 'freedom from fear' inspired millions both in Myanmar and world-wide. I think she herself has succumbed to a different type of fear, namely Islamophobia.
Far from recent waves of violence being horizontal communal violence, the truth is that the country's Rohingya Muslims - numbering 1.3 million out of the country's 60 million people - have been the subject of a slowly unfolding genocide. This is the conclusion I have drawn from a three-year study that I have just completed with a researcher colleague at the London-based Equal Rights Trust. (Courtesy of Aljazeera)
June 15, 2012
Burmese police taking sides, abusing powers: UN
The United Nation's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Burma, Tomas Quintana says he has received information that police forces are not following orders, in the conflict zone in Arakan state.
Human rights groups say the Burmese authorities are doing little to quell the sectarian violence that's gripped the country's West.
At least 29 people have been killed and more than 30,000 displaced by clashes between Buddhists and ethnic Rohingya Muslims. (Courtesy of radioaustralia.net.au)
Human rights groups say the Burmese authorities are doing little to quell the sectarian violence that's gripped the country's West.
At least 29 people have been killed and more than 30,000 displaced by clashes between Buddhists and ethnic Rohingya Muslims. (Courtesy of radioaustralia.net.au)
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