Authorities ban food shopping for Rohingyas in Aung Mingalar, Sittwe-Arakan

Source RB news, 29 July

Policemen stop civilians at one of the road blocks that surround Aung Mingalar, Sittwe's last Muslim quarter that is home to 6,500 people. (Photo: Jpaing/The Irrawaddy)

Sittwe, Arakan - In Aung Mingalar quarter in Sittwe, the capital of Arakan state. Rohingya residents are facing a food crisis. This has been ongoing over the past two weeks as the commandant of the no. 12 police battalion banned food shopping.

After the violence broke out in Sittwe in June of last year, Rohingyas have been prohibited to leave Aung Mingalar. The movement restriction that was imposed, saw a selected few that were allowed to leave the blocked village twice a week to shop for food. Normally, security forces escort the Rohingyas from Aung Mingalar to the market nearby The-Chaung. 

Now the commandant of the police battalion says that they can no longer escort the Rohingya. He says that they are unable to protect them against the attacks of the Youth Monks Union in Sittwe. According to residents, it has been two weeks since they have been able to buy food.

"The security forces escort us twice a week. We had to go Sunday and Wednesday. We had to leave at 4 am and needed to return at 6 am. As we can't go to the main market in Sittwe, some of the shop keepers come down to nearby The-Chaung. So we can buy the stuffs there. Now it has been two weeks we can't go any more as the authority banned us going for shopping. We are facing serious crisis for the foods." a Rohingya resident of Aung Mingalar told RB News.

"We needed to pay from 120,000 Kyat to 150,000 Kyat per week to the commandant of police battalion and other ordinary police. We needed pay all the staff just to escort us." he continued.

Another a Rohingya said "The president said he will tack action whoever creating the problem in the country. But now this Youth Monks Union of Sittwe is barring us from shopping the food stuffs and the police are unable to control them. So whatever told by the president is just talking. We will be in big trouble by starving if this continues."

undefined Rakhine police raid camps for laptops

Source mmtimes, 26 July

Muslims living in camps for displaced people near the Rakhine capital Sittwe say police have been conducting regular nighttime raids to confiscate laptops and smartphones.

The move appears to be designed to isolate IDPs and stop them communicating with foreign individuals and groups. Sittwe's Rohingya Muslims, who are referred to in Myanmar as Bengalis, are largely restricted to the camps and a few sections of the city and the internet is their only means of connecting with the outside world.

A Rakhine State government spokesman has denied the allegations, calling them fabricated.

But one IDP from a camp near Thatkepyin village, who asked not to be named, said police have been arriving several times a week since early June to search camps for laptops and other internet-enabled devices.

He said the visits usually involve harsh interrogation, with police even sometimes beating people in the camp for information. During the visits, the police regularly accuse people of using the internet to spread "wrong information".

"The are trying to stop us from communicating with foreigners," said the man, who was a university student before the violence broke out.

He said he uses the internet to keep in touch with his brother in Europe and communicate with sympathetic groups in Malaysia. 

"Rohingya people want to share their suffering with the world and share information," the man said.

U Aung Win, a Rohingya activist in hiding in the Sittwe area, estimated that more than 80 people found with computers or smart phones have been arrested on "false charges" in Sittwe in the past month. Other sources based in the area made similar estimates. 

"I also use a laptop secretly, everybody uses a laptop secretly ... in every IDP camp it's the same thing," he said.

Many of the IDP camps in Rakhine State lack basic amenities, such as running water and electricity, and residents are forced to be resourceful to recharge their electronic devices. Sources in the camps say that several groups have worked together to buy 15-watt solar panels, at K15,000 a unit, that can be used to charge their devices. 

U Win Myaing, a spokesperson for the Rakhine State government, denied that the raids were taking place and said he had never heard reports of police harassing IDPs. He said that U Aung Win and the other IDPs were being paid to spread disinformation.

He said the websites that post their information are "biased" against the Rakhine ethnic group. "No one ever talks about all the good things [the state government] does for the Muslim people," he said.

Myanmar frees 73 political prisoners - governement committee member

Note: No Rohingya or (muslim) included in this pardon
Source Reuters, 23 July

(Reuters) - Myanmar's government is releasing another 73 political prisoners and more could be freed in coming months to honour a commitment made by the president during a recent trip to Europe, a member of a government body looking into the process said on Tuesday.

President Thein Sein, a former general now heading a quasi-civilian government, has pushed through a series of political and economic reforms since a military government stepped aside in 2011.

He has freed hundreds of political detainees and promised in a speech in Britain last week to free all those still in prison by the end of this year.

"A total of 73 political prisoners are being released from various detention centres today," Hla Maung Shwe, a member of the Committee to Scrutinise Remaining Political Prisoners, told Reuters.

"The total number of remaining political prisoners has now dropped to lower than 100 for the first time in many years."

The government, embassies and other groups have different figures for the number of political detainees.

The military junta, and even Thein Sein's government in the past, rejected the term, but he set up the committee to examine the issue and decide which prisoners were inside for criminal acts and those there for political reasons.

The 19-member committee comprises 10 former political prisoners, six people appointed by the government and three mediators, including Hla Maung Shwe.

"The committee meets once a month and we expect the remaining political prisoners will be freed by the end of this year as the president said during his recent visit to Europe," Hla Maung Shwe added.

An official at the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, a pro-democracy activist group, confirmed the release of several dozen political prisoners, but said the group was still collecting names.

(Editing by Alan Raybould and Ron Popeski)

Myanmar detains Rohingya community leader

Source ucanews, 16 July

A prominent Rohingya lawyer and community leader in western Myanmar was arrested yesterday on suspicion of provoking public unrest in the region, which has been hit by several waves of violence between Buddhist and Muslim communities over the past year.

Police in the Rakhine state capital of Sittwe confirmed the arrest of Kyaw Hla Aung on Monday afternoon at a Rohingya refugee camp outside the town.

Police officer Maung Maung Than said today that an interrogation is underway but did not explain the details of the allegations.

Kyaw Hla Aung, 73, worked as the administrator for the Netherlands-based AZG International NGO'sRakhine branch until the deadly clashes between majority Buddhist Rakhine and miniority Rohingyabroke out in the middle of last year.

This is the second time he has been detained, having been arrested in the immediate aftermath of the June violence, also on charges of inciting public unrest, but later released.

Shwe Maung, a Rohingya MP from the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, said this arrest followed that of Kyaw Hla Aung, also a Rohingya community leader at the Thekalbyin refugee camp, who was detained on the same charges.

He said it was apparently related to a controversial family registration process administered by the local immigration and police forces.

Some scuffles had broken out in April between the authorities and the Rohingya refugees who refused to be identified as "Bengalis" in the registration forms, Shwe Maung said. The Rohingya community believes the term suggests they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, an excuse the government uses to deny them citizenship.  

"Kyaw Myint was not involved in any confrontation with the police. He was talking with an immigration officer when the incident broke out. He was totally innocent," he said. "I think the latest arrest of Kyaw Hla Aung is a similar case."

Kyaw Hla Aung's arrest came on the same day that President Thein Sein pledged to release all political prisoners by the end of the year. Thein Sein is currently in the UK, where he held talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

The Myanmar government has been known in the past to use trumped up charges to detain opposition activists.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in New York last week expressed concern over the plight of the Rohingya and called on the Myanmar government to consider granting them citizenship.

Rohingya: The Obligation of Refuge

Source Huffingtonpost, 19 July

José Ramos-Horta

Former President, East Timor, 1996 Nobel Peace Prize laureate

News reached me today that Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar had reached the waters of my country, Timor-Leste (East Timor), and had been turned away.

As soon as I heard, I sought clarification from Timor-Leste's Foreign Affairs Minister, Jose Luis Guterres -- a good, caring human being. We spoke briefly this morning, in Maputo, Mozambique, where we were both attending a Ministerial Meeting of the Portuguese-Speaking Countries. I was attending as the UN Special Envoy for Guinea-Bissau to brief the ministers on developments in Guinea-Bissau.

According to Foreign Minister Guterres, the refugees had not wanted to stay in Timor. Their destination, he said, was Australia.

"Timor-Leste maritime police helped them fix their engine as per their request," he said. "And the refugees asked to be allowed to continue their journey to Australia. The maritime police escorted them to international waters and let them go."

Was this the correct approach? Is it politically and morally defensible? I do not comment.

In 2001 and 2002 when Foreign Minister of Timor-Leste, I was confronted with similar situations of boat people seeking shelter in our country. I argued strongly then and prevailed over some strong objections in letting asylum seekers disembarking in Timor-Leste. In the first instance, at the end of August 2001, hundreds of refugees on a boat who became known as the "Tampa boat people" were stranded in the Timor Sea attempting to travel to Australia. Australia refused to let them in. I advocated for them and consulted with my compatriots, Xanana Gusmao, Mari Alkatiri and Bishop Belo, and we unanimously agreed that Timor-Leste would welcome them as a temporary measure. However, as poor Timor-Leste showed greater compassion than rich Australia, there was such widespread outrage at Australia's attitude that Australia relented and let them into an Australian off-shore island. So the refugees never had to disembark in our poor country.

In 2002, newly independent Timor-Leste faced its first test in how to manage a humanitarian refugee crisis. A boat full of Sri Lankan refugees, all from the majority Singhalese ethnic group, had approached our shores seeking water and shelter as they wished to continue their journey to New Zealand, a very long and perilous journey. Key Ministers in the Government argued against allowing the refugees on shore. I forcefully argued for. In the end I prevailed; the Prime Minister sided with me in my altercation with the other Ministers involved in the decision making dispute.

As it turned out they were economic refugees, not political refugees. They were brought on shore, interviewed and told their story, how they were duped by unscrupulous smugglers whom they paid each $2,000 to sail them to New Zealand. The boat carried some 50 people when in fact it could fit a maximum of 20. It would have sunk in the perilous seas to the South. They stayed in Timor-Leste for a month, were well treated, fed, allowed to visit the city, while we negotiated with the Sri Lankan authorities for their voluntary return home. They all returned home.

A few years ago, while President of Timor-Leste and on a visit to our own Atauro Island, I addressed a small crowd and the island's tiny police force in the Island. I was asked a question by a local concerning many undocumented Indonesian citizens from isolated neighboring Indonesian islands seeking medical help in Atauro.

I responded that as Head of State, and particularly addressing the police present, that "Anyone reaching our shores seeking shelter, food, water, medical care, whoever they are, wherever they may come from, we welcome them, shelter them from persecution or fear, provide them water, food, medical care. Ask questions later, where they are coming from, where they might wish to go.

"If they have nowhere else to go, if they are unwanted in rich Australia, we share with them our homes, for they are people like us, poor, homeless, persecuted. Timor-Leste must never turned its back on people fleeing hunger and wars. We too were refugees once, we fled our country, we fled poverty and persecution and we were sheltered by kind, caring people, who taught us about solidarity, about humanity."

In the case of the unwanted and persecuted Rohingya refugees, I would have acted differently. As poor as Timor-Leste may be, we are no longer as poor as in 2002. In the last five years or so we have been in the fortunate position ourselves of offering aid to people in other countries affected by natural disasters, well over US$10 million. Surely, we can share our bamboo roof, a loaf of bread, a plate of rice, cassava, some coconut water with our fellow brothers and sisters from Myanmar.

I am saddened. Were I in Timor-Leste I would have pleaded with the Government to let the refugees in under my personal responsibility. I would have invited them to camp in my small family compound. I would sign off terms of responsibility to care for them. In 2006 during our own political-security crisis, when our people were displaced and fled the city, I hosted hundreds of unknown people, children and adults, men and women, in my compound. They stayed in the relative safety of my home for weeks.

Today, far away from home, I plead with President Taur Matan Ruak and Prime Minister Xanana to let these unwanted, persecuted people stay in our country. And I am ready 

Myanmar kills Muslims and that’s just fine!

Source Presstv, 15 July

 

Centuries ago, groups of Muslims from Iran, India and some Arab nations settled down in a region that's now part of Myanmar. To date, Rohingya Muslims, as they are called, have endured tremendous pain and suffering. Tens of thousands of them have been killed and many more displaced in the last century alone at the hands of local Buddhists, British colonial forces and the invading Japanese army--all seeking to eliminate a people described by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

The plight of the Rohingya Muslims came into the spotlight a few months ago thanks to citizen journalism and social networking websites. Activists have tried to shed light on what has come to be known as communal unrest in Myanmar's western Rakhine state whose main victims are "stateless" Muslims. They also revealed--in the absence of mainstream media coverage--that Yangon's plainclothes generals have given the "peace-loving" monks the green light to kill hundreds of defenseless Muslims, many of them women and children, in the past few months.

Myanmar's Muslim community has long suffered as the result of systematic discrimination by the central government. Muslims there, at best, are not allowed to purchase land, do business freely and enjoy education opportunities. International human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as well as UNHCR have repeatedly called for protecting the Rohingya people's rights.

A very alarming joint statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Tomas Ojea Quintana and independent experts on minority issues says, "This situation must not become an opportunity to permanently remove an unwelcome community."

The UN investigator and experts fear Myanmar is seeking to get rid of nearly one million of its population. However, the US, Britain, France and other Western governments that claim to be the world's flag-bearers of democracy and human rights have chosen to take Yangon's side by remaining silent.

But why has Myanmar decided to settle its centuries-old scores with Muslims at this point in time? The answer could be that world media attention is currently focused on Syria. Therefore, even media outlets run by Western-backed Arab monarchies are so busy propagating in favor of anti-government insurgents in Syria that they will find little airtime to cover the worsening situation of Muslims in Myanmar. 

Aljazeera and Al-Arabia, for instance, prefer to use the funds provided by their dictatorial regimes to fan the flames of violence in Syria rather than working to put out the fire in Myanmar.

There are a number of major violators of human rights in the world that enjoy a high level of impunity. One can easily find instances of gross human rights abuses in the US, Israel, Canada, Britain, France, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, etc., that are never investigated by international rights bodies and the United Nations. And now, the club has a previously-unwelcome addition; the civilian-looking military regime in Myanmar.

Yangon is being rewarded for its recent attempts to reach out to the West. This is the same regime that the US and its allies condemned for decades for its brutal crackdown on dissent. The house arrest of Myanmar's so-called democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi made TV and newspaper headlines across the world for a long time. But the deadly discrimination against a million people in Myanmar's western region never got as much attention. And now that Suu Kyi has been set 'free'and even joined the 'former' junta's political project, she still refuses to defend the Rohingya Muslims' rights. Ironically enough, she is a Nobel Peace prizewinner.

It's just a matter of time before Myanmar's Muslims start proving to the whole world that their threshold of pain is not as high as the international community thinks. They have already been extraordinarily patient. And while they may know that taking up arms to defend their families against Myanmar's repressive regime and its killer monks could put them on the West's terror lists, they know it well, too, that they must defend their human dignity at any cost. They have already paid too high a price for their failure to stand up to the oppressor and maybe that's why they have had to suffer for so long.

The government of Myanmar has already won US approval to join the Pentagon's war games in neighboring Thailand and is seeking to win more hearts in Western capitals through its new envoy, Aung San Suu Kyi. However, it seems like the 'retired' generals in Yangon do not read the news and still think that Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Tunisia's Ben Ali, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi who polished Western shoes for decades are still doing the same.

HRE/HGH

Hamid Reza Emadi is a Tehran-based journalist and political commentator. He worked as a newspaper journalist for ten years before joining broadcast media in 2006. He has appeared in numerous TV programs talking about media freedoms, US-sponsored sanctions against the Iranian nation, Iran's nuclear file and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. More articles by Hamid Reza Emadi

Rohingyas' Legal Rights to live as Dignified Human-Bein​gs in Burma

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Burma: UK’s Cameron Should Press President on Rights

Source hrw, 13 July,

Demand Accountability for Crimes Against Humanity, Release of Political Prisoners

 

Prime Minister Cameron should not miss an important opportunity to press Burma's president on justice for crimes against humanity committed against the country's Muslims, the release of remaining political prisoners, or an end to repressive laws. Recent improvements in Burma will continue only as long as world leaders keep up the pressure to bring an end to the many human rights abuses still occurring in the country.

David Mepham, UK director

(London) – Britain's Prime Minster David Cameron should urge visiting Burmese President Thein Sein to bring those responsible for atrocities against Burma's Muslims to justice, release all political prisoners, and ensure that new legislation meets international human rights standards, Human Rights Watch said today. Thein Sein is visiting the United Kingdom from July 14 to 16, 2013.

Despite important changes in Burma over the past two years, many serious human rights problems remain.Pledgesmade by Thein Sein, including those to US President Barack Obama in November 2012, to improve human rights remain partially or completely unfulfilled, including granting full humanitarian access to ethnic conflict areas, releasing all remaining political prisoners, amending abusive laws, and allowing the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to establish offices in the country.

"Prime Minister Cameron should not miss an important opportunity to press Burma's president on justice for crimes against humanity committed against the country's Muslims, the release of remaining political prisoners, or an end to repressive laws," said David Mepham, UK director. "Recent improvements in Burma will continue only as long as world leaders keep up the pressure to bring an end to the many human rights abuses still occurring in the country." 

On April 22, European Union foreign ministers lifted sanctions, includingtargeted sanctions on the Burmese army and government individuals and entities, leaving only its export ban on arms to Burma.

"The scrapping of targeted sanctions on Burma was premature and surrendered key leverage to improve the country's still dire human rights situation," Mepham said.

In 2012, state security forces, local Arakanese political party officials, and Buddhist monks participated in crimes against humanity during acampaign of ethnic cleansing against ethnic Rohingya and other Muslims in western Burma's Arakan State. More than 140,000 Muslims remain in camps, are denied freedom of movement, and lack adequate shelter, humanitarian aid, and basic services. Thein Sein has not fulfilled his pledge to take "decisive action to prevent violent attacks against civilians," hold accountable perpetrators of abuses, and "address contentious political dimensions, ranging from resettlement of displaced populations to granting of citizenship."

Humanitarian aid organisations also remain without full access to conflict areas in other parts of Burma, including Kachin State in the north, where a two-year armed conflict between government forces and Kachin rebels has displaced over 80,000 people, and in eastern Burma, where over 400,000 people are displaced from decades of civil war.

The Burmese government should amend or revoke laws and regulations that discriminate against ethnic minorities. These include Burma's 1982 Citizenship Law, which effectively denies Rohingya and other ethnic groups the ability to obtain citizenship, even when their families have lived in Burma for generations. Thein Sein should publicly repudiate a discriminatory decree that limits Rohingya families to two children each.

Burma has still not issued an invitation to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and there has been no significant progress in negotiations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to set up such an office. Meanwhile, more than 200 political prisoners are estimated to be in Burma's prisons. 

"Prime Minister Cameron needs to insist that Thein Sein cease his foot-dragging on pledges he made to improve human rights," Mepham said. "There's no good reason why the UN should not be able to open an office and monitor the human rights situation across the country."

Doing business in Burma involves various human rights risks. These include the lack of rule of law and an independent judiciary, major tensions over the acquisition and use of land, and disregard of community concerns in government-approved projects. The military's extensive involvement in the economy, use of forced labor, and abusive security practices in business operations heightens concerns. Corruption is pervasive throughout the country. 

Thein Sein's government continues to use repressive laws to undermine peaceful protests against projects that impact livelihoods and land. The authorities violently cracked down on people protesting a copper mining project in northern Burma in November and prosecuted demonstrators peacefully protesting against a natural gas project in Arakan State in April. Major infrastructure projects and land acquisitions for companies have also generated controversy involving both companies and the Burmese military in land seizures.

The UK government should acknowledge that the political reform process in Burma is very far from complete. Key measures of progress include legal reform, free and fair parliamentary elections in 2015, and amendments to the constitution to remove the Burmese military's constitutional authority over civilian government, including ending the military's authority to appoint 25 percent of the seats in the parliament and to dismiss the parliament and president.

"Failure to press the Burmese government to meet its reform commitments will send precisely the wrong message to Thein Sein, leading him to believe his government is no longer under serious international pressure to follow through on reforms," Mepham said. "David Cameron should ensure that this trip is not a 'victory lap' for the Burmese president but rather a public re-commitment by Burma to meet its human rights obligations." 

Burma makes little drama: Burma jails 25 Buddhists for mob killings of 36 Muslims in Meikhtila

Source guardian, 12 July

 

Jail terms, among first for Buddhists in recent sectarian violence, follows attack on school that killed 32 and torching of mosques.

 

A man stands in front of a mosque as it burns in Meikhtila after the riots in March. Twelve of the town's 13 mosques were destroyed. Photograph: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters

A Burmese court has sentenced 25 Buddhists to up to 15 years in prison for murder and other crimes during a night of rioting, burning and killing in central Burma, after weeks in which it seemed only Muslims were being punished for sectarian violence aimed largely at them.

But the sentences handed down on Wednesday and Thursday did not erase a sense of unequal justice: a day earlier, a Muslim received a life sentence for murdering one of 43 people killed in March in the central Burmese town of Meikhtila.

A wave of violence in the past year in the largely Buddhist country has left more than 250 people dead and 140,000 others fleeing their homes, most of them Muslim. The attacks, and the government's inability to stop them, have marred the south-east Asian country's image abroad as it moves toward democracy and greater freedom after nearly five decades of military rule.

Many of the sentences were handed down on Wednesday, and the toughest stemmed from the deadliest incident of the Meikhtila riots: a brutal mob attack on an Islamic school, its students and teachers that killed 36 people.

Buddhist mobs torched Mingalar Zayone Islamic boarding school, Muslim firms and all but one of the city's 13 mosques after a row between a Muslim and a Buddhist at a gold shop and the burning to death of a Buddhist monk by four Muslim men.

People ride their mopeds past the remains of two persons killed in clashes in Meikhtila in March after a dispute broke out at a gold shop. Photograph: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters

While security forces stood by, a mob armed with machetes, metal pipes, chains and stones killed 32 teenage students and four teachers. Video clips online showed mobs clubbing students to death and cheering as flames leapt from corpses.

The state-run Keymon daily said eight people – seven Buddhists and one Muslim – were convicted in Meikhtila district court for crimes connected to the school massacre.

Tin Hlaing, a local reporter present during the hearings, told Associated Press that four of the eight were found guilty of murder and causing other injuries, receiving sentences of between 10 and 15 years in jail.

He did not provide details about their roles in the slaughter but said the other four convicted were involved in lesser offences. The Keymon daily said the seven Buddhists received sentences of three to 15 years, but offered no details about the Muslim's case.

Student's murder

Tin Hlaing also said four Muslim men on Tuesday received sentences of at least seven years in prison – with one getting a life sentence – for their roles in the murder of a 19-year-old university student during the unrest.

The district court also sentenced 10 Buddhist men to one to nine years for their involvement in the death of a Muslim man. A township court sentenced six men and one woman, all Buddhists, to two years' imprisonment each for damaging the gold shop.

The Meikhtila district chairman, Tin Maung Soe, said one Buddhist man was sentenced to five years' imprisonment on Thursday for causing grievous harm in connection with the killing of two Muslim men.

Sectarian violence in Burma began in Rakhine state just over a year ago in the west, then spread in March to the central towns of Meikthila and Okkan.

There have been many earlier sentencings, in Meikhtila and elsewhere, but the majority involved Muslim defendants. Tin Maung Soe said most of the 73 people charged with crimes related to the rioting there are Buddhists.

Asked why Buddhists were given lighter sentences than some of the Muslims, Meikhtila district legal officer Khin Win Phyu said the sentences were handed down "based on the testimonies of the witnesses".

"The courts passed their verdict according to law and there is no bias or privilege toward any group," she said.

The state-owned newspaper Myanman Ahlin has reported that close to 1,500 people have been arrested on charges related to sectarian violence, and 535 of them have been convicted. Most of the cases are in Rakhine state, where more than 200 people were killed last year as tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims were driven from their homes. The paper did not break down the numbers by religion.

About 12,000 people were displaced by the Meikhtila riots. Tin Maung Soe said about 3,500 Muslims and 850 Buddhists are still living in temporary shelters.

He also said three mosques in the town reopened on Wednesday as Muslims prepared for the holy month of Ramadan. Authorities provided security.

Nasaka loots Rohingyas’ home in Maungdaw south

Source Kaladanpress, 8 July

Maungdaw, Arakan State: A group of Burma border security force (Nasaka) personnel  looted valuable things after entering a Rohingya's home from Khonza Bill village on July 7 at about 12:30 am, said a relative of the victim.

Nasaka personnel entered Azida (35), wife of Abdul Hanan home after breaking the door while Azida was not in the house, according to villagers.
"Azida was visiting her relative in Maungdaw with permission of concerned authority while Nasaka personnel looted her home."

Nasaka personnel met Fatema (18), daughter of Abdul Rahim who is watching Azida's home while the Nasaka enter the home where the Nasaka tried attempt to rape and took Kyat 7000 and a pair of earning (6-Ana gold),according to an aide of Nasaka.

"Fatema screamed for help which saved her from rape as the villagers rushed to the spot."

Fatema didn't express anything about event for fearing of Nasaka's torturing.

However, Azida complained to Nasaka officer of area No. 7 regarding the matter June 7 after coming from Maugdaw. Nasaka officer told her that he will investigate the case. But, Nasaka officer has been not taking any action against the culprits regarding the matter till writing report, said an elder from Maungdaw south

The international community must act to save the Rohingya Muslims

Source the-vibe, 2 July

One year since anti-Muslim violence broke out in Burma, the blood still flows and the deaths rack up. The Rohingya minority, stateless, discriminated against by virtue of their constitutional status as outsiders, remains the target of one of the most vicious series of ethnic attacks in the world at the the moment. The authorities have at times joined in these attacks; more often, the facilitate them or simply sit back and allow the killings to continue. Sadly, although the Rohingya are officially classed as 'illegal migrants', they have no homeland to which they can return. Nor can they simply flee; those that do risk rejection from other countries as well as the potential for bad weather conditions. Those who make it to Bangladesh, Thailand or Malaysia are often 'pushed back' from the borders, detained en masse, or arrested.

The discrimination in Burma has a long and inglorious history. It existed long before independence in 1946, and the Citizenship Act of 1982 defined Burmese citizenship in such a way as to exclude the Rohingya. Perhaps even worse than this is the refusal of the Burmese authorities to class the Rohingya as asylum seekers, instead condemning them to the lowest strata of society – the illegal migrant. The violence directed at Muslims in Burma for the last year has happened in a context of exclusion, of seeing the Muslims as 'not fully human'. This can be seen not only in the violence, but also in the two child policy recently introduced.

The international attention on the violence has increased with time. The UN Human Rights Council President has voiced 'deep concern' about the killings. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also questioned the regime's decision not to prosecute those who have enacted the attacks (indeed, it is often Rohingya themselves arrested after suffering terror attacks against them.) Unfortunately, this had had little to no impact on the regime's course. In fact, the one piece of international intervention which could be seen to have altered the course of history was President Obama's visit and meetings with President Thein Sein. Obama said he hoped the violence would stop. It has not, and his trip may been seen to have legitimised the regime.

International action is necessary to stop the systematic murder of the Rohingya people. Inside Burma, the figure those who protested against the regime, Aung San Suu Kyi, is now a member of the government, and has stayed shamefully silent on the issue. Attempts to stop the killings by foreign forces will almost certainly attempt to reach out to her first. Unfortunately, her tight-lipped attitude to the massacres bodes ill for any who do so.

One of the reasons for the relatively small pressure being exerted on Burma is that, nationally, this does not fit into the narrative the media have presented over the past few years of a Burma moving towards democracy, liberalising their economy, releasing political prisoners and allowing Aung San Suu Kyi to walk the streets again. Hence, viewers (on the rare occasion such stories are run on major news bulletins) tend to see them within a wider narrative of progress rather than one of discrimination, thus underestimating the problem.

The international community and national governments cannot absolve themselves of responsibility. The central foreign policy focus for the majority of major nations at the moment is the Syrian civil war and the ongoing power struggle in Egypt. As important as these two events are, they must not take up all the foreign policy political space. The attacks on the Rohingya have been persisting for the last 12 months. They show no signs of stopping organically, nor of being stopped by the Burmese government or ASEAN, the regional international group. The UN must act now to ensure that the Rohingya population can be liberated from this ethnic hatred and to ensure that Burma does not collapse.

Campaign group Avaaz has launched a campaign to get citizens of Western nations to pressure their governments to stop Burma from becoming 'The next Rwanda'. The story of Rwanda is not only one of genocide and racial hatred but also one of an international community failing to fulfil its promise to those at risk of genocide. If the UN and the wider international community does not act now, the word 'Burma' might begin to be said in the same dark way we say 'Rwanda'; as a synonym for the worst depths of humanity.