The Stateless Rohingya Blog

By Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian PHUKET: Telephone contact between Rohingya living on Phuket and in Bangkok has been lost with relatives in Burma's Rakhine State, where mounting sectarian violence has led to an increased military presence.  The small group of about 20 Rohingya Muslims on Phuket has become alarmed because this is the first time they can recall telephone contact being severed.  Rohingya living in Bangkok have said they too are unable to contact relatives or friends inside Burma.

Thein Sein declares state of emergency after sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslims on Sunday kills several people Thein Sein, the Burmese prime minister warned that racial and religious divisions could affect Burma's stability. Photograph: Damir Sagolj/Reuters Sectarian violence could put  Burma 's transition to democracy at risk, President Thein Sein has warned as the government declared a state of emergency in the country's west after clashes between Buddhists and Muslims left at least eight people dead and 17 wounded.

Sittwe( Akyab:  At about 11:00 am to 2 pm, the racist Rakhines with the co-operation of riot police (Hluntin) set on fire to nearly 1000 houses in the Rohingya villages in Sittwe( Akyab), the capital of Arakan State and  over 100 killed and more than 300 wounded by Rakhine racists and security personnel. After setting fire in different villages, the security forces are in cordon the areas.

Maungdaw, Arakan State:  An estimated 100 Rohingyas were killed and nearly 500 wounded by Rakhine racists and security personnel since yesterday, according to an elder who collect the information about missing Rohingya and wounded in Maungdaw. Mohamed Noor , the victim  who was killed by Rrakhine racists  and security personnel

A young poor Rohingya girl - Zahara Begum (12) daughter of Abu Sidduque, hail from Bomu village- was killed by Tin Aye, sergeant from Maungdaw police station when  she went to  kitchen market  to sell  pea at the local village kitchen market of  Kanrre village  at bout 9:00am, the dead body of the girl was kept in police vehicle,  said an eye-witness said to Kaladan press.

Current Buthidaung situation: Yesterday, at about 12 noon, 200 Rakhines with long swords came to Buthidaung town by two boats and landed from the U Oo Thama Park in front of police and  went to straight to the Buddhist monastery.  Hearing the news, the Upper Parliament member U Shwe Maung contacted with Tactical Operation Officer of Buthidaung Town to provide security by army to the Rohingyas as the people don’t rely the police security.

Abid Bahar Muslims in Burma are only 5% of the total population and they have been almost always used as escape goats by the military government to distract the attention of the Buddhist majority on the the oppressive military regime. A google search (see the reference) on riots against Muslims in Burma would show, the riots would invariably start on a Muslim rape charges. Almost always it starts as a rumor and some Muslims are attacked or a mosque is destroyed, followed by a riot. (1) The trend of blaming the victim repeated in Akyub on May 28, when the dead body of a Rakhine woman was found near a Muslim village.

BY SAI LATT, GUEST CONTRIBUTOR  Asiapacific.anu: JUNE 10, 2012 Last week Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr told  Radio Australia  that his government would monitor democracy and human rights in Burma. Of course, this is welcome news, but the Australian government needs to be mindful of a new dynamic of human rights violations in Burma. The current peace building initiatives between the government and ethnic armed groups in Burma are not enough anymore; ethno-religious and inter- communal relations must be taken seriously in order not to derail the current political reform. For human rights abuses and violence are committed not only by the state but also by different ethno-religious groups against each other. Racism and racial profiling in the media deserve careful attention, and the transnational nature of fostering ethno-religious intolerance as part of the new dynamic of human rights need to be addressed. As I was writing this piece, communal riots just broke

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui It has been little more than two months that Aung San Suu Kyi was elected into the lower house of Burmese Parliament. The by-elections (only the country's third in half a century) in which her party NLD won 44 of the 45 available seats were a crucial test of reforms that convinced the West to soften its pariah image. The United States and European Union hinted that some sanctions - imposed over the past two decades in response to gross human rights abuses (e.g., against the minority Rohingya Muslims and Kachin and Karen Christians) - might be lifted,

We, the undersigned Rohingya organisations express our deep concern over the ongoing grave situation in Arakan causing great consternation to the people. It appears that the   communal tension arising out of the lack of rule of law in Arakan was engineered by the regime and its local Arakan State apparatus. This was further evident by the gunning down of Rohingya Muslims who were peacefully marching for a prayer for those Muslim pilgrims cruelly killed by Rakhine terrorists in Taunggup on 3 June 2012.