The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Dhaka: Burma’s Monks, in an unexpected development, are fuelling ethnic tensions in the country by calling on people to shun a Muslim community that has suffered decades of abuse. According to media reports, in a move that has shocked many observers, some monks’ organisations have issued pamphlets telling people not to associate with the Rohingya community, and have blocked humanitarian  assistance  from reaching them. One leaflet described the Rohingya as “cruel by nature” and claimed it had “plans to exterminate” other ethnic groups.

    HUMAN RIGHTS  In a desperate attempt to sneak into  Thailand  and cross over to  Malaysia  to seek asylum, many stateless  Rohingya  Muslims from  Myanmar ’s Arakan state have booked seats on illegal ferries, operated by people smugglers. Over the past few years, during autumn and winter, when the sea is calmer, Rohingya men have regularly taken illegal ferries to reach Thailand and then go overland to Malaysia to work illegally and support their families back home.

Human rights activist Ansar Burney Photo: wikipedia New Delhi ( Mizzima ) – Burma has refused to grant visas to Pakistani human rights advocate Asnar Burney and a colleague, who wanted to come to Burma on a fact-finding mission regarding reports of Rohingya Muslims arbitrarily arrested and killed in Arakan State.

By  PressTV July 25, 2012 Amnesty International says the Rohingyas in Myanmar became the target of violent attacks against the Muslim minority in the Asian country. The killing of Muslims started in late May 2012, and the clashes spread across much of Myanmar's coastal Rakhine state. The Myanmar government declared a state of emergency on June 10, deploying troops to quell the unrest and protect both mosques and monasteries.  The worst of the violence subsided late last month, but communal violence has still some ground. Amnesty has said it is being directed mostly at the Rohingya population.  While Amnesty International calls Rohingya Muslims as citizens of the country, Myanmar refuses to recognize them as its citizens, and claims that they are not natives and classifies them as illegal migrants, although Rohingyas are believed to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pathan origin who migrated to Myanmar as early as the 8th century. 

Members of the Muslim Students Association rallying outside Myanmar's embassy. (JG Photo/Safir Makki) The plight of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar is beginning to attract  more  attention from Indonesian lawmakers, activists and religious hard-liners. Reports have been flowing out of Myanmar describing killings and arbitrary violence targeting the Rohingya minority in northern Rakhine state. Dozens of Rohingya refugees have also been intercepted by Indonesian security officials in the past few weeks.

  Aung San Suu Kyi speaks as she asks a question during a regular session of the parliament at Myanmar Lower House in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Picture: AP  Source:  AP MYANMAR opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi today called for laws to protect the rights of ethnic minorities in her first ever speech to the country's fledgling parliament. The veteran activist used her first speech to lawmakers to support a motion by a ruling-party lawmaker on upholding ethnic minority rights. ''To become a truly democratic union with a spirit of the union, equal

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran's Red Crescent Society announced that the country has sent aid cargoes to the oppressed Muslim community in Myanmar and is also prepared to dispatch aid workers to the Southeast Asian country. "The Relief and Rescue Organization of Iran's Red Crescent Society is ready to dispatch its rescue teams to help the Muslims in Myanmar," Spokesman of the Society Hossein Derakhshan told FNA on Wednesday. 

Islam, mainly of the Sunni sect, is practiced by 4% of the population of Burma according to the government census. However, according to the US State Departments 2006 International religious freedom report official statistics underestimate the non-Buddhist population which could be as high as 30%, the country’s non-Buddhist populations were underestimated in the census.

The Buddhists have reportedly tried to block humanitarian aid getting to ethnic group Monks who played a vital role in Burma's recent struggle for democracy have been accused of fuelling ethnic tensions in the country by calling on people to shun a Muslim community that has suffered decades of abuse.

Shyam Bhatia in London An estimated 59 per cent of Indian students admitted to the UK last year may have been bogus applicants, a newly published study says. The startling claim is made by London-based think tank Migration Watch UK which bases its assessment on the findings of a Home Office pilot scheme that examined student visa applications to see if they were genuine.