The Stateless Rohingya Blog

UN Special Rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana arrives at his Rangoon hotel on  Sunday. (Photo: The Irrawaddy) UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Mr Tomas Ojea Quintana visited Burma from July 30 for four days  accompanied by other members visited Maungdaw Township, Arakan today (July 31), at about 1:30 pm by three Helicopters, according to an elder from Maungdaw.

Military Intelligence arrested Anwer the owner of three diamond jewelry shop  yesterday when he was sitting in his shop, according to a  trader from Maungdaw. Sarapa (Military Intelligence) arrested Dil Mohamed (30), son of Abul Boshor, the current village administration officer of Maung Nama village tract of Maungdaw Township, and Ms Mahmuda Khatun (20), the domestic servant of Zubair, the ex-village Chairman of Maung Nama village Tract, on July 27. Ms Mamuda Khatun was picked up from Zubair’s house.

Dr. Habib Siddiqui In his book – Worse Than War – Daniel Jonah Goldhagen says that during mass murders, the murderers themselves, their supporters and those who wish to stand idly by practice linguistic camouflage. And this has been the case with the apartheid regime in Myanmar when it comes to its national project towards exterminating or purging out the Rohingyas.

UN human rights expert on Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, left for Rakhine State on Tuesday to look into reports of abuses against Rakhine Muslims. Burma’s foreign minister told the media on Monday that “maximum restraint” was used in Rakhine State to quell the sectarian violence.

Hyderabad:  Persecuted in their own country, a group of 25 Muslims from Myanmar have reached Hyderabad to take refuge here. The group, fled Myanmar to escape ethnic violence in Rakhine state, have taken shelter at a 'dargah' at Balapur in the old city and were waiting to be recognized as refugees by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

Muslims burn a picture of President Thein Sein in front of the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok. (Photo: Reuters) The Burmese government said on Monday that the recent violence in Arakan State, western Burma, has been politicized internationally as religious oppression. Burma’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a press conference in Rangoon on Monday where officials sought to explain the recent violence in Arakan State to diplomats, NGO workers, religious leaders and journalists in attendance.

The Burmese foreign ministry “strongly rejects the accusations made by some quarters that abuses and excessive use of force were made by the authorities” in dealing with the unrest in Rakhine State, it said in a statement issued on Monday.  “The unfortunate incidents are confined to a few townships in Rakhine State [and] it constitutes inter-communal violence relating only to some portion of the population in the State,” said the statement.

RI ready to fight for Rohingya Marty Natalegawa:  (JP/Arief Suhardiman) In his first official statement regarding the prolonged communal violence in western Myanmar between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said that  Indonesia  would raise the problem at the Extraordinary Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, scheduled for mid-August.

—FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—   JAMAICA, New York (July 24, 2012) – The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) issued a press release today calling for an end to the atrocities against the Rohingya Muslim community in Burma. According to the United Nations, the Rohingyas are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. Disowned by the Burmese government, they have been completely stripped of their human rights; most recently, an estimated 90,000 have been displaced and left without “adequate food, water, shelter, [or] medical attention.”

By: Gwynne Dyer At last somebody in an official position has said something. United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay has called for an independent investigation into claims that Burmese security forces are systematically targeting the Rohingya, a Muslim minority community living in the Arakan region. Even the Burmese government says at least 78 Rohingya were murdered; their own community leaders say 650 have been killed. Nobody disputes the fact that about 100,000 Rohingyas (out of a population of  800 ,000) are now internal refugees in Burma, while others have fled across the border into Bangladesh. As you would expect, the Buddhist monks of Burma have stood up to be counted. Unfortunately, this time they are standing on the wrong side.

Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said Indonesia is monitoring closely the ethnic violence beleaguering the Rohingya Muslim minority group in Myanmar, as concerns over the matter grow across the Muslim-majority archipelago.  “Indonesia has been monitoring the issue. In fact in 2010, Indonesia sent delegates to Bangladesh and Myanmar to find the root cause of the problem,” Marty told reporters on Monday.