The Stateless Rohingya Blog

The Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC ) and Qatar Charity are organizing a meeting with about 30 regional and international organisations to coordinate humanitarian services to Rakhine State in Burma, the Gulf Times reported on Wednesday. The event follows the first consultative meeting held in Kuala Lumpur earlier last month.

Rohingya people perennially leave their homes and families in Burma and Bangladesh where they face extreme discrimination and are denied citizenship. They often find they have little alternative but to try to travel illegally across the Andaman Sea to try to find work in Thailand, Malaysia or another third country. (PHOTO: Reuters) Forty-three of the 85 Rohingya boatpeople who were sentenced to one year in prison for illegally entering Burma were on Wednesday released under a presidential pardon, with the remaining 42 due to be released on Thursday, according to sources in Mon State. 

Global Movement of Moderates chairman Tan Sri Razali Ismail has called on the Myanmar government to consider giving citizenship to the Rohingya community. Razali, who was formerly the United Nations’ special envoy to Myanmar, talks to the New Straits Times on the role of Malaysia and the international community in forming solutions to the plight of the Rohingya. Q :. You took part in the recent Perdana Global Peace Foundation Conference on the Plight of the Rohingyas, in which they came up with 16 resolutions to be handed to various parties including to the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak), the Myanmar government, and the United Nations. What is the progress on the resolutions?

Maungdaw, Arakan State: The Burma’s border security force (Nasaka) personnel increase toll collection from Rohngya travelers while crossing the Nasaka check-posts or culverts or bridges in Maungdaw Townships, said a trader from Maungdaw preferring not to be named. In Maungdaw Township, the Nasaka has established Nasaka check-posts in every bridges, or culverts, Maungdaw-Aley Than Kyaw high way and Maungdaw- Bawli Bazar high way.

Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh: A company commander level flag meeting between Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and Burma’s border security force (Nasaka) was held at Ghundum area of Naikkongchori upazila along Bangladesh-Burma border yesterday afternoon, according to BGB official.

The president of Myanmar under international pressure has, in his UN speech, promised to curb the human rights abuses against the Rohingya Muslims.

In Burma, all the Constitutional Tribunal’s seats are vacant after nine of the court’s judges resigned after the Union Parliament (Pyidaungsu Hluttaw) passed an impeachment resolution. The country is now enveloped in a constitutional crisis that was engineered by the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw. According to the 2008 Constitution, the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw is comprised of the Pyithu Hluttaw (the People’s Assembly) and the Amyotha Hluttaw (National Assembly), while the Constitutional Tribunal constitutes a major part of the judiciary. The Pyidaungsu Hluttaw forced the judges to step down following the Tribunal’s ruling stating that the Parliament’s committees and commissions, formed by the respective Hluttaws, are not recognised as union-level entities.