The Stateless Rohingya Blog

In this file photo, a Rohingya man living in Japan protests outside the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo on November 8, 2012. AFP Photo / Yoshikazu Tsuno Japan Daily Press: April 11, 2013 The Rohingya community in Japan claims that they have been barred from attending a gathering to welcome Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi when she visits Japan later this month. The minority Muslim group, described as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, make up around 200 of the 10,000 Burmese who live in Japan. This is Suu Kyi’s first visit to Japan in three decades, since she was a researcher in Kyoto University in 1985-86. Zaw Min Htut is the leader of the Rohingyas in Japan and has been living in the country for decades. He was informed by the organizers that they will not be allowed at the events where Suu Kyi will be attending. He claims that it is probably because of the Buddhist minorities that they are barred from the events. Even in the small expatr

Buddhist Water Festival Could Spark Ethnic Violence (part of The Darkness Visible series) Alders Ledge: April 11, 2013 On April 13th the Buddhist Water Festival will begin in Myanmar. This holiday is symbolic and sacred to the Buddhist people of Burma. However in the Arakan this holiday could flow with blood rather than water. Reports of racist Buddhist clergy participating in spreading the message of the Burmese hate group 969 have been popping up every since the riots and anti-Muslim attacks in March. The tweeters who have been reporting these warnings of potential attacks on the Rohingya all point toward the Water Festival as the key time for such pogroms. People like Jamila Hanan and Aung Aung (@JamilaHanan1 and @AungAungSittwe on twitter) have been sounding the alarm of yet another attempt by groups like 969 to complete their campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Arakan. It is also important to note that these same citizen reporters were the first to warn about th

Mohamed Farooq Mayupress: April 11, 2013 The court sentenced two Rohingya labors ten years jail for being committed no crime and law violation in Buthidaung Township, Northern Arakan on 5th April 2013. The victims are Mohammad Anwar and Mohammed Zubair live in Letwaydak Pazon Chaung village, a tract of Buthidaung. They earned money with daily works such as goods shipment from jetty to market, cleaning houses, fencing the compounds and other household works etc. On 27th March 2013, a Buddhist Rakhine had called those labors to work in his house for some household tasks but they denied servicing him because of frightening the Buddhists’ unavoidable plan to Rohingya mass killing. A group of Rakhine youths rounded their houses and grabbed them to the Damamadai Monastery near central jail of Buthidaung on March 28, 2013. The Rakhine racists hit them severely and then handover to police station without any legal reasons. Usually, the police personnel filed a case ag

Bangkok Post: April, 11, 2013 Muslims and Rohingya in Thailand have called on the United Nations and the United States to intervene to stop violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state. About 30 Rohingya and Muslims from Bangkok and the deep South travelled separately to the capital to submit letters to embassy officials from Myanmar and the US, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. They appealed to the Myanmar government to stop supporting what they called "genocide". They also asked the UN and US to intervene to protect the lives of Muslim people in Myanmar. At the embassies and the UN office, the protesters laid down plastic, cloth and paper banners depicting the recent killings inside Myanmar. Torchings, ambushes and deadly attacks have spread from Rakhine state to other places including Bago and Yangon. Currently, about 30,000 Muslim and Rohingya people are said to live in temporary shelters in the central Myanmar town Meikhtila and around Nay Pyi

The  News International April 11, 2013 An ultra-nationalist Buddhist creed is becoming more visible in Myanmar’s commercial capital, Yangon, after monks from the apartheid-like movement helped stoke a wave of anti-Muslim violence in the central heartlands. Many Muslims in the city say they are living in fear after dozens of members of their faith were killed in March by Buddhist mobs whipped up by monks from the “969” movement, a name that refers to attributes of the Buddha, his teachings and the monkhood. Calm has been restored in Meikhtila and other volatile central areas after authorities imposed martial law and dispatched troops. A Reuters examination of the violence showed it was well-organised, abetted at times by police turning a blind eye. But concerns linger among Muslims in Yangon, a city of about 4 million people undergoing rapid change during Myanmar’s transition from 49 years of oppressive military rule that ended in March 2011. Fears simmer after

Anadolu Agency: 10 April 2013 Visit of Turkish FM Ahmet Davutoglu to Myanmar had influenced situation of Rohingya Muslims and visit of Muslim leaders could raise more awareness of tragedy in region. ISTANBUL -- Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar have called on the leaders of the Muslim world to visit the region. Muhammed Idris, training and project manager of El-Feyyadi aid organization in Myanmar, told Anadolu Agency that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's visit to Myanmar had influenced the situation of the Rohingya Muslims and the government of Myanmar no longer considered the situation as it used to be. Emphasizing that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the UN began paying more attention to the tragedy in Myanmar following Davutoglu's visit, Idris called on the leaders of the Muslim world to visit the region to raise international awareness. "Last year great numbers of Muslims were massacred by Buddhist militia. The massacre