The Stateless Rohingya Blog

A sticker of the "969 movement" is seen at a shop in Minhla on 29 March 2013. (Reuters) DVB News: April 25, 2013 A Muslim man was sentenced to two years in prison in central Burma this week for “insulting” religion, after he removed an extremist Buddhist “969” sticker from a shop, according to local media. Forty-two-year-old Armin (aka Soe Lwin) from Kyaukgyi township in eastern Pegu division scraped the nationalist symbol – which has been used to promote anti-Muslim propaganda in Burma – from a local betel nut shop’s window on Saturday. Local authorities sued him two days later, according to the Voice Daily newspaper. After a one-day trial, Judge Myint Kyaw from Kyaukgyi township court sentenced him to two years imprisonment under a draconian section of Burma’s penal code, which bans “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs”. The notorious “969” logos have been us

A Rohingya IDP and his family outside his tent in western Rakhine State. More than 125,000 Rohingyas were displaced in June and October 2012 following inter-communal violence in Myanmar's western Rakhine State © Brendan Brady/IRIN IRIN News: April 24, 2013 RAKHINE STATE, 24 April 2013 (IRIN) - More than 125,000 displaced Rohingya in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State are bracing for this year’s punishing monsoon rains. “There’s no real shelter here. People are getting diseases and the rainy season will make it even worse,” Ali Mia, a 45-year-old Rohingya father-of-six, whose home in Sittwe, the capital city of Rakhine State, was burned during inter-communal violence in June, told IRIN. Set to begin as early as May, the rains will come in daily downpours, which, in the crowded and unsanitary conditions of Rakhine’s dozens of camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs), could hasten the spread of disease, aid workers warn. “We’re very worried with the monsoon