The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Mohamed Farooq Mayu Press: May 28, 2013 A mosque and an Islamic religious orphanage were blazed in Lashio, a town situated in Shan State of  Burma on the night of 28 May 2013. The Buddhist thug surrounded the compound of the mosque, the largest one in Lashio, located in No.8 quarter at 8 pm tonight and they set fire the building at around 8.10 pm. Regarding the reliable sources, fire brigade failed to extinguish. Fire service holders simply claimed that they did not receive any further instruction to do so. The mob also set on fire an Islamic religious orphanage. The orphanage provided shelter more than 200 helpless and poor students across the Lashio. The event had been taken place by a dispute between a man and a woman who had been set on fire. It was spread out as the man is a Muslim. As per information from local residents, the man is not a Muslim. The woman victim hospitalized at Lashio general hospital. The authority imposed Section 144 there. There are

Myanmar 2013 © Kaung Htet A doctor examines a child at the MSF clinic in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Pauk Taw township. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) International May 28, 2013 Yangon, 27 May 2013  – Nearly a year since deadly inter-ethnic clashes in Rakhine state first broke out, conditions in the displaced persons camps, combined with movement restrictions and ongoing segregation of Rakhine and Muslim communities, are severely impacting on healthcare, said Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today. An estimated 140,000 people are still living in makeshift camps. According to official estimates, the vast majority of the displaced are a Muslim minority - often referred to as the Rohingya. The Rohingya are a stateless minority group, not recognised as citizens by the Government of  Myanmar . As well as direct victims of violence, tens of thousands more people that are still in their homes have been almost entirely cut off from  health  facilities, food, markets, thei

A policeman and residents stand around the body of a man in a street in riot-hit Meiktila, central Myanmar on March 22, 2013. STR/AFP/Getty Images) Reuters May 28, 2013 Muslims and Buddhists clashed in Myanmar's northern city of Lashio on Tuesday, witnesses said, as a wave of sectarian violence reached a mountainous region near China's border. Phone lines were down in the city of about 131,000 people and the extent of the violence was unclear. Witnesses reported several large fires and said a mosque and Buddhist monastery appear to have been torched. The violence followed unrest between Muslims and Buddhists in other parts of Myanmar over the past year, including fighting in the central city of Meikhtila in March that killed at least 44 people, mostly Muslims, and razed several Muslim neighborhoods. About 12,000 people lost their homes. Lashio, capital of Shan State, had been spared from the religious unrest. Known for its strong Chinese influence, it i

A wave of anti-Muslim sentiment and violence is threatening country's burgeoning democracy. Calum MacLeod USA TODAY May 27, 2013 OKKAN, Burma — Buddhists and Muslims alike often visit the stall of U Tin Maung, a repairman whose little shop beside the Okkan town mosque has been fixing broken umbrellas and faulty lighters for 25 years. The seeming harmony was destroyed earlier this month when a mob of several hundred people used shovels, stones and swords to smash the mosque's windows. "They shouted, 'Kill all Muslims!' We were scared and ran away to hide," says U Tin Maung, 70, a Muslim and trustee of the mosque. "It was the first time I've ever seen Buddhists attack Muslims. There are rumors that this is only the first step. Next they will loot the shops," he says. Known officially as Myanmar, the army-ruled nation of Burma has embarked on concrete political reforms after decades of dictatorship that have earned it rewa

These three siblings lost their dad. He was killed when he was trying to get food for his family. Something is very wrong in a country when finding food for your children to save their lives is a crime worthy of death. Photo: Oddny Blog Faine Greenwood UN Dispatch  May 27, 2013                      Rohingya Muslim’s in Burma’s Rakhine state have now been ordered to adhere to a years-old two child policy by the government, in what authorities claim is an effort to defang ongoing tension  between the Buddhist and Muslim communities.  In reality, this is ethnic cleansing. And it is ongoing in Burma today.  Restricting the reproduction of a less-than-loved ethnic group is a tactic that’s been trotted out repeatedly through generations of ethnic cleansing and genocide: a bad sign that’s all the more ominous in the face of increasing strife between Rohingya Muslim’s and the overwhelmingly Buddhist population of Burma.  Human Rights Watch unambiguously identifies the Bu

Myanmar limits its Genocide victims, the Rohingya Muslims, to two children per family. (RANGOON, Burma) - Myanmar Ethnic Rohingyas Human Rights Organization Malaysia (MERHROM) strongly condemned the new policy introduced by the Myanmar government that restricted the minority Rohingya Muslim from having more than two children. This is a gross human rights violation as it’s contradicting the basic human rights as stated in UDHR. This new policy only applies to the minority Rohingya Muslim in the country. As of now Myanmar is the only country in the world that practices this kind of sanction towards a particular religion. MERHROM cannot accept the fact that the new policy was introduced as an effort to reduce the ethnic conflict between the Buddhist and Muslim. We could not understand how the reduction of the numbers of minority Rohingya will reduce the conflict as the number of minority Rohingya is already very low, 4% from the total population 60 million. Furthermore we are