The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar amid the sectarian violence that erupted last year. Photo: Gazette file Phuket Gazette July 12, 2013 PHUKET: Thailand’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) yesterday told the Phuket Gazette they were “unable to report” on their own investigation into reports of Royal Thai Navy sailors opening fire on a boatload of Rohingya, allegedly killing at least two of the refugees, in February. The news comes four months after Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra promised the international press the allegations would be investigated (story here). “We cannot reveal anything about the investigation,” said Ketsarin Tiawsakul, director of the HRC’s human rights infringement investigation office. “For now, we have nothing to say. We will release information to the public as soon as we can,” she added. According to a report by the international agency Human Rights Watch, Royal Thai Navy sailors opened fire on the Rohingya off the Phang Nga

BDNews24  July 12, 2013 UK Shadow Minister for International Development, Rushanara Ali, MP, has urged the British government to apply pressure on the Burmese authorities to address the humanitarian crisis in Burma and put human rights at the heart of their reforms process. Burmese president Thein Sein will soon begin his official tour of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland and France, it was announced yesterday. Ali expressed worries about the humanitarian crisis in Burma’s Rakhine State and the human rights abuses against the Rohingya, a Muslim community, and other minorities in Burma. She acknowledged the progress the Burmese government had made towards political and economic reforms since President Thein Sein took office. But, she said, the international community should not ignore the considerable work the Burmese government still needs to do. Rushanara Ali, MP, who recently visited Burma, said, “Since inter-communal violence first broke out last year,

  By Dr. Habib Siddiqui It is simply inane to suggest that Buddhism has been integral to places where it has become marginalised today. It is the people who make the difference as to what they choose to believe or reject. As history has repeatedly shown, forced conversion does not work in the long term. Whenever the fear factor is gone, people opt out to choose what suits them. And that has been the history of mankind since the beginning of history. RECENTLY, after the publication of the Time magazine’s cover-page article on Wirathu, the Buddhist terrorist monk of Myanmar, I came across an article in which the Buddhist writer stated that the magazine got it all wrong about Wirathu and that the pogroms against Muslims, which were disingenuously called ‘Buddhist nationalism’, and a ‘last resort’ to preserve Buddhist ‘heritage, religion and country to ensure history is not repeated.’ He says the violence against Muslims in Buddhist majority countries must be understood in the

KPN News July 11, 2013 Teknaf, Bangladesh: South East Asian Refugee Deputy Coordinator (SEARDC) and Ambassador Ms Lillian Dowe, UNHCR and RRRC representatives visited the Nayapara camp, under Teknaf, Cox’s Bazar district, on July 9, said a refugee teacher from the camp who preferred not to be named.  The delegates were warmly welcomed by Kamruzzaman, Nayapara Camp-in-Charge , Bangladesh. They reached the camp at around 12:00 noon.” After arrival at the camp, they visited the water reservoir, shed of the refugee camp, sanitation and also observed the camp situation, said a refugee leader. Photo: UNHCR Cox's Bazar Facebook page They also met with camp committee members and asked about the camp situation. The Camp Management Committee Secretary Mr Zubair met with them and requested to try for urgent durable solution for the refugees. He also said, “We have been living in the refugee camps for over two decades but still we are pa

People look on as smoke rises over a Meikhtila neighborhood on Thursday. (Photo: Reuters / Soe Zeya Tun) By Associated Press   July 11, 2013 YANGON, Myanmar — Twenty-five Buddhists were sentenced to as many as 15 years in prison for murder and other crimes during a night of rioting, burning and killing in central Myanmar, following weeks in which it seemed only Muslims were being punished for sectarian violence aimed primarily at members of their own religion. But the sentences issued Wednesday and Thursday did not erase a sense of unequal justice: A day earlier, a Muslim received a life sentence for murdering one of the 43 people killed March 20 and 21 in the central Myanmar town of Meikhtila. A wave of violence over the past year in this predominantly Buddhist Southeast Asian country has left more than 250 people dead and 140,000 others fleeing their homes, most of them Muslim. The attacks, and the government’s inability to stop them, have marred the Southeast A