The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Muslims children eat meals at their temporary refugee camp in Htan Gone village, Kantbalu township, Sagaing division, Myanmar, on Monday.  Khin Maung Win/AP By AssociatedPress September 5, 2013 YANGON, Myanmar — A court has sentenced a Muslim man to seven years in prison for an attempted rape that sparked Buddhist-led riots in a northwestern Myanmar town late last month. Myint Aung, a legal official at the Kantbalu township court, says Hsan Min Oo was found guilty and sentenced Wednesday after a speedy trial. Myint Aung says the defendant confessed to the crime and did not ask for a defense lawyer. The Aug. 24 violence started after a crowd surrounded a police station in Htan Gone village, demanding that Hsan Min Oo be handed over. When officers refused, the crowd rampaged, destroying 40 Muslim-owned shops and businesses and leaving hundreds of people homeless. Eleven Buddhists also were detained, but opposition lawmaker Myint Naing said one al

Photo UNHCR Cox's bazar  Teknaf, Cox’s Bazar: A delegation of high-level UNHCR officers visited the Burmese Rohingya refugee camp – Nayapara - on September 3, said refugee committee Chairman Islam from Nayapara camp. “The delegation included--- Stina Ljungdel, newly appointed country representative of the UN High Commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), Salah Uddin, the deputy secretary of Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commission (RRRC) and other Bangladeshi officials paid visit the Nayapara refugee camp.” According to refugees, the group reached at Nayapara camp at about 10:30 am and toured a women’s tailoring center, water reservoir, schools, sheds of the camp and etc. Afterwards, the country representative held a meeting with the members of camp committee regarding the issues of the refugees at the office of Camp Management Committee (CMC). During the meeting, the CMC Chairman Islam and Mohamed Jubair, the secretary of (CMC) urged the delegation to rep

Arakanese women protest in the streets of Sittwe, the Arakan State capital, on Oct. 10, 2012. (Photo: Rakhine Straight Views) By Lawi Weng  Irrawaddy News Four Arakanese demonstrators were sentenced this week by a court in Arakan State’s Kyauktaw Township, found guilty of organizing an unauthorized protest against a plan to resettle#Rohingya people in the town. Thein Hlaing, Maung Win, Tin Tin Aye and Hla May were sentenced to three months in prison by the court on Wednesday. “The court punished them for violating Article 18 of the Peaceful Assembly Act,” Than Saw, a lawyer for the defendants, told The Irrawaddy on Thursday. The four—two men and two women—were among nine activists arrested in March for organizing the peaceful but illegal demonstration in Kyauktaw. The other five detainees were later released after authorities could not present sufficient evidence against them. More than 500 local Arakanese in Kyauktaw turned out on March 10 to protest the

Phuket Wan By Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison September 5, 2013       PHUKET: Captive Rohingya refugees are likely to suffer because of a new policy to be imposed on family shelters in Thailand following the rape of a four-year-old girl. The new policy, decided at a two-day conference in Bangkok that ended yesterday, will remove boys aged 12 and older from the shelters, Phuketwan has learned. The policy is likely to further splinter Rohingya families where men are already held in police cells and Immigration detention centres and their wives and children in family refuges. Girls and boys are also likely to be separated within family shelters. Men seem certain to be barred from entry, while officials are looking at appointing female security guards, Phuketwan has been told. The rape that has the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security radically altering its rules took place at a shelter house in Chonburi's Banglamung district, according to a r

By  Al Jazeera September 5, 2013 101 East returns to Myanmar to investigate the depth of the religious hatred plaguing the country. Monks return from collecting alms in Meikhtila, Myanmar, walking past a mosque damaged during a violent spree that left swathes of the Muslim community's buildings burned down [Pailin Wedel] Religious and racial hatred simmers in the once repressed southeast Asian country of Myanmar. Optimism for the country's reforms is fast fading as tensions between majority Buddhist and minority Muslim communities have left over 250 people dead and displaced more than 140,000. In the newly liberated media, free speech has quickly turned to hate speech, drowning out moderate voices. Some say powerful interests are igniting decades of suppressed prejudice in order to derail the country's transition to democracy. Unless leaders and moderate voices are willing to speak out, only the loudest and most extreme voices will be heard. Un