The Stateless Rohingya Blog

In this Sept. 14, 2013 photo, Muslims travel past a road barrier next to a security checkpoint in Maungdaw, northern Rakhine state, Myanmar. Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe, AP By Aylin Kocaman Arab News November 30, 2013 WHAT happens when you change a country’s name? Can you erase an unwanted past? Is changing the name a new beginning? Do the people in that country and their memories assume a new form? Perhaps that was what the junta in Burma was trying to do by erasing its colonial past by changing the country’s name to Myanmar. And maybe even by erasing some of the country’s minorities.  Myanmar has been under military rule for 50 years and is an absolute military state. The country has been synonymous with the terms assimilation, genocide, discrimination and even fascism. One expert says, “Calling what has befallen the Rohingya Muslims who make up the minority ‘war’ is putting it mildly. This is a massacre!”  According to the United Nations, the Rohingya Musli

Burma Times (Mohamed Ibrahim) Thursday, Nov. 28  12:00-13:45 Room: ASP 3H1- Hosted by Jean Lambert, Green MEP for London The exhibition Features a photographic essay on the plight of Burma’s Rohingya from award-winning photographer Greg Constantine. The panel’s main speaker, The EU Parliament MEP Jean lambert, said despite some progress in Burma the Rohingya community continues to be persecuted and more must be done. Nevertheless, despite its commitments to the international community to prevent sectarian violence between the Rohingya and the ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, Burma’s government has yet failed to prevent another incident added to the long history of human rights violations and prosecution that follows to the Rohingyas. After the 2012 Rakhine state riots, according to estimated data, 650 Rohingyas were killed, 1200 are missing and up to 140,000 have been displaced. The European parliament has passed two resolutions in the past few months on the situation of the Rohingya p