The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Kyaw Min, chairman of the Democracy and Human Rights Party (DHRP), speaks at a press conference on Friday in Rangoon. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) By Lawi Weng  The Irrawaddy January 10, 2014 RANGOON — Two Muslim political parties in Rangoon have asked the Burmese government to recognize their religious kin in western Burma’s Arakan State as Rohingya, a minority group that is currently denied citizenship, as the country gears up for a nationwide census later this year. The two parties, the National Democratic Party for Development (NDPD) and the Democracy and Human Rights Party (DHRP), held a press conference on Friday in Rangoon, where leaders of the two parties told journalists that they would ask the government to recognize their Muslim constituents in Arakan State as Rohingya. They will seek the option to tick Rohingya among the list of ethnic groups that takers of the census will be asked to identify as. The press conference came following a meeting bet

By   Burma Campaign UK January 09, 204 Kyaw Hla Aung is a human rights defender and a Rohingya community leader from Rakhine State who promotes minority rights in the country. On 15th July 2012, he was taken from his home in Sittwe. After his arrest, he was charged with three different counts, and transferred to Sittwe Prison. When his trial began on 14 August 2013, four more counts were added to his case. He has now been charged with seven different counts, including under 505(b) of Statements Conducting to Public Mischief. The charges are politically motivated and his trial continues at Sittwe Court. He is suffering from high blood pressure and arthritis. As part of the No Political Prisoner Left Behind campaign, Burma Campaign UK is highlighting a case of a political prisoner every month to draw attention to the hundreds of political prisoners who could still be in jail. The political prisoner for this month is Kyaw Hla Aung. Thein Sein lied to David Cameron and b

Photo IPD camp By Mizzima News,  January 09, 2014 The Rakhine State government says its budget for supporting the residents of camps holding about 130,000 people displaced by communal violence will be exhausted in a month. State Finance Minister U Aung Kyaw Min said the government was spending about 20 million kyats a week on the camps, which shelter about 100,000 Muslims and about 30,000 Buddhists displaced by eruptions of sectarian violence that began in June 2012. “To be honest, we don’t even have enough money left for a month,” U Aung Kyaw Min told Mizzima on January 8, adding that about 30,000 million kyats and US$3,000 remained in the budget for the camps. “Donors help us with donations whenever we are facing a shortage,” he said. The chair of the State cabinet’s information committee, U Hla Thein, said the Rakhine government was mainly funding the cost of health care and other necessities to the IDPs, including some food such as beans and pulses.