The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Radical Myanmarese monk Ashin Wirathu A radical Myanmarese monk is adopting new measures to intensify a hate campaign against the Rohingya Muslims in the Southeast Asian country. Speaking at an indoor stadium in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, on Sunday, leader of the 969 Movement, Ashin Wirathu, announced a partnership with a hardline Sri Lankan Buddhist group to build a front against Muslims. "Today, Buddhism is in danger. We need hands to be firmly held together if we hear alarm bells ringing," he said, adding, "I'd like to announce that 969 and I will" cooperate "with Sri Lanka's Bodu Bala Sena to protect Buddhists all round the world." The remarks come as thousands of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims could face indefinite detention under a new government plan that requires them to either accept ethnic reclassification and register as Bengalis or be detained. Under the draft plan, authorities in the restive Rakhine State wil...

More then 100 Rakhine Extremists were surrounded to attack 3 Malaysians in Sittwe Town, Arakan State Photo Soe Thu Moe FB Bernama February 21, 2014 PUTRAJAYA: Three Malaysians on a Malaysian Consultative Council for Islamic Organisations (MAPIM) humanitarian mission who came under siege by local residents in Rakhine, Myanmar yesterday, are now put under police protection. Zulhanis Zainol, 36, Mohamed Fithri Ahmad, 42, and Muhaimin Samad, 28, who were on a humanitarian mission in aid of the Rohingya community were believed to be surrounded by a group of extremist Buddhists in Sitwee, Rakhine. It is learnt that Mohamed Fithri and Muhaimin were local television employees filming a documentary. Deputy Foreign Minister Datuk Hamzah Zainudin said the three men were brought out of Sitwee to be ferried to Yangon at 1.30pm (local time) yesterday. "I understand a group of local residents had surrounded them. Fortunately police came on time to save them and put the...

Popular norm to be presented in Parliament gains support and signatures. It places constraints on unions between Buddhist women and men of other religions, which must have approval. Added to this the intention to deny the Muslim minority the right to vote and to form a political party. By Francis Khoo Thwe AsiaNews January 18, 2014 Yangon - A petition in support of a law that places strong constraints on mixed marriages, especially between Buddhist women and men of other faiths is gaining support. Launched by a group of Buddhist monks it is due to be presented to Parliament. A conference was recently held in Mandalay attended by thousands of monks who have - at the same time - re-proposed a law to restrict the rights of the Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority, who live mainly in Rakhine State in western Myanmar. The draft would greatly reduce their freedom to form a political party and increased restrictions on their right to vote. The meeting was held at the A Tu Tu...

Buddhist monks at Rangoon’s Shwedagon Pagoda protest in November against an Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) delegation that is currently visiting Burma’s troubled Arakan State. (Photo: Steve Tickner / The Irrawaddy) By  Lawi Weng Irrawaddy News December 2, 2013  RANGOON  — Burma’s government says it will take action against Buddhist protesters who allegedly carried a banner insulting Islam during a demonstration against a visiting delegation of global Islamic leaders last month. The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported that protesters in Rangoon’s Bahan Township received permission to demonstrate against the delegation from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), but not to hold the banner, which the newspaper described as “assaulting faith.” Buddhists in mid-November staged protests across the country, accusing the OIC of trying to interfere in Burmese affairs. The OIC, the world’s largest bloc of Islamic countries, sent...

By M-mediagroup DEMNATION ON INSULT TO ISLAM IN MYANMAR AND DEMAND FOR RETRACTION AND APOLOGY  by  Stateless Rohingya

M.S. Anwar   |  Novemeber 19, 2013 rvisiontv.com Kyaukphyu, Arakan: Around 8PM on 18 th  November 2013, Rakhine terrorists led by some extremist faction of Buddist monks started destroying a Jameh Mosque, Religious School (Madraasa) and its Minaret at the quarter of Than-Ban-Chaung in Kyaukphyu Township. Till date, the minaret of the mosque was totally destroyed and parts of the mosque and the religious were also destroyed. The only remaining Jameh Mosque in Kyaukphyu. The Mosque and Religious School Partially Destroyed and Minaret Totally Destroyed. (Due Credit to the Photo Source) The whole account is as mentioned below. “Rakhine terrorists led by some extremist monks started to destroy the Jameh Mosque and the religious school at the quarter of Than-Ban-Chaung in Kyaukphyu Township at 8PM today (i.e. on 18 th  November 2013). Initially, authority didn’t prevent the terrorists and the facist monks from destroying the mosque and madraasa. However, som...

Buddhist monks in Mandalay protest last year against an attempt by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to open an office in Burma. (Photo: Man Thar Lay / The Irrawaddy) Irrawaddy News By Lawi Weng November 11, 2013 RANGOON — Hundreds of  Buddhists  in Rangoon and the Arakan State capital of Sittwe are planning to protest against a visit to Burma by a high-level delegation fro m the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) this week. The 57-member alliance of Muslim countries is planning to investigate the conditions in which displaced Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State are living. Tens of thousands of Rohingya are have been in temporary camps for more than a year, after they fled outbreaks of violence between Buddhists and Muslims. Tensions in the area remain high, and rights groups say the stateless Rohingya continue to face abuses and restrictions. Tun Hlaing, an Arakanese activist, said he is organizing a protest against the OIC when they arrive...

Aung San Su Kyi Photo (Reuters) By Ibrahim Shah BurmaTimes October 25, 2013   “Daw Aung San Suu Kyi—the Burmese pro-democracy icon, opposition leader and Nobel laureate— criminally silent and utterly failed to highlight or condemn the increasingly ongoing ethnic cleansing against Rohingya and other ethnic Muslims across the state.” The deceptive and tactic responds of DASSK concerning ongoing anti-Muslim violence in Burma that are exposed as injustice, mockery and baseless absolutely: In an interview with the BBC on Thursday 24th  October  2013 — DASSK employed tactic devices to mask her hidden crimes of silence to speak up for against anti-Muslim violence and to avoid condemnation of international critics and to bring equivalence between Buddhist miscreants and  Muslim victims. DASSK said “It’s not ethnic cleansing. … I think it’s due to fear on both sides. And this is what the world needs to understand—that the fear is not just on the s...

The continued violence against the broader Muslim community stains any democratic reforms in a country, writes author. Photo:  A monk shows an anti-Rohingya slogan on his hand Harrison Akins Al Jazeera October 18, 2013   In Rakhine State in western Myanmar, during President Thein Sein's visit to the region earlier this month, a mob of hundreds of Buddhists descended on a Muslim village - more than 70 homes were burnt to the ground and a 94-year-old Muslim woman lay dead from stab wounds. This attack is just the latest in a series of clashes between the Buddhist and Muslim populations around the country. Despite the democratic and economic reforms in Myanmar over the past year and a thaw in this once isolated authoritarian state's relations with the West, the growing violence against the Muslim population is a tragic reminder that Myanmar is still far from fully relinquishing the problems stemming from decades of military rule. For many Muslims, part...

 Ready for trouble: Members of the pro-Buddhist, anti-Muslim group 969 gather at a market in Yangon on April 4. | AP Yadana Htun Associated Press April 30, 2013 OKKAN, Myanmar - Anti-Muslim violence flared anew in central Myanmar on Tuesday as angry mobs destroyed two mosques and set fire to hundreds of homes and shops in unrest that injured at least 10 people in the predominantly Buddhist nation. Associated Press journalists who travelled to the area, about 70 miles (110 kilometres) north of the commercial capital of Yangon, saw terrified Muslim families who fled their homes, hiding in dense vegetation. Many, in a state of shock, cried as fires burned in the night. Two mosques in the town of Okkan were damaged and looted. Columns of smoke rose outside Okkan, where regional police chief Win Naing said mobs launched arson attacks in three villages. He said there were no immediate reports of deaths in the unrest, but at least 10 people had been injured. ...

A sticker of the "969 movement" is seen at a shop in Minhla on 29 March 2013. (Reuters) DVB News: April 25, 2013 A Muslim man was sentenced to two years in prison in central Burma this week for “insulting” religion, after he removed an extremist Buddhist “969” sticker from a shop, according to local media. Forty-two-year-old Armin (aka Soe Lwin) from Kyaukgyi township in eastern Pegu division scraped the nationalist symbol – which has been used to promote anti-Muslim propaganda in Burma – from a local betel nut shop’s window on Saturday. Local authorities sued him two days later, according to the Voice Daily newspaper. After a one-day trial, Judge Myint Kyaw from Kyaukgyi township court sentenced him to two years imprisonment under a draconian section of Burma’s penal code, which bans “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs”. The notorious “969” logos have been us...