The Stateless Rohingya Blog

By Mashhood Roohul Amin  Arab News March 19, 2014 Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar have been the target of atrocities perpetrated by the local population. The international community has all along been indifferent to their plight. World leaders who claim to be the protagonists of human rights have done nothing to alleviate the sufferings of these people. More international issues have lately cropped up placing the Rohingya problem on the back burner. Syria, Ukraine and Iran are a few of them.  Although Myanmar claims it is moving toward democracy and human rights icon Suu Kyi, who had endured hardships for two decades under Burma’s former military junta, is now a parliamentarian things have not changed, instead they have worsened.  It is an irony that Suu Kyi had been fighting human rights violation all along her life but when she got an opportunity to act she chose to keep silent at the brutalities perpetrated on the Rohingya Muslims.  Doctors ...

By  Harun Yahya Arab News When after years of house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi aptly described by many as the architect of democracy and human rights was allowed to enter politics, citizens of the world must have had heaved a sigh of relief. Her entry into the political arena was not only seen as a good omen for democracy in Myanmar but also raised expectations of many that it would put an end to the plight of the defenseless Rohingya Muslims in the province of Rakhine. Ironically, on both fronts the situation is not very reassuring. Despite Suu Kyi’s willingness to take part in the 2015 general elections, the sword of Law 59f is hanging over her political career, which bars anyone with family members who owe allegiance to a foreign power from participating in polls. Analysts believe it was a shrewd clause deliberately inserted into the constitution by the military junta to cope with such a situation. On the other hand, relentless oppression against Rohingyas, the m...

Arab News January 22, 2014 I am surprised at the criminal silence of the international media over the atrocities committed against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. If one browses the Internet, he/she could find hundreds of reports on the plight of the poor Muslims in Rakhine province of Myanmar. Many of those reports correctly call it a slow-burning genocide. Unfortunately, the international media and the toothless champion of the human rights the United Nations is keeping mum over this issue.  The UN appears satisfied by paying a mere lip service.  According to some reports available on the Internet and reported by a few media outlets, a group of extremist Buddhists with the connivance of local authorities is butchering innocent unarmed Muslims. They attack Muslim villages in an organized manner and conveniently carry out their operation cleanup without facing any problem from the authorities. There are some reports claiming that Myanmar forces are forcing Muslim...

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 Rohin...

ONE FAITH: Speaking passionately through an interpreter, OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told the emotional crowd of Rohingya Muslims: “We are here to tell you that you are not alone, you are not abandoned.” (AN photos by Maha Akeel) By  Arab News November 28, 2013 A high-level delegation from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), headed by Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, visited Myanmar (previously Burma) last week in what was described as a landmark visit.  Not everyone welcomed the good will visit. Protests by radical Buddhist monks greeted the delegation outside Yangon airport on Nov. 13, and the day before their arrival, hundreds marched down the streets of Yangon objecting to the delegation’s visit, seeing it as a form of interference in the country’s internal affairs. The delegation did not spend time in Yangon. It was swiftly whisked away to the administrative capital, Nay Pyi Taw. The delegation spent Thursday in meetings with...

By Suresh Kumar Arab News  September 13, 2013 The silence of the world over the slow burning genocide of the Muslims in Myanmar is very surprising. Every now and then we read reports of the Rohingya Muslims — fleeing persecution — arriving in neighboring countries by boats. Is the world silent because the Rohingyas do not matter and amount to nothing in this capitalist world? Even the United Nations has so far done nothing to check the situation. Paying lip service won’t work anymore as the situation has reached such a point where a UN intervention becomes mandatory.  But I feel that the cries of the poor Rohingyas are falling on deaf ears and nobody will try to rescue them from Buddhist terrorists. Even the media in the Muslim world appears silent in highlighting the plight of these Arakanese Muslims. The world must act before it is too late.

Sittwe displaced Rohingya  Khawaja Umer Farooq Arab New: July 30, 2013   The article on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar by Aijaz Zaka Syed was a thoughtful article. The problem of the Rohingyas is indeed historical, and the British are in large measure to blame for encouraging the uncontrolled migration of Indians — Hindus and Muslims — into Burma from the mid-1850s onward. I thought Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr got it right with his depressing comments his recent visit to Burma. There is a political dimension which is often overlooked. The British recognized that the Indian influx into Burma had created considerable problems, but it was too late to remedy these before the Japanese invaded in 1941. As James Baxter put it in 1940: “There was an Arakanese Muslim community settled so long in Akyab District that it had for all intents and purposes to be regarded as an indigenous race.” This was before the events of 1942 when the Muslims were forced to seek refug...

Aijaz Zaka Syed Arab News July 25, 2013 THE United States says it’s concerned over the growing Islamophobia around the world. In its annual report on the state of political and religious freedom around the world, the State Department has denounced a sharp spike in anti-Muslim sentiment and violence: “Government restrictions, which often coincided with societal animosity, resulted in anti-Muslim actions that affected everyday life for numerous believers.” From Western nations like Belgium, home to European Parliament, where the veil is seen as the flag of invading Islamic armies, to emerging Asian giants China and India, many usual and unusual suspects find themselves in the dock. However, it is Burma or Myanmar, lately the scene of raging atrocities against Rohingya Muslims, that justifiably attracts the strongest censure. Senior officials and security forces are seen as openly fanning the waves of attacks that have killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands. The p...

The Arakan Rohingya Union Conference is being held at the OIC headquarters in Jeddah. (AN photo)  Jeddah: Nadim al -Hamid  Arab News, June 7, 2013 Under the direction of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia is making all-out political and diplomatic efforts to support the cause of Rohingyas on the international level.  “The Kingdom is exerting pressure on the world community,” said Abdullah Maaroof, president of the International Rohingya Center and leader of the Burmese community in the Kingdom.  Speaking at the Arakan Rohingya Union Conference, which opened at the headquarters of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) yesterday, he said: “We will soon see the positive the results of these efforts.” He described the efforts as strong and effective because of the Kingdom’s political and Islamic leverage on the international level. He said Saudi Arabia will work on many fronts to exert pressure on international organi...

OIC chief Ihsanoglu says targeting of Muslims in central Myanmar in March and April has been a particularly worrying development. (AN photo) Arab News: July 5, 2013 The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will hold on July 7 and 8 the Arakan Rohingya Union Conference at its headquarters in Jeddah. The charter of the Arakan Rohingya Union (ARU) will be submitted to the members for discussion in preparation for its adoption. The agenda of the conference will also include introduction of the current and new members of the union, which was established by the OIC in May 2011 to unite the Rohingya refugees around the world. Waqarudin, director general of the first session of the union, will present his report on ARU’s achievements. The conference will look into the strategy and action plan of the union in the next session, in addition to electing officials and the formation of the Supreme Council, the committees and advisory board. In a letter sent through his...

Arab News Ramzy Barod June 4, 2013 ON April 21, the BBC obtained disturbing video footage shot in Myanmar. It confirmed extreme reports of what has been taking place in that country, even as it is being touted by the US and European governments as a success story pertaining to political reforms and democracy. The BBC footage was difficult to watch even when faces of Muslim Rohingya victims were blurred. To say the least, the level of violence exhibited by their Arakan Buddhist attackers was frightening. “The Burmese police (stood) by as shops, homes and mosques are looted and burned, and failing to intervene as Buddhist mobs, including monks, kill fleeing Muslims,” the BBC reported. A Rohingya man was set ablaze while still alive. The police watched. To some extent, international media are finally noticing the plight of the Rohingyas who are experiencing what can only be described as genocide. And there are reasons for this. On one hand, the atrocities being carri...

Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Dipu Moni. JEDDAH: IRFAN MOHAMMED Arab News: May 6, 2013 The solution to end the violence that has led to thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar for Bangladesh rests with the Myanmar government, Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni told Arab News in an exclusive interview yesterday. She said her country has raised the plight of Myanmar refugees in the OIC and the UN, but the issue is an internal matter that only Myanmar is able to solve. “(The) solution lies where the problem exists, and the solution has to be found within Myanmar.” The Rakhine state of Myanmar has been wracked by sectarian violence. An estimated 500,000 Muslim refugees have crossed the border into Bangladesh, but only 29,000 are in the country legally. Rohingya Muslims have been the target of Buddhist-led attacks and their killings have been described by human rights organizations as ethnic cleansing. Moni said the continuing attacks have taken a financ...