The Stateless Rohingya Blog

By Ibrahim Shah / Mohamed Ibrahim Burma Times October 18, 2014 New Delhi: Today, on Saturday, 18thOctober, a peaceful demonstration regarding ‘the ongoing forced Bengalization over Rohingya through Rakhine Action Plan, arbitrarily detention, disappearance of Rohingya detainees from police custody and controversial Burma Census 2014’ was carried out by about four  hundreds exiled Rohingyas including female under authority of Rohingya Youth Union-India at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. In the demonstration, the participants disclosed that the exclusion of Rohingya national from controversial Burma census 2014 is one of the concealed plots of quasi-military regime led by President Thein Sein to persistently deprive of citizenship rights of Rohingya. Moreover,the demonstrators demanded that UN should be able to immediately prevent  Rakhine Action  Plan which is being conducted under 1982 Burma Citizenship Act drafted by Dictator Ne Win as the Burmese ...

By Munawar Zaman Press TV May 5, 2014 The Rohingya refugees who have fled Myanmar over increasing violence against them are facing a humanitarian crisis at camps in India, Press TV reports. Hundreds of Rohingya refugees are camping out on the outskirts of the Indian capital, New Delhi. A Press TV correspondent who visited one of the camps in New Delhi says the refugees suffer from lack of food and medicine. The hardship faced by the Rohingya refugees seems to be so severe that even the aid program by the United Nations refugee agency cannot alleviate it. “We are facing extreme hardship especially when someone gets sick. In recent weeks, we lost one of our brothers due to lack of medical help,” Mohamad Haroon, a refugee, told Press TV. Sakuara Begum, a woman refugee, also said, “We don’t get help from anyone. We are facing extreme hardship. My father died recently as he was sick and we couldn’t afford medicine for him. We are in desperate need of food and medicine for ...

Photo: G. Ramakrishna By Syed Mohammed Times of India March 3, 2014 HYDERABAD: When they arrived in the city a little over three years ago from Myanmar, the Rohingya refugees were hopeful of a new life and emancipation from military junta's persecution. While their new home did assuage their feelings of utter hopelessness, lack of steady employment remains a major cause for concern. The Rohingya influx began in the aftermath of the ethnic violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, with the first batch arriving in the city in October 2011. From a mere 35 in October 2011, their number shot up to over 1,500 in just three years. They are now spread across five neighbourhoods - Balapur, Barkas, Shaheen Nagar, Kishan Bagh and Shastripuram - all in the Old City. But most of them are without work. For instance, Dudey Miya's daily trips to the local labourer point, popularly known as adda, in Barkas to find work are often unfruitful. Three days a wee...

  M.A.R. Fareed   Al Jazeera January 06, 2014    About 1,500 Rohingya Muslims displaced from Myanmar camp in Hyderabad city but basic amenities eludes them. Tarpaulin sheets and open sewage greet visitors in Rohingya camps in Hyderabad [MAR Fareed/Al Jazeera] For hundreds of Rohingya - a Muslim minority group in Myanmar - settled in makeshift camps in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, it is a daily struggle for survival. More than 1,500 Rohingya people who were displaced from Myanmar have been camping in the city for more than a year, but basic amenities such as food, clean water, medicine and clothes still eludes them. They arrived in India after being attacked by the ethnic Rakhine Budhists, while Myanmar's government forces did little to stop the violent assaults. A number of widows and pregnant women are living in precarious conditions, but children are the worst affected, with many falling sick due to the lack of proper food an...

By  PressTV November 10, 2013 Ahmad Irshad along with his family fled Myanmar at the age of 14, because they feared being killed by extremist Buddhists. Living in Jammu region of Indian-controlled Kashmir, he believes the life they live now is no less than a punishment for them.  Working in a walnut packaging factory is the only chance of survival for thousands of refugees -- young and old.  India is not a signatory to the United Nations convention relating to the status of refugees. Since there is no law that deals with foreign refugees, the government will decide whether or not to grant the Rohingyas, refugee status on a case-by-case basis.  Asylum seekers can be given the UN refugee cards instead, which the agency says could also take time.  Rohingyas are believed to be the most persecuted community of the world. Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees living across the Indian sub-continent hope their lives will one day change for the bett...

Photo: The Daily Star The Hindu News September 22, 2013   With the arrest of 107 Rohingya Muslims over the past three months for illegally trying to enter West Bengal, the Border Security Force (BSF) has taken up the matter with the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB). Senior BSF officers, who were part of the delegation at the Director General-level talks held in Dhaka earlier this month, told  The Hindu  here on Sunday that they had urged the BGB “not to push them” into India. Owing to ethnic violence in Myanmar, Rohingya Muslims had been moving into Bangladesh over the last few years. From there they enter India in large numbers taking the help of touts, according to Additional Director General (East) BSF, B.D. Sharma. BSF authorities pointed out that such infiltration had been occurring near the border outposts in West Bengal’s Dakshin Dinajpur, Nadia, Malda and North 24 Parganas districts.  During talks with the BGB, the BSF authorities...

By India Today Rohingya Muslims dubbed illegal immigrants by Myanmar's totalitarian regime   Till 1784, the ancestors of today's refugees ruled the Muslim kingdom of Arakan, known in ancient times as Rohang. Today it is one of the 14 provinces of Myanmar, touching Bangladesh in the west, 250 km from India's border. But the 1.4 million Rohingya Muslims have been dubbed illegal immigrants by Myanmar's totalitarian regime. The Rohingyas, who come from Arab, Moor, Bengali and Indo-Mongoloid stock have lived in Arakan since the 8th century. Their fortunes have been on the slide ever since Myanmar became independent in 1948, when they went unrepresented in the new union. Successive regimes have carried out at least 13 armed operations, the worst in 1978, when three lakh Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh. But Myanmar took them back. Myanmar had its revenge with a Citizenship Law in 1982 which laid down three types of citizenship. All ethnic groups who s...

The Hindu News: June 30, 2013 Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims who came to the city escaping persecution in their native Burma, continue to face bad times. With knowledge of neither Urdu nor Telugu, they lose out on jobs here They came all the way to Hyderabad to escape persecution back home and for a better livelihood. But a year later, most of them have failed to land jobs. Reason: they couldn’t pick up local languages. Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims who came to the city in hope of better days continue to face bad times as job opportunities elude them as they do not know either Urdu or Telugu. Rohingyas from different provinces of Myanmar entered India sometime ago to escape violence in that country. Many of them live in small tenements in Hafeezbabanagar, Pahadeshareef, Balapur, Mir Momim Pahadi and Kishanbagh. Abdul Mabud, 24, who hails from Maungdaw in Myanmar, owned a shop in his hometown until he crossed over to India to escape clashes in his country ...

SahilOnline News: April 10, 2013 Delhil: Indian Muslim organizations and human rights bodies today demonstrated near Myanmar embassy in the capital against the non- stop violation of human rights, atrocities and inhuman cruel activities meted out on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Indian Muslim organisations and civil society under the banner of an umbrella body of Muslim organisations All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat (AIMMM) today condemned the Burmese government in the strongest terms for its inaction and collaboration to stop violence against, and expulsion of, its minority Rohingya population in the Rakhine [Arakan] state. The demonstration was planned in front of Myanmar Embassy in Chankyapuri Delhi but Delhi police stopped Muslim leaders and protesters at Teen Morti Marg, near Chankyapuri police station. Therefore, protesters were forced to express their protest merely in front of Chankyapuri police station near embassy, instead of Myanmar Embassy. -We ...

Ahlul Bayt News Agency: April 9, 2013 Expressing solidarity with the victims, an Indian Muslim leader Tuesday urged the UN to play a pivotal role in stopping the violence against Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. (Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Dr. Zafrul Islam Khan, President of All India Muslim Majlis Mushawwarat (AIMMM) said: “The root of the problem is the racist attitude of the government of Myanmar that does not recognize them as its own citizen. As the result, the atrocities committed on Rohingya Muslims seems planned, and organized. The involvement of Myanamr government in widespread bloodshed and destruction could not be ruled out”. Noting that the Myanmar government has systematically persecuted the Rohingya Muslims for years, stripping them of their basic rights and subjecting them to poverty and oppression, the AIMMM leader urged the UN to intervene immediately and pressurize the Myanmarese government to stop the persecution of the Rohingya minor...

Rohingya while resting releasing tired and temporarily housed in shelters House Immigration Punteut, Lhokseumawe. (Doc - Care) Indian coast guards have rescued 108 Rohingyas off the coast of the country's eastern Andaman archipelago, a website in the islands reports.   The ‘Andaman Sheekha’ said that two coast guard ships, C-145 and Aruna Asaf Ali, rescued these Rohingyas from an unmanned barge 'Ganpati’, which was tugged away from Myanmar to Mumbai by ‘Tug Star Jakarta’. Some officials of Indian company Punj Llyod drew the attention of the coast guards about the presence of some 15 unidentified people in the unmanned barge and the presence of some boats in its vicinity on the evening of 28th Feb, the website said. On receipt of the information, Interceptor Boat C-145 under the command of Coast Guard Commandant SR Nagendrgan was pressed into action. "It sailed out from Diglipur and intercepted Tug Star Jakarta at 9:00pm Indian time. Then the Coast Guard...

Nowhere to go: Burmese refugees in Delhi. Photo: S. Subramanium Source The Hindu:  January 11, 2013 Refugees from Myanmar refuse to return to the country citing violence and discrimination National League of Democracy chairperson Aung San Suu Kyi’s return to active politics in May last year after over two decades of incarceration had raised the hopes of the hundreds of Burmese refugees in India. They had also rejoiced during her six-day visit to the Capital last November. Yet the refugees, especially the Rohingya Muslims, are not willing to go back to their home country citing continuing violence against them and would instead prefer to obtain refugee status in India.

By AFK Jilani Rohingyas are sons of the soil of Arakan. Before the Mongolean invasion in 10th century, Arakan was ruled by Chandra dynasty; both the rulers and the subjects were Indians similar to today’s Rohingyas.”The fact that in the light of racial and linguistic affinity with Wethali people, Rohingyas of Arakan today are to be designated as the descendants of those early Indo-aryan people of Arakan.[Abu Anin, Yangon 2002] According to U Tiger Yawngwe,” There has Muslims settled in North Arakan for centuries for both my father and Prime Minister U Nu to agree. His father was Sao Shwe Thaike, first President of the Union of Burma. He was asked in the then Constituent Assembly about the Muslims of Arakan, he replied, “If the Arakan Muslims are not indigenous to the country, neither am I” we have all come from somewhere else, albeit longtime ago. Former Prime Minister U Nu said very much the same thing. U Ba Swe, former Prime Minister, defense Minister and the leader...