The Stateless Rohingya Blog

The radical Buddhist Monk Ashin Wirathu of Myanmar By Daya Gamage  Asian Tribune News Analysis September 27, 2014 Washington, D.C. While the United States Department of State is deeply concerned about public discourse of a section of Buddhist clergy in Sri Lanka of its radicalism toward the Muslim minorities, and official pronouncement by the American Embassy in Colombo about the radical Buddhist organization called the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS- Buddhist Power Force) accusing it of instrumental in attacking Muslim places of worship and business institutions, it will be an added concern for the US officials here in Washington when they learn the arrival of a radical Buddhist monk from Myanmar to attend a BBS-organized even in Sri Lanka on September 28. It has been reported that the radical and outspoken Buddhist monk from Myanmar Ashin Wirathu iis expected to attend the BBS Great Sangha Council meeting on 28. Time magazine, with venerable Ashin Wirathu on their...

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...

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: April 19, 2013 Burma’s government has rejected calls for an international inquiry into recent waves of anti-Muslim violence, following media reports that the world’s top Islamic body would request to send a delegation to the country to discuss the unrest. “In my opinion, recent conflicts inside the country are [Burma’s] internal affairs,” government spokesman Ye Htut told The Irrawaddy on Thursday, adding that the government had not yet received a formal request for access from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Ye Htut, who is also Burma’s deputy minister of information, said the government had taken good care to handle religious tension and violence against Muslims in the Buddhist-majority nation. “So I believe there is no reason for an international organization to...

Posted by Assed Baig: March 30, 2013 Muhammed sits sketching a stick man and then he picks up a green pencil crayon, colouring in the man he has drawn. No one has bothered to ask these children about what they witnessed during last year's massacre of the Rohingya in Burma. No one seems to care what children have to say. Ten or so children sit in a bamboo hut, in what is now a make-shift Rohingya village at the end of a dusty road. The village is nothing but a collection of huts and tents put up in sand. This is not where these children are originally from, they were forced here after they were chased to the water amid sword, spear and gun attacks while their homes in the Kyauk Phyu village were burnt down last year. The sun beats down; the children surround us, wanting to see the foreigners. The American doctor, (I won’t reveal her name for her protection) works with the Rohingya and pays special attention to these children. She seems like the only one that wan...

In Each And Every Single City Of Arakan (Burma), Nasaka(Border Guards), Riot Police And Rakhine Extremists Are Continuously Threatening Rohingya Inhumanely.Photo 2012 Mayu Press,  March 28, 2013   Mohamed Farooq Since June 2012, the vulnerable ethnic minority Muslims are being killed with state sponsor religious unrest in front of security personnel who did no protection. State sponsored, well trained militia group are plotting communal clashes to eradicate Muslims from the soil of Burma. This is out of expectation to the mission of newly formed 969 Buddhist Monks campaign led by Monk Wirathu would be over soon and Muslims to be live in peace and harmony like before. Their objective is to root out Muslim minority from Burma. The words “riot and violence” are used by all media being reported the Rakhine and Meiktila cases. From my view point, the word “riot and violence” referred when both sides fight each other. This is different here as only Buddhist racis...

(Monks Patrol Meikhtila As Military Watches) Alders Ledge: March 25, 2013 Love? What Love? (part of The Darkness Visible series) When Buddha was a young man he sat at beneath a large tree and watched as the peasants prepared the fields for the planting. Instead of worrying about the hunger of his people, the Buddha thought to himself about the plight of the worms in the soil as the plows turned over the land. If the crops were not planted the people would starve to death. But that did not cross the Buddha's mind as he worried about and animal that can survive being cut in half. To the Buddhists of today this is supposed to represent his love for even the least of these. But I ask what love? It is hard to imagine any person, regardless of his supposed deity status, thinking that the life of a single worm was more important than the lives of millions of starving humans. It is a self righteous behavior that has become characteristic of the Buddha. While he had eve...

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui    MARCH 23, 2013 It was not too long ago that we witnessed the grisly massacre of minority Rohingya Muslims in the Arakan (Rakhine) state of Myanmar (Burma). Many of the western observers who grew up seeing the smiling face of Dalai Lama were simply shocked to see armed Buddhist monks participating in that ethnic cleansing of the unarmed Rohingya Muslims. Not only had the monks participated in those violent criminal acts with their fellow Buddhist Rakhine zealots terrorizing the minority Muslims of the western frontier state but they were also guilty of providing the very rationale – a criminal one - for such inhuman crimes against the members of a non-Buddhist faith who were different ethnically, culturally and religiously. In that pogrom, while we may never know the exact casualty figure because of government complicity in the tragedy – Rohingyas probably died in thousands, and hundreds remain unaccounted for even after nine months. W...

OIC was about to come to Myanmar just to help the riot victims from both Rohingya and Rakhine communities in Arkan state. The helpless and hopeless victims from both sides were happy and seeing tomorrows to meet OIC with their inharmonious heart beats as they know that it is a world richest organization and hope that it would be a part of a big role for their uncertain future to be nurtured step by step and day after day. But suddenly, demonstrating (protests) waves hit in Arkan state and swept all the victim’s hopes away shocking the world mankind and human watch groups.

SITTWE, MYANMAR - NOVEMBER 25: Mumtaz lays in a bed surrounded by patients waiting for medical care at a government run medical clinic. Despite unprecedented international and media attention to the most persecuted minority in the world in the wake of U.S. President Obama's likewise unprecedented state visit to the country of Burma, the situation has not even changed one bit for the Rohingya Muslims in the southwestern state of Rakhine. Although estimates of deaths are put at a few hundred or even a thousand by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, it is likely that the death toll reaches well over those estimates as violence and persecution continue with the Burmese government essentially sanctioning and even participating in the ethnic cleansing.

Akyab, Arakan State: Over 1,800 Holy Quran and Hadith books were burnt down by Rakhine extremists with the collaboration of security forces, at about 2:00 pm, on October 7, in Akuab,( Sittwe), the capital of Arakan, said a local villager on condition of anonymity. “The Rakhine also tried to torch the central Mosque of Akyab, but security force, especially military gave protection from setting on fire. However, the Rakhine extremists burned down five houses in the compound of big Mosque. They also burned down a big library of over 1800 religious books- Holy Quran and Hadith books.”

Hundreds take to the streets in solidarity with President Thein Sein's plan to send the Rohingya to another country. The protest is the latest indication of deep rooted sentiment against the Rohingya population in Myanmar [AFP] Hundreds of Buddhist monks in Myanmar have staged a rally in support of President Thein Sein's proposal to send the members of the Rohingya minority group to another country.