The Stateless Rohingya Blog

By  World Bulletin October 24, 2014 Record numbers of Muslim Rohingya flee western Myanmar after government launches crackdown. Unprecedented numbers of Muslim Rohingya have been leaving Myanmar on boats for Thailand and Malaysia following a campaign of arrests, a leading NGO said Friday. "In one week we have seen 8,000 Rohingya leaving northern Rakhine state -- the amount of people who left the region per month in 2013," Chris Lewa, head of the Arakan Project, told Anadolu Agency. Last week’s flight is believed to be the largest since violence erupted between the Rohingya minority and Buddhists in western Myanmar two years ago. "Myanmar police let the boats come to the estuary of the Naf river in daylight and have even stopped asking for money from the Rohingya before they embark," Lewa added, referring to the water frontier between Myanmar and Bangladesh. "It looks as if it is planned." While the number of Rohingya escaping...

By Joshua Carroll  October 11, 2014 Dozens of men from Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority have been arrested and tortured because of alleged ties to a militant Islamic organization, according to a rights group. The Arakan Project, a Thailand-based group that documents abuses against the Rohingya, says one man has been tortured to death in Myanmar’s far north-west, near the border with Bangladesh. Authorities have rounded up at least 58 men in the last two weeks from several villages in the north of Rakhine state, according to figures compiled by the Arakan Project and seen by the Anadolu Agency . The wife of the dead man told the group she was forced to sign a statement that her husband died of natural causes. Last month, al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri announced plans to expand his terror network to include Myanmar. The recently arrested Rohingya men were accused of having ties to a group called the Rohingya Solidarity Organization, or RSO. ...

By World Bulletin July 07, 2014  Canadian Senator Mobina S. B. Jaffer addressed her colleagues in the Senate to birng attention to the oppression of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. 'The United Nations has called the now-stateless Rohingya one of the most persecuted minorities on Earth. The Rohingya have been in Myanmar since the 8th century, yet the government refuses to grant them citizenship. Instead, they are called Bengali insurgents who are in Myanmar illegally,' she said. Noting that some Buddhist leaders compare Rohingya Muslims to 'jackals and wolves in order to dehumanize them', she referred to the acts of the Arakanese Buddhists as 'ethnic cleansing'. To put her point across she also told of an account of a 24-year-old Rohingya man from the Yan Thei village who said that the Arakanese had stormed his village in October 2012, burning it down to the ground and killing at least 30 children were killed, 25 women, and 10 men. ...

By World Bulletin February 13, 2014 1,300 Rohingya detained in immigration detention centers in Thailand sent back to Myanmar authorities 3 months ago. Human Rights Watch reacted with "serious worry" Friday to news that Thailand deported 1,300 Rohingya Muslims back to Myanmar three months ago under the supervision of an unnamed "NGO." Thailand's immigration bureau commissioner told local newspaper the Bangkok Post on Wednesday that all 1,300 Rohingya detained in immigration detention centers in Thailand had been sent back to Myanmar authorities “in a clear and transparent manner” under the supervision of an “NGO (non-government organisation) working on protecting the rights of minorities”. “We don’t even know what NGO he (bureau commissioner Pharnu Kerdlarpphon) is referring to,” Sunai Pasuk, Thailand's Director for Human Rights Watch, told the Anadolu Agency on Friday. “We are seriously worried because they sent them back to the Myanmar au...

A group of six foreign ministers and OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu will visit Myanmar.  World Bulletin  October 29, 2013 A group of six foreign ministers and  OIC  Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu will visit Myanmar in a bid to take up the violence targeting Muslims residing in this country in two weeks. Ihsanoglu told AA following a special session held at UN Security Council that they will visit Myanmar to make an emphasis on  Rohingya Muslims ’ right of citizenship in their own country. Ihsanoglu said  Rohingya Muslims  were not regarded as the citizens of Myanmar (Burma) with a decision in 1982 and the second basic problem was related to their right to live.  OIC  Secretary General also said that he has been in contact with US President Barack Obama, EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton regarding the Myanmar issue since the first day he came into...

World Bulletin October 28, 2013 UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, Quintana told AA., Myanmar Muslims are now facing “segregation that is becoming permanent,” since they are living in isolated shelters built by government  The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) with some other states at the United Nations Headquarters -- is pursuing its own resolution on human rights record in Myanmar and the suffering of the local  Muslim  population in Rakhine State, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in  Myanmar,  Tomás Ojea Quintana told AA. “It seems that there is going to be a resolution by consent (at the United Nations) and with the consent of the government of  Myanmar, ” Quintana told AA. He stressed that is a “good news,” since UN always was looking for intergovernmental engagement. OIC takes initiative    “The government of Myanmar is now engaging with OIC. ...

(File Photo) World Bulletin / News Desk Australia is set to deport over 100 Rohingya asylum-seekers to detention centres coming weeks.  Australia is set to deport over 100 Rohingya asylum-seekers to detention centres in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Nauru in the coming weeks, in spite of accusations that the move would breach international human rights law, reported the Stateless.  It follows a decision by the former government in July to redirect all asylum-seekers to its poorer Pacific neighbours in an effort to stem the influx of boat people to Australia – which the newly elected Conservative prime minister has vowed to uphold. All new arrivals – of which 1,585 were recorded in August – will be sent onwards to Nauru or Manus Island in PNG where they will be resettled if successful, despite allegations of mistreatment and abuse at local detention facilities. According to a local campaign group, at least 100 Rohingyas fleeing conflict and persecution in Burma...

A Muslim Rohingya man prays in front of a temporary relief camp in a school in Thetkaepyin village, on the outskirts of Sittwe on May 17, 2013. World Bulletin: May 24, 2013 Despite the messages Myamnar President Thein Sein gave during his US visit, the suffering of Arakan (Rohingya) Muslims continues. Arakan Rohingya Union President Prof Dr. Wakar Uddin, who resides in the US, evaluated the latest developments in Arakan and the US visit of Myanmar President Thein Sein. Thein Sein’s US visit was a sign of Myanmar’s desire to develop relationships with the US. Thein Sein knew that this topic would be on the agenda and therefore came to the US prepared. “We will see how effective Obama’s messages will be,” Uddin said. Wakar Uddin indicated that the aggression against the Arakan people did not cease even during Thein Sein's US trip, and said: "All mosques in Arakan are still closed. Not even funeral prayer are allowed. Muslims must bribe officials...

World Bulletin: March 15, 2013 Muhammed Yunus, president of the Rohingya Solidarity Organization, said that the Myanmar administration did not allow Rohingya Muslims to receive higher education. The Turkish Religious Affairs Foundation (TDV) started a project for the Rohingya Muslim students in order to cover their university expenses. A hundred students are to be supported at two universities, with which agreements have been concluded. TDV Deputy Director General Mustafa Tutkun told AA that the Rohingya Muslims faced serious problems about receiving education and that they could not make their voice heard when they did not have access to higher education. "As long as the Rohingya Muslims stay uneducated they cannot contribute to their cases on solving their problems," said Tutkun. Tutkun said that they met with officials from the International Islamic University Chittagong in Bangladesh and made an agreement on covering the educational expenses and scholarship...