The Stateless Rohingya Blog

A Rohingya boy writes down his name after arriving on Phuket Photo by phuketwan.com/file By Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian Saturday, October 8, 2011 News Analysis PHUKET: Phuket can expect more surprise visitors anytime now. The ''sailing season'' for would-be refugee boatpeople from northern Burma and Bangladesh has begun with the arrival off the Malaysian island of Penang of the first vessel. Between October and April, more vessels are expected to land along the Thai and Malaysian coasts, and the likelihood is that some will come ashore, more by chance than design, on Phuket. More boats are expected to put to sea this sailing season than in the past couple of years, with people smugglers already reported to be selling berths in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, sources say. The first arrivals this week landed on Penang after 10 days at sea, according to one newspaper report, with the desperate passengers spending the previous three to five days without fo...

PARINYAPORN PAJEE  October 6, 2011 10:21 am A Thai documentary maker turns her attention to the Rohingya Like many Thais, Thananuch Sanguansak saw CNN's report in early 2009 that the Thai military had been systematically towing boat-loads of Rohingya refugees far out to sea and setting them adrift. Her curiosity was aroused and the director and editor of the Nation Channel's documentary section decided to explore further with a documentary of her own. "That was really the first time I'd heard about the Rohingya. They are part of our daily lives but we don't really notice them," says Thananuch, who set about tracing the Rohingya in Thailand from Ranong to Samut Sakhon - the provinces that are home to the largest concentrations of Burmese immigrant labour. "I asked Burmese labourers where I could find Rohingya people and the answer was ‘any roti vendor'. I was surprised because I'd always thought that the roti vendors came from India or Bangladesh....

Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO) strongly condemned the recent two almost identical interviews of U Tin Oo, the Vice-President of National League for Democracy (NLD) with RFA and Burmese Immigration Minister U Khin Yi with BBC respectively on 2 October and 24 September calling the Muslim Rohingya illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. The oppressed and persecuted Rohingya people are not surprised at the false accusation of U Khin Yi. But we are grieved and disappointed over the statement of U Tin Oo which indicates good sense does not prevail yet in the mind of the former general even after he has held the office of highest public trust as a Vice-President of National League for Democracy (NLD) headed by democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on whom the Rohingya people, nay, the whole people of Burma repose faith. It sounds that U Tin Oo is following the footstep of his former boss Gen. Ne Win, while endorsing xenophobic and anti-Muslim policy of the new government of U Thein ...

News By Kaladan Press Balu Khali, Cox’s Bazar:  Twenty one Rohingyas were pushed back to Burma by Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) from September 29 to October 3, through various points, according to BGB sources. At first, five Rohingyas were arrested by the police of Shonar Para Bazar police station under Cox’s Bazar district while they were going to Cox’s Bazar, on October 3, at about 6:00 pm, for searching works. The all arrestees were from Kutupalong unofficial refugee camp, according to police source. 

By  Iona Liddell For a refugee, the journey rarely ends. Photo:  Choney Pelzang We left Lhasa at night and headed for the mountains. We walked for 17 days,’ Kelsang Dolma, sitting in her small rain-battered room in Dharamsala, tells me her story. ‘The snow was deep and my shoes kept slipping. We had to help each other walk. Nights were so cold and the days so long. We had to cross a high pass because the Chinese soldiers wouldn’t go that way. On the pass we found a body of another Tibetan in the snow. That terrified me. But we were lucky, we made it to the border.’ Kelsang’s village is in eastern Tibet. When she got to Lhasa, she had to find an ‘agent’ who would take her across the border into Nepal. The agent was looking for other Tibetans who wanted to flee, so Kelsang had to wait around for a month. ‘That was a nervous time,’ she says. ‘Whenever I stepped outside I felt like the Public Security Bureau officers could tell what I was planning to do.’ Kelsang’s trials di...

New Delhi (Mizzima) – After Burma’s Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin told the UN General Assembly that an unspecified number of prisoners will be released soon, political parties are expressing hope that political prisoners will be included in the release. Burmese Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin, wearing traditional dress, addresses the 66th general assembly of the United Nations in New York on Tuesday. Photo: AFP At the 66th session of the U.N. General Assembly held in New York, Wunna Maung Lwin said that an amnesty would be granted soon. Ohn Kyaing, the spokesman for the National League for Democracy (NLD), the leading opposition group, said, “I hope [political prisoners] will also be offered [the amnesty]. According to people who recently met with [political] prisoners, we have been encouraged. “We heard that [authorities] asked [political prisoners] for a brief biography.” he said. When the new government came into office, hopes were high that all political prisoners would be ...

By Dr. Habib Siddiqui Part 1: The Rohingya Identity and Hatemongering by Rakhine Racists Khin Maung Saw’s article “Islamization of Burma through Chittagonian Bengalis as Rohingya Refugees” is a revisionist attempt by a deranged chauvinist Magh to rewrite the history of the Muslims of Arakan. Racism and bigotry are written all over the article. 1. Introduction In this post-9/11 era of hatemongering and Islamophobia, it is not difficult to understand his evil mindset that steered him to concoct such an absurd idea that the Rohingya Muslims are working towards Islamization of Myanmar (Burma). Forget about the fact that Burma is a military-ruled country with no democracy, how could a mere 2 to 3 million people impose the dictates of their faith on a nation of 50 million, especially when they are denied all basic rights – of movement, assembly, marriage, education, jobs, etc.? One has to be either mentally unstable or very high in mind-altering drugs to hallucinate such a ludicrous idea! ...