The Stateless Rohingya Blog

By LALIT K JHA / THE IRRAWADDY Ban Ki-moon, center, Secretary General of United Nations shakes hands with Demetris Christofias, left, President of Cyprus and Dervis Eroglu, right, Turkish Cypriot leader after a meeting the three had at the UN Headquarters on Jan. 25, 2012. (Photo: AP) United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday that he is planning to make a trip to Burma in the near future and announced that his chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, will soon transition to become his full-time special envoy to the country. “I am planning to visit in the near future Myanmar [Burma] to have further discussions with the Myanmar authorities,” Ban told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York. Ban said the UN has been playing a very key role in furthering the democratization process of Burma. “I am very pleased and encouraged by what the current Myanmar authorities led by President Thein Sein [have been doing], including the releasing of political prisoners,” he said. Respo...

 Kaladan News Chittagong, Bangladesh:  More than 40,000 Rohingya children in northern Arakan are blacklisted and have been deprived of rights to travel, go to school because of their parents had an unauthorized marriage, according to Arakan Project report on Issues to be raised concerning the situation of Stateless Rohingya children in Myanmar (Burma) on January 2012, submitted to the UN Committee on the rights of the child.

By David Brunnstrom and Sebastian Moffett (Reuters) - The European Union will suspend travel bans on the president of Myanmar and other senior officials, following reforms that have included the release of hundreds of political prisoners. And EU foreign ministers held out the prospect of a further easing of sanctions in April if a "remarkable programme of political reform" and a commitment to economic and social development continued. In the steps agreed on Monday, the EU said it would suspend visa bans on Myanmar's president, Thein Sein, the country's vice-presidents, cabinet members and parliamentary speakers. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said he saw real willingness by the government to liberalise and democratise and was now watching whether Myanmar freed political prisoners, allowed strikes, and held transparent elections on April 1. "If this process of democratisation goes further, we shall go further in lifting sanctions," he told ...

By SIMON ROUGHNEEN John McCain and Aung San Suu Kyi speak at a press conference in Rangoon on Sunday. (PHOTO: The Irrawaddy) BANGKOK—A US delegation fronted by Sen. John McCain and Sen. Joseph Lieberman will request that the Burmese government allow international observers to oversee April by-elections, which, if deemed free and fair, will almost certainly see the US remove some sanctions on the Burmese government. “Obviously we will have to look carefully at the process of the elections,” said McCain, who conceded that Burma's reforms in recent months—including the release of several hundred political prisoners—are “a dramatic change in policy and behaviour in as short a time as a year ago,” he said. McCain confirmed that the delegation, which arrived in Burma on Sunday, would ask Burma's government to allow international observation of the April by-elections, in response to a question about the issue from this correspondent. A positive assessment by th...

Rohingyas carry water from a pond near a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, August 19, 2011. REUTERS/Andrew Biraj/ BANGKOK (AlertNet) – More than 40,000 Rohingya children in western Myanmar have been deprived of rights to travel, go to school or to marry in future, because their parents had an unauthorised marriage or exceeded a two-child limit,  a report  said

By Kaladanpress The ARAKAN PROJECT PRESS RELEASE Myanmar blacklists babies as oppression of the Rohingya continues Geneva, 19 January 2012 [For immediate release] Myanmar blacklists Rohingya babies as part of its continuing oppression of this stateless minority, The Arakan Project said today as the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) meets to review the situation of children’s rights in Myanmar, a State party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. To read more detail,  please click here

By Vice of America  Photo: AP Burma's President Thein Sein welcomes US Sen. John McCain at the Presidential Palace in Naypyitaw, Burma, January 22, 2011. A key U.S. senator says the United States is pleased with recent progress toward democratic reforms in Burma, but says the country's new, nominally civilian government must ensure "free and fair" by-elections in April.