The Stateless Rohingya Blog

A Muslim man from Win Kite village looks from behind the fence which residents built to protect their village from mob attacks, May 2, 2013. REUTERS/Minzayar Jared Ferrie Reuters : May 3, 2013 Three Muslim men peered over a bamboo fence built recently to fortify their village in central Myanmar. They gazed across dry rice paddies towards a nearby Buddhist community, looking for rising dust, a sign of an approaching mob. It was a false alarm. But a day earlier, on Wednesday, about 100 Buddhists armed with sticks had gathered outside the fence, threatening to burn the village and kill them, said the villagers of Win Kite, about a two-hour drive from Myanmar's largest city, Yangon. Police foiled that attack. But Muslims were taking no chances after four days of mob violence led by Buddhist monks in Meikhtila in March killed 44 people, mostly Muslims, and touched off a wave of unrest in central Myanmar that threatens to derail the country's nascent economic a...

Photos created by Kalle Bergbom : IPS News Agency May 03, 2013 BANGKOK, May 3 2013 (IPS) - Rendered the nowhere people in their own homeland, thousands of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are fleeing inhuman living conditions, lack of humanitarian aid and rising sectarian tensions in their country. And the very state that is supposed to protect them now stands accused of ‘ethnic cleansing’. The Muslim Rohingyas and Rakhine Buddhists have had a history of conflict dating back to World War II. The latest round, however, was ignited in June 2012 when 10 Rohingya Muslims were killed by ethnic Arakanese, followingthe rape of a 28-year-old Arakanese woman. It sparked off a cycle of violence in which an estimated 200 non-Rohingya Muslims, Rohingya and ethnic Arakanese have been killed and more than 125,000 displaced. The horror peaked in October last year when security forces assisted ethnic Arakanese in razing villages in nine of the 21 townships in Arakan, in western Mya...

Described by the UN as being amongst the most persecuted people in the world, over 80,000 Rohingyan people have been left without shelter and protection from the recent violence in Myanmar. Photo Muslim AID Press TV: May 03, 2013 The United States has eased another set of sanctions against Myanmar despite the ongoing persecution of the Rohingya Muslim community. The Obama administration made the announcement on Thursday, calling for an ease of restrictions on many of Myanmar’s military rulers, their business partners and immediate families. Last year, Washington lifted a set of sanctions against Myanmar that limited trade between the two countries, including removing Myanmar’s President Thein Sein from the list of banned officials. “Since 2011, the civilian-led Government of Burma has takenimportant steps toward significant social, political, and economic reform that demonstrate substantial progress on areas of concern,” the US Department of State said. Myanm...

Nyan Win the National League of Democracy spokesperson Photo: @AFP As advocates condemn "ethnic cleansing" of the Rohingya, officials say no such group exists. YANGON, Myanmar — From the depths of obscurity, Myanmar’s highly beleaguered Muslim Rohingya ethnicity has become something of a global cause célèbre. The United Nations deems the roughly 1 million population group one of the world’s “most persecuted” minorities. In a report last week, Human Right Watch deployed some of the most potent language at its disposal in describing their mistreatment: “ethnic cleansing” and “crimes against humanity.” The online pro-Rohingya call to arms #RohingyaNOW was, for a brief blip in March, Twitter’s highest-trending phrase. Even US President Barack Obama, in his first and only visit to Myanmar last November, urged the nation to accept that Rohingya “hold within themselves the same dignity as you do.” But these are lofty expectations from a nation in which the gov...

This picture shows a mosque destroyed after hundreds of extremist Buddhists armed with bricks stormed a group of Muslim villages in Okkan in Myanmar on Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Iran’s Foreign Ministry has denounced the recent attack by extremists on Muslims in the city of Okkan in Myanmar that led to the destruction of the community’s houses and holy sites. Hundreds of extremist Buddhists armed with bricks stormed a group of Muslim villages in Okkan, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of Yangon, on Wednesday. The Buddhist mob targeted Muslim shops and destroyed at least two mosques that left one man dead and ten others injured.  Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the clashes in Myanmar would lacerate the feelings of the people in the Islamic world and put at stake the achievements made through political and economic reforms in the country.  He lamented the destruction of the holy sites as well as threats against Muslims’ lives, and ...

President Thein Sein attends a UN event in Bangkok (Reuters) DVB News: May 02, 2013 President Thein Sein resigned on Thursday as chairman of the leading Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and will be replaced by his political rival and party vice-chairman Shwe Mann, according to the Union Daily. Thein Sein is technically barred from taking part in “party activities” during his term of office under Burma’s 2008 constitution, but has continued to lead the USDP since becoming president in March 2011. Despite mounting criticism over his dual role, Thein Sein was re-elected as party chairman in October last year. Shwe Mann, who is also the speaker for the lower house of parliament, is set to replace the president in his former role, it was officially announced at the end of a three-day USDP youth congress on Wednesday. Thein Sein and Shwe Mann have locked horns in the past – notably in a heated dispute over the role of Burma’s constitutional tribunal last...

OHCHR May 1, 2013 GENEVA – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, Tomás Ojea Quintana, today welcomed some forward thinking recommendations from the Rakhine Investigation Commission report. However, he expressed concerns over the lack of recommendations to address impunity and ensure investigations into credible allegations of widespread and systematic human rights violations targeting the Muslim community in Rakhine State.  “The Investigation Commission’s report contains many worthwhile recommendations, which I encourage the Government of Myanmar to implement,” Mr. Ojea Quintana said after reviewing the recommendations of the 27-member Investigation Commission set up last year by the Myanmar President to look into the violence between communities in Rakhine State that took place in June, and then subsequently in October.  “There are important recommendations on addressing the dire humanitarian situation in the Muslim...