The Stateless Rohingya Blog

South Asian News June 9 2013 LAHORE, (SANA): The Jamaat-e-Islami will observe protest day on Friday, June 14, against the massacre of  the Muslims in Myanmar (Burma) at the hands of the Burmese government and extremist Buddhists. JI spokesman, Dr Farid Ahmed Piracha, in a statement here on Sunday, stressed upon the Pakistan government to take up the issue of Myanmar Muslims with the UN and the Human Rights forums and  register  lodge its protest over that. He said it was also the responsibility of the new parliament of the country to take up the issue and adopt a resolution. Besides, he said, a parliament delegation should be sent to Burma to assess the situation and to express solidarity with the oppressed Muslim community in Myanmar. Dr Farid Ahmed Piracha, also impressed upon the Ulema and Muslims scholars to high light the collective responsibilities of the Muslim Ummah in regard to the miserable plight of the Burmese Muslims. He condemned the dual standar...

Fars News Agency   June 8, 2013 TEHRAN (FNA)- The United Nations refugee agency said over 140,000 people remain displaced in Myanmar a year after extremist Buddhists started daily attacks on the country's Muslim community in Rakhine state. According to the UN body, some 75,000 people were displaced by the first wave of riots in Northern Rakhine state last June and another 36,000 were uprooted in the second wave in October, press tv reported.  "Many others who were not directly affected by the violence have lost their livelihoods as a result of restricted movements due to the security situation. Some have been forced to leave their homes in search of assistance," UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards said on Friday.  The agency called for measures to stem the flow of people out of Rakhine and to promote the "safe and sustainable voluntary return" of the displaced.  UNHCR also called on the governments in the region to keep their doors open to pe...

International Business Times June 7, 2013 IBTimes UK uncovers the truth about what is going on behind the facade of a liberalising Myanmar Religious violence in Burma between the Buddhist majority and other ethnic groups, such as the Rohinga Muslims, has existed for decades if not centuries. However over the last 12 months what's been classed by both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as a wave of ethnic cleansing has been sweeping across various townships in the Rakhine state on the country's west coast. The United Nations estimates are that around 140,000 people have fled widespread oppression and brutal violence to makeshift refugee camps, with many dying unnecessarily. But while the international community has praised President Thein Sein for his steps towards improving democracy in Burma, they have turned a blind eye to the growing violence and persecution against the Muslim minority in the country. In an exclusive documentary short, IBTimes U...

Maungdaw, Arakan State: Kyikanpyin (Kawabil) village had become uprooted after authority enforced the Rohingya villagers to registered as Bengali in the place of Rohingya –under race column – in government registration program - digital Photograph and signature – since June 3,  according to a local elder who denied to be named. “More than 200 security forces – Burma border security force (Nasaka), Army, police and Hluntin – surrounded the village to stop fleeing the villagers from the village, to force the villagers to join the government registration program. But, most of the villagers –mostly male villagers- flee from their village leaving their all properties.” The village had become a war field area as the security forces destroyed all the properties of Rohingya and took the valuables things from Rohingya home. The forces destroy mostly the kitten wares and grain stock, said a school teacher from Maungdaw. “The forces stationed in the village like their out...

Aung San Suu Kyi at today’s World Economic Forum BBC debate in Naypyidaw (Photo: Simon Roughneen) PressTV: June 7, 2013 Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has rejected criticism leveled at her over her silence about the persecution of the Rohingya Muslim community, while announcing her desire to run for president. The Muslim minority of Rohingyas in Myanmar accounts for about five percent of the country’s population of nearly 60 million. The persecuted minority has faced torture, neglect, and repression since the country achieved independence in 1948. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Myanmar’s government to address the plight of the Rohingya Muslim population and to protect the community against Buddhist extremists. “At the moment nobody seems to be very satisfied with me because I’m not taking sides,” Suu Kyi said. “I have not been silent. It’s just that they are not hearing what they want to hear from me.” “I do not wa...

The Associated Press  May 5, 2013   YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Several women villagers from Myanmar's Rohingya minority have been shot dead in a confrontation with security officials, police and activists said Wednesday. A police officer in Mrauk-U township in western Rakhine state said Wednesday that three women died in Parein village, where they were part of a crowd that defied efforts to relocate them from the housing in which they have been living since their original homes were burned by Buddhists in a wave of sectarian clashes last year. The officer from the Special Branch political police, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to release information, said two men and two women were injured. A website covering Rohingya news, Rohingya Blogger, said four women were shot dead and five other villagers wounded in the Tuesday confrontation, which broke out when workers from another township came to unload wood to build new dwellings. It said ...

Rohingya children play on a tent at Bawdupah camp for internally displaced people on the outskirts of Sittwe. Photograph: Soe Than Win/AFP/Getty Images The Guardian: June 3, 2013 The international community must put pressure on Burma to protect Rohingya Muslims and end segregation in Rakhine state How desperate and distrustful of your government do you have to be to refuse an  offer  of relocation when a cyclone is about to hit your home? That many of the displaced Rohingya people in  Burma 's Rakhine state took this decision demonstrates how difficult their lives have become. For months now, the Rohingya Muslim people have been targeted in a campaign that a  Human Rights Watch report  (pdf) has described as "ethnic cleansing". Rohingya Muslims in Burma have been forced into segregated  settlements  and camps, and – in many cases – cut off from lifesaving aid. I visited displacement camps in Rakhine in May with  Refuge...