The Stateless Rohingya Blog

A man sorts through the wreckage of a burned mosque in Thabuchai village in Thandwe on October 3. (Kaung Htet/The Myanmar Times)A man sorts through the wreckage of a burned mosque in Thabuchai village in Thandwe on October 3. (Kaung Htet/The Myanmar Times) By Cherry Thein Myanmar Times December 09, 2013 Religious conflict has been at the forefront of international discussions about Myanmar ever since violence erupted between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine State in June 2012. Attacks on Muslim communities were cited in the US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2013 Annual Report as being among the primary reasons that Myanmar continues to be designated by the US State Department as a “country of particular concern” in the area of religious freedom. According to the report, Muslims were not alone in suffering ill treatment based on their religious beliefs. “During the reporting period (January 2012 to January 2013) … serious abuses against mainly...

The Royal Thai Navy oversees Rohingya on a beach in 2008. Now, in 2013, dealing with human traffickers appears to provide an easier solution Photo by Royal Thai Navy By Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian Phuket Wan  December 7, 2013 In December 2008 , Phuketwan asked the Royal Thai Navy for permission for its journalists to travel on a warship. looking for Rohingya boats. The navy knocked back the request but instead sent some photographs of boatpeople being apprehended and laid out on the Similans and other holiday destinations like so many fish, drying in the sun. That year, at least 5000 boatpeople arrived in Thailand and the navy was doing its duty by apprehending them. We can't say what happened to those thousands of men, or the thousands who had made the journey before them.  In January 2009 we became curious again and went looking ourselves for what we could discover about the boatpeople. What we found was a nightmare. The boatpeople were being ar...

Rohingya women cleaning rice in Sittwe / Burma Photo Andreas (LEO) Urban By KPN News December 08, 2013 Maungdaw, Arakan State: The prices of essential items including rice, onions, vegetables and fish have been increased in kitchen markets in Maungdaw Townships, Nuru (not real name), a trader from Maungdaw said. “Suddenly, the prices of essential commodities have been increased and skyrocketed in Maungdaw since 1st December 2013.” When a local villager Farid (not real name) from the area (Aley Than Kyaw) paid a visit to the market on December 7, he found that a bag of rice is being sold at 18,000 Kyat while it was sold 14,000 Kyat per 50 kilogram bag in November, but a bag of normal rice is being sold at 13,000 to 15,000 Kyat per bag, it was sold at 12,000 Kyat in last month. The villager also said that a kilo of dried chili is being sold at 2,500 Kyat, it was sold at 1,800 Kyat before, a kilo of onion is being sold at 1,500 Kyat , it was sold at 1,200 Kyat and...

By   IHRC December 07, 2013    UNAIDS appoints Aung San Suu Kyi as Zero Discrimination Global Advocate Contents 1. Action Required 2. Summary 3. Background 4. Sample Letter  1. Action Required Please write to UNAIDS and express your concern about choosing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Mynamar opposition leader as UNAIDS Global Advocate for Zero Discrimination heading the ‘zero discrimination’ campaign in light of her lack of concern for the extreme suffering – include hate based violent expulsion and exclusion - of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar. 2. Summary UNAIDS have chosen Myanmar opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to front a campaign against discrimination when she has failed to address violent hatred against Rohingya in particular and Muslims in general in Myanmar.  3. Background Nobel Peace Prize winner, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, being an influential leader of Myanmar’s National League of Democracy, was sadly heard in an interview...

Burma Times (Maung Daw) Today, Two smugglers and two Rohinaya men including a teenager child were arrested by the outpost police of the  Kayein Chaung (Balibazaar) village and Oo Shin Kya (Burashida para) village under Maung daw district according to a competent source. The two smuggler men are  1. Md Salam son of Zayed Hossain  2. Noor mohamed who are the resident of the Sa bya goon (laalpara) village under maungdaw district. The two men carrying illegal bangladeshi mobile cards were arrested by the police while they were returning from the bangladesh illegaly. The two men are not only smugglers but also boatmen who are regularly cross the bangladesh – myanmar border by boat. Actually they have contracted with the batallion of kayein chaung village to carray the passangers everyday across the bangladesh-myanmar border and to smuggle some goods into myanmar for one year. Accidently the police from kayein chaung outpost descried and doubted to the two and then ra...

Burma Times ( Milwaukee)- A Conference Organizing Committee announced that a Historic Rohingya Conference at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), the first-ever this kind in the USA, will be held on the date of December 14, 2013 from 12:30 pm to 7:00 pm, open to the public, with a select group of Speakers and Rohingya activists for advocacy and public awareness in regard with the plights of Rohingya ethnic minority people of Burma (Myanmar) who are the victims of systematic ethnic cleansing, state sponsored slow burning Genocide and denial of their ethnic citizenship rights in their ancestral homeland of Arakan, the north-western region of Burma (Myanmar). A Historic Rohingya Conference in the USA jointly sponsored by the Burmese Rohingya American Friendship Association and Rohingya Concern International is as following. “STOP THE GENOCIDE & RESTORE THE ROHINGYAS’ CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS IN MYANMAR (BURMA)” We are delighted to announce the First Rohingya Conference in the...

US President Barack Obama meeting with President Thein Sein of Burma at the Burma Parliament Building in Rangoon, Burma, November 19, 2012. (Pete Souza/White House) By  Rachel Wagley Foreign Policy Journal December 6, 2013 When the Obama Administration spontaneously lifted sanctions against Burma without conditions in 2012, it concurrently slammed the door on the bipartisan congressional coalition that had played a pivotal role in shaping US policy toward Burma for two decades. Congressional requests for the administration to rationalize its new, hurried, and improvised policy to “extend the hand of friendship” to Burma’s former military dictators have since been repeatedly ignored. But on December 4, administration representatives finally acquiesced to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific on how the administration’s engagement policy will advance reform in what Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) called Burma’...