The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Young Rohingya girls stay at a primary school several kilometers outside of Sittwe, where hundreds of Rohingyas took shelter from a storm in May. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) By Lawi Weng The Irrawaddy   January 13, 2014 RANGOON — Hundreds of Rohingya university students in Arakan State have been prevented from continuing higher education pursuits, with authorities saying their safety cannot be guaranteed more than a year after communal violence tore through the region. Universities in several Arakan townships were shuttered to all students in the immediate aftermath of the 2012 violence, but while Rohingya Muslims say their education has been put on indefinite hold, their Buddhist counterparts have since been allowed to continue their studies and some have gone on to graduate. Rohingya students from Sittwe and Buthidaung townships told The Irrawaddy on Monday that state authorities claimed that they could not provide security to Rohingya seeking to r...

By Wakar Uddin Myanmar Times January 13, 2014 Myanmar is uniquely rich with an array of cultures, traditions and linguistic attributes. While diversity can be one of this country’s strengths, it has also sowed the seeds of discord for too long. Instead of helping Myanmar become a leader in Asia, it has held the country back, stifling development and creating chronic insecurity for its people. A Rohingya man sits in a mosque in Sittwe township shortly after it was damaged by a Buddhist mob in October 2012. Photo: Kaung Htet The precise identity and the composition of ethnic minorities in Myanmar have always been quite vague and often arbitrary. Although the government has officially put the number of ethnic minority groups at 135, many have challenged this number and the official list of categories. Some claim they have been left off the list; others say there are too many categories. The citizenship of one particular ethnic group, the Rohingya – of which I am...

By KPN  January 12, 2014  Teknaf, Bangladesh : Eighty two Rohingyas, who illegally entered Bangladesh from Burma, were pushed back to their country by the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) yesterday evening, according to BGB source.  “The Rohingyas were detained by the 42 Battalion of the BGB from border areas of Teknaf upazila under the Cox’s Bazar district on January 10 and 11. BGB source said, a mobile team of Teknaf BOP (Border Out-Post) detained 18 Rohingyas from border areas yesterday morning. Shapuri Dip BOP detained 64 Rohingyas including men, women and children on Friday night during another drive. The Rohingyas crossed the Naf River into Bangladesh using small boats and were heading for the Rohingya refugee camp, sources said. Teknaf BGB 42 Battalion Commander Lt. Col Abuzar Al Jahid said the detained Rohingyas were sent back to their country, after giving them humanitarian aid, yesterday evening. “We are facing ongoing discriminatory ...

A shot of Parliament in Naypyidaw on March 30, 2011. (Photo: Reuters) By  Simon Roughneen & Htet Naing Zaw The Irrawaddy January 11, 2014 RANGOON — What looks likely to be a querulous Parliament session will open in Naypyidaw on Monday, with legislators set to discuss a series of controversial measures on voting eligibility, inter-religious marriage and protestor rights, as well as new laws aimed at modernizing Burma’s business realm. Khin Maung Swe, leader of the small National Democratic Force (NDF) party, told The Irrawaddy that the coming session would be hectic, with MPs likely to be deluged with an array of diverse topics covering business, governance, religion and the economy. “There are so many things that will come up in the Parliament,” he said. “We have to cover many issues.” But with a committee made up 109 lawmakers scheduled to report on Jan. 31 about the possibility of revising Burma’s controversial 2008 Constitution, charter change is likel...

Kyaw Min, chairman of the Democracy and Human Rights Party (DHRP), speaks at a press conference on Friday in Rangoon. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy) By Lawi Weng  The Irrawaddy January 10, 2014 RANGOON — Two Muslim political parties in Rangoon have asked the Burmese government to recognize their religious kin in western Burma’s Arakan State as Rohingya, a minority group that is currently denied citizenship, as the country gears up for a nationwide census later this year. The two parties, the National Democratic Party for Development (NDPD) and the Democracy and Human Rights Party (DHRP), held a press conference on Friday in Rangoon, where leaders of the two parties told journalists that they would ask the government to recognize their Muslim constituents in Arakan State as Rohingya. They will seek the option to tick Rohingya among the list of ethnic groups that takers of the census will be asked to identify as. The press conference came following a meeting...

By   Burma Campaign UK January 09, 204 Kyaw Hla Aung is a human rights defender and a Rohingya community leader from Rakhine State who promotes minority rights in the country. On 15th July 2012, he was taken from his home in Sittwe. After his arrest, he was charged with three different counts, and transferred to Sittwe Prison. When his trial began on 14 August 2013, four more counts were added to his case. He has now been charged with seven different counts, including under 505(b) of Statements Conducting to Public Mischief. The charges are politically motivated and his trial continues at Sittwe Court. He is suffering from high blood pressure and arthritis. As part of the No Political Prisoner Left Behind campaign, Burma Campaign UK is highlighting a case of a political prisoner every month to draw attention to the hundreds of political prisoners who could still be in jail. The political prisoner for this month is Kyaw Hla Aung. Thein Sein lied to David Came...

Photo IPD camp By Mizzima News,  January 09, 2014 The Rakhine State government says its budget for supporting the residents of camps holding about 130,000 people displaced by communal violence will be exhausted in a month. State Finance Minister U Aung Kyaw Min said the government was spending about 20 million kyats a week on the camps, which shelter about 100,000 Muslims and about 30,000 Buddhists displaced by eruptions of sectarian violence that began in June 2012. “To be honest, we don’t even have enough money left for a month,” U Aung Kyaw Min told Mizzima on January 8, adding that about 30,000 million kyats and US$3,000 remained in the budget for the camps. “Donors help us with donations whenever we are facing a shortage,” he said. The chair of the State cabinet’s information committee, U Hla Thein, said the Rakhine government was mainly funding the cost of health care and other necessities to the IDPs, including some food such as beans and pulses....