The Stateless Rohingya Blog

Internally displaced Rohingya protest at their IDP camp in Rakhine. (Photo: New Internationalist) By New Internationalist April 16, 2014 One Western aid worker is frustrated and sickened by what’s going on in Burma.  So, the holidays have started. Aid workers are leaving Burma for a break. The government virtually shuts down for 10 days. The current peace talks only have a couple of sticking points, apparently, and mostly they are to do with wording. International officials are telling the Burmese government how they are concerned about the ‘Rohingya situation’ (but we usually use the word ‘Muslim’ so as not to upset them. Some internationals even use ‘Bengali’) while congratulating them on their progress (letting foreign business in). Locals are getting ready for a week of fun at the water festival. In the meantime, the Rohingyas suffer and die – hospitals used to receive around 400 referrals a month of critical patients; now they receive none. At least 2,700 children...

Myanmar's Vice President Nyan Tun, Chief Minister of Rakhine state government Hla Maung Tin and Union Minister of Immigration Khin Ye arrive in Sittwe, Rakhine State. By Huson Salm KPN News April 15, 2015 The immigration department of union of Myanmar has declared that the nationwide enumeration has approximately been collected except Kachine state and part of Rakhine state. Since then, government higher authorities have been interviewing with Burmese programs of Radio Free Asia and Voice of America that the enumeration process phase for Kachine state and north and central part of Rakhine state be extended for additional (8) weeks until the enumeration process accomplished to targeted destination. The Rohingyas inhabitants from Rakhine state have been in high fear that the remaining enumeration process would be forcefully conducted against the will of the respondents as per the secret direction of higher authorities rather than an accord with UNFPA and the governmen...

By Tariq A. Al-Maeena Saudi Gazette April 15, 2015 Siddhartha Gautama, who became universally known as the sage Buddha, was born some 2,500 years ago in Nepal. He was a human being who became acutely enlightened in understanding life and explaining it in its simplicity. It is said that he once sat under a peepal tree for 40 days and nights to attain understanding and enlightenment and once he reached that stage he felt free from greed, hatred and ignorance, and enhanced by wisdom, compassion, tolerance and freedom. This was the message he sought to promote for the remaining years of his life to his disciples. Unfortunately over the centuries, some of Buddha’s followers or Buddhists as they are called mutated into something far removed from the sage’s messages. Theirs has become a calling of all things evil and violent. Currently there are two such strains of Buddhists who are leading a campaign against others that is devoid of any of the sage’s messages. One grou...

By Ibrahim Shah  Burma Times April 2014 Taung Bazar, Buthidaung - Today in Taung Bazaar, Buthidaung Township at around 10:00 AM, the Captain Tun Naing (from Regiment 552 located near Thin Ga Net village) seized a motor bike belonging to Mohamed Reyas s/o Mv. Mohamed Foyas, aged 20 from Kwe Mura para of Mee Gyaung Zay village tract,a Rohingya Arabic student. Then the said Captain and two of his subordinates beaten the student up severely without any reason. The victim has no doors to complain against the military. These sorts of abuses are going on almost every single day. The systematic persecution against Rohingya by government officials and its adopted Rakhine Buddhist miscreants have been taking place increasingly day by day in western Burma. The more the international community advocates to stop such state-sponsored persecution against Rohingya, the more the Rohingya have been suffering and not even hardly few sympathy from Buddhist communities for them, said s...

By  Hereward Holland Al Jazeera April 14, 2014 Muslim Rohingya are excluded from political representation as a result of not being counted. Myanmar's million-plus Muslim Rohingya population doesn't officially exist on government records. Branded "Bengali" and considered illegal immigrants, they've been living under systematic discrimination since sectarian violence erupted in 2012 in the coastal Rakhine state. In the past six months,  resentment  of aid groups has been building among some Buddhists because of charities' perceived preferential treatment of the Rohingya, who make up the vast majority of those displaced by the recent unrest. Many aid groups that once provided life-giving support to the Rohingya's squalid camps have either been banned or forced to flee, their compounds ransacked by Buddhist mobs. The mobs gathered after a UN-backed national census, the country's first in 30 years. The headcount officially began on ...

By Sindhi Khan | Maungdaw, Arakan State April 15, 2014 Rvision TV The Police members of anti-Crime Squad such as Inspector Incharge Thaung Tun, Sergeant Hla Myint and Corporal Maung Chay @Than Tun some of the longest serving police officers in Maungdaw Police Station. Besides, they have become the richest police officers in town through money extortion from local Rohingyas. Though illegal activities such as abuse of power and money extortion have been reported and mentioned in media various times, they remain untransferred from the station, retained their same ranks and posts, no any other sorts of action have been taken against them. According to a police officer in the station, they have been able to escape legal actions because they have contacts with the higher officers and regularly bribe them to escape actions. These police officers have recently stepped up extorting money from Rohingyas saying “there is a complaint against you. You are involved in illegal business. Yo...

Nori Slum lies on his bed in the Dar Paing camp in Rakhine state (photo by John Zaw) By John Zaw, Sittwe Myanmar UCA News April 14, 2014 Supplies aren't getting through and time is running out in Myanmar Nori Slum’s ribcage, already much too visible on his emaciated torso, rises and falls in rhythm with the hacking cough he developed a year ago. The 45-year-old developed tuberculosis last year, forcing him to be quarantined away from his family in their hut in the Dar Paing camp for displaced persons outside of Sittwe in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Many of the camp’s residents are dependent on the medicine provided by international aid groups, but Nori has gone more than a week without his. In late March aid organizations were forced to evacuate the region after orchestrated attacks on offices and equipment by Buddhist mobs angered at aid going to people like Nori Slum, a member of the Rohingya minority whom Rakhines believe to be illegal Bengali immig...