The Stateless Rohingya Blog

A census enumerator, right, asks a Muslim woman to collect information at Thae Chaung village in Sittwe, Rakhine State, western Myanmar, Tuesday, April 1, 2014. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win) By Fiona MacGregor    Myanmar Times August 04, 2014 Census results on Myanmar’s ethnic populations will not be published until after the 2015 general election, an official in charge of the census has told The Myanmar Times. The revelation, which comes following concerns that figures on ethnicity and religion could prompt further communal conflict, has prompted some observers to conclude the results are being held back for political reasons. However, those involved in the process say the delay is due to data-input difficulties after a higher-than-expected number of people chose not to identify as one of 135 set ethnic groups on the questionnaire. “The ethnic information cannot be released [as early as planned],” said Daw Khaing Khaing Soe, director of the Ministry of Immigration a...

By Sallam Oic ׀ Monday, August 4, 2014 Maungdaw, Arakan State ׀ Rvisiontv.com Sittwe District Police Chief is trying to use two notorious criminals as witnesses in desperate attempts to prove two Rohingya prominent leaders [in Sittwe] guilty in court, says a local source. Advocate U Kyaw Hla Aung was arbitrarily accused of inciting conflicts in IDP camps in Sittwe The two prominent Rohingya leaders of Sittwe, Advocate U Kyaw Hla Aung and U Hla Myint, arbitrarily accused of inciting conflicts in IDP camps in Sittwe, were arrested in Thakkay Pyin (also known as Sakki Fara) on April 26, 2013. They have been locked up and prosecuted since then. “Fourth August was the date of the hearing of the cases of U Kyaw Hla Aung and U Hla Myint in the Sittwe District Court. They were supposed to be proven innocent by the court and released from the prison since there are evidences for the cases charged on them. However, the Sittwe District Police Chief, U Thit San, due to reportedly so...

Despite the Election Commission's (EC) efforts to prevent 'intruders' from inclusion in the voter list, reports of Rohingyas trying to become voters in Bangladesh continues to filter in. The EC, in its plan to stop this, is planning to expand the area it designates as "Rohingya-inhabited special area" . Under the ongoing nationwide updating of the voter list, voter information has been sspecially ollected from almost 400 Upazilas. Election Commissioner Abdul Mobarak said the Rohingya refugees continue their efforts to become voters. "Already we're using special forms in 14 Upazilas in three border districts. Despite all this extra supervision some people are trying to become voters," he said. He said EC officials, while inspecting a rolls updating at Patiya, Chittagong, found a Rohingya settlement there recently. Commissioner Abdul Mobarak told the EC meeting that he has learned about the presence of a Rohingya settlement i...

By KPN  August 04, 2014  Maungdaw, Arakan state : Rohingya community in Maungdaw is under heavy threats and oppressions by the authority as they keep resisting a forced scrutiny by the government classifying them “illegal Bengali” immigrants, Khalil, a village elder from Maungdaw north. “The Burma Border Guard Police (BGP) of BGP headquarters and  number six commanding office arrested eight villagers on July 31,nights and August 1 because of not going to BGP headquarters for meeting which the BGP invited the elder from Borgar Bill village. BGP arrested 4 persons on night of July 13 and other were picked up in the daytime from the village.” “The elders were not gone to BGP headquarters for asking to accept census collecting or recent so called population data collecting, in which Rohingyas are identified as “Bengali” in place of “Rohingyas,” Kalil more added. On that day, some Rohingya villagers from Borgar Bill village of Kyauk Hla Khar (Dargardill) villa...

Photo: Myanmar President office By Khine Thant Su The Irrawaddy August 1, 2014 RANGOON — President Thein Sein has urged people in western Burma’s troubled Arakan State to accept and cooperate with a central government plan for peace and development in the region. In his monthly radio address to the nation—first broadcast on Friday—Thein Sein said that his administration had consulted with civil society groups and the local government in Arakan State to come up with the plan. Violence between local Arakanese Buddhists and Muslims has hit the state sporadically since mid-2012, and about 140,000 people, mostly from the Rohingya Muslim minority, are still living in makeshift camps. “We plan to implement the project systematically and if we can do that, we believe that the Arakan people’s lives will improve,” Thein Sein said, without giving details of the plan. While the government was doing its best to improve the situation in the state, he said, the state’s people, civil ...

Maungdaw, Arakan State:   A clash between police and villagers was occurred yesterday at Maungdaw north as police forcibly took away beef from the villagers, Dilu, a villager said from the locality. “On that day, at about 10:00 am, in Maung Nama village of Maungdaw north, villagers slaughtered a cow for beef for religious festival – Laylatul Qadr (the Night of Power) – after getting permission from the concerned authority.” At around 11:00 am, a group of police from Aung Mingala police out-post of Maungdaw north led by police officer U Kyaw accompanied by present village Admin office U Thein Tun and ex-village Chairman U Thein Maung Gyi went to Maung Nama village and asked villagers to give them five- Visses (one Viss=1.66 kg) of beef, but villagers refused to pay them beef without money. However, in one stage, police and Admin officer snatched away about 7 Visses of beef from the villagers, but the villagers re- took it again from their hands. As a result, there was a clas...

By Mainul Islam Khan Anadolu Agency July 27, 2014 DHAKA, Bangladesh : As Eid-al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, nears, just around the corner, it does not affect Seno Ara in any way. She is busy with her paddle sewing machine, fashioning clothes for the other Rohingya women - refugees, like her and many others, in the camp in Kutupalong of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. Seno Ara, 27, lives in a tiny shack made of bamboo sticks and poly sheets, with a five-feet-high and two-feet-wide door, and no window. Since there is no electricity in the camp and no light inside her home, she must find the light of day on her doorstep, to sew. “We have neither Eid, nor pleasure,” says Seno Ara. “We do not have money to have even new cloths for Eid.” She has been living in this unofficial Rohingya camp for six years. (The unofficial camp takes in all the refugees that the nearby official UN-run one, at full capacity, cannot). She was forced to migrate a...