The Stateless Rohingya Blog

By  World Bulletin October 24, 2014 Record numbers of Muslim Rohingya flee western Myanmar after government launches crackdown. Unprecedented numbers of Muslim Rohingya have been leaving Myanmar on boats for Thailand and Malaysia following a campaign of arrests, a leading NGO said Friday. "In one week we have seen 8,000 Rohingya leaving northern Rakhine state -- the amount of people who left the region per month in 2013," Chris Lewa, head of the Arakan Project, told Anadolu Agency. Last week’s flight is believed to be the largest since violence erupted between the Rohingya minority and Buddhists in western Myanmar two years ago. "Myanmar police let the boats come to the estuary of the Naf river in daylight and have even stopped asking for money from the Rohingya before they embark," Lewa added, referring to the water frontier between Myanmar and Bangladesh. "It looks as if it is planned." While the number of Rohingya escaping...

By Harun Yahya Arab News October 25, 2014 Despite the atrocities being committed against the Muslims of Arakan, better known as Rohingyas, the international community has so far done nothing to protect these people. The world appears to be sitting on the fence, as these people are being systematically persecuted. This minority Muslim community in Myanmar — termed the most persecuted people living on the face of earth — has been turned into refugees in their own country. The Rohingyas are a people with no civil rights and from time to time subjected to indiscriminate violence. The world became slightly acquainted with these people following the violent attacks and acts of arson of 2012.  Last month, the government of Myanmar submitted a plan to the United Nations appeared to be aimed at restoring peace, ensuring justice and creating communal harmony. Several countries welcomed and approved the plan thinking that Myanmar was ready to roll back its policy of discrim...

By Deutsche Welle October 24, 2014 Myanmar is increasingly under fire over its treatment of the Rohingya minority in the Rakhine state. The International Crisis Group stresses the importance of creating a new sense of identity for the community. Myanmar's Rakhine State has a history of extreme poverty, under-development, as well as intercommunal and inter-religious conflict between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the minority Rohingya - a Muslim group not recognized as citizens in Myanmar. Several outbreaks of violence since 2012 have claimed the lives of hundreds and left some 140,000 people homeless, most of them Rohingya. And with the country moving closer to national elections at the end of next year, tensions are likely to rise. Against this backdrop, the International Crisis Group (ICG) urged the Myanmar government in a new 45-page report to clarify the legal status of the Rohingya and find way to create a new sense of national identity embracing the country's cu...

In this Aug. 14, 2014 photo, Shwe Maung, an ethnic Rohingya member of Myanmar’s Parliament who represents Rohingya Muslims of Rakhine State, poses for a photo with a brown, tassled fez-like cap on a side table next to him in Yangon, Myanmar. (AP) By Matthew Pennington October 24, 2014 WASHINGTON (AP) — An influential Washington think tank is criticizing Myanmar's government for presiding over a "humanitarian catastrophe" in western Rakhine state and doing little to track down perpetrators of Buddhist-on-Muslim violence around the country. Those criticisms come in a very mixed assessment by the Center for Strategic and International Studies of the situation in Myanmar, three years after it began a historic transition to democracy from decades of oppressive and ruinous military rule. The centrist think tank, which has the ear of the Obama administration, visited Myanmar in August and issued its report Wednesday. President Barack Obama, who counts U.S. ...

A report by International Crisis Group says Myanmar's Muslims are 'not ripe for radicalization' but could be pushed to violence if voting right is removed   (Credit: Arche-Nova) By Joshua Carroll October 23, 2014  YANGON, Myanmar: Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar could be pushed towards civil disobedience or violence if moves to strip them of their right to vote are successful, according to an influential report. The International Crisis Group‘s 38-page advisory said the Rohingya, the Muslim minority from Myanmar’s Rakhine state, see their voting rights as “their last remaining connection to politics and means of influence.” The report warned the situation in Rakhine is likely to become much more volatile as next year’s general election approaches. It added that sectarian violence, which has killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands, mostly Rohingya, is a “significant threat” to the country’s nascent democratic reforms. At the heart of Rohing...

Rakhine State Chief Minister U Maung Maung Ohn speaks to the press. Photo: Mizzima By Kay Zuu, Min Aung Khine Mizzima News October 23, 2014 Some European countries have challenged the Myanmar authorities to prove the claim that Rohingya do not exist in Myanmar by providing strong evidence, according to Rakhine State Chief Minister U Maung Maung Ohn. The minister raised the issue during an October 22 press conference held at the Rakhine State government office on the subject of the recent Asia-Europe Meeting held in Italy that was attended by Myanmar President U Thein Sein. Myanmar has come under fire over its handling of the Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine State who the government refers to as “Bengalis”, claiming they are illegal immigrants. U Maung Maung Ohn said these European governments suggested that the Myanmar central government should publish a book to “prove” that Rohingya do not exist in the Rakhine State. “There are some books published by some cou...

A displaced woman cares for her baby at a camp on the outskirts of Sittwe in Rakhine state, western Myanmar. ( AFP/Soe Than Win) Opinion By Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat October 22, 2014 In April, I wrote an article for The National on the worsening situation for Muslims in Myanmar. Their condition has not got any better. Instead, the government has adopted new legislation that is likely to have a further devastating impact on its Muslim minority. Last month, the country’s foreign minister, Wunna Maung Lwin, told envoys at the UN General Assembly that a long-expected strategy for the Rohingya minority would soon be put into effect. According to Mr Lwin, the “action plan” had been devised to guarantee peace and security for everybody in the area. He called on the global community to take part in the implementation of this strategy to provide a “durable solution” in the region. Not long after Mr Lwin’s address at the UN, mainstream media such as Reuters shed light on...