Targeting Rohingya Muslims in Burma

Gwynne Dyer

Tuesday 31 July 2012

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  Gwynne Dyer

AT last somebody in an official position has said something. United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay has called for an independent investigation into claims that Burmese security forces are systematically targeting the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority community living in the Arakan region. Even the Burmese government says at least 78 Rohingya Muslims were murdered; their own community leaders say 650 have been killed.
Nobody disputes the fact that about 100,000 Rohingya Muslims (out of a population of 800,000) are now internal refugees in Burma, while others have fled across the border into Bangladesh. As you would expect, the Buddhist monks of Burma have stood up to be counted. Unfortunately, this time they are standing on the wrong side.

 This is perplexing. When the Pope lectures the world about morality, few non-Catholics pay attention. When Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran instructs the world about good and evil, most people who aren’t Shiite Muslims just shrug. But Buddhist leaders are given more respect, because most people think that Buddhism really is a religion of tolerance and peace.
When the Dalai Lama speaks out about injustice, people listen. Most of them don’t share his beliefs, and they probably won’t act on his words, but they listen with respect. But he hasn’t said anything at all about what is happening to the Rohingyas — and neither has any other Buddhist leader of note.

Rohingya could be facing threat of ethnic cleansing, says advocacy group

 

The continuing violence against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and the blocking of aid for them by Buddhists in Myanmar could be seen as an attempt at ethnic cleansing, according to Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, a nongovernmental group that advocates for the Rohingya, adding that the international community should put pressure on the government to immediately control the situation.

 

 

“Blocking of aid could be seen as an attempt to ethnic cleansing -- to starve the Rohingyans to force them to flee and leave. The international community should pressure the government to urgently control the situation, provide security for the Rohingya Muslims and to humanitarian workers as well as to ensure access and delivery of aid to affected people. If this is not done immediately, then external intervention should be forced upon, but I doubt this could actually happen.”

Protesters around the World denounces Rohingya Muslims massacre in Myanmar

 

JNN 30 July 2012 Moscow : Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia , Russia and other countries to condemn the massacre of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.Shia Muslims in Russia have lashed out at international organizations for keeping silent about the mass slaughter of ethnic Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

Iranian worshippers across the country held demonstrations after Friday prayers to express their solidarity with Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar who are experiencing an appalling situation.
The demonstrators called on international organizations to take action to stop the killing of Muslims in Myanmar and urged Muslims all over the world to adopt a united stance in this regard.
The protesters also criticized the inaction of international human rights organizations on the issue of Myanmar.
The UN says decades of discrimination have left the Rohingyas stateless, with Myanmar implementing restrictions on their movement and withholding land rights, education and public services.

MP U Shwe Maung Explained on Amendment 1982 Citizenship Law

Police harassment increase in Maungdaw Arakan, Myanmar (Burma)

 

july 29 2012

Maungdaw, Arakan State: Police officers in Maungdaw Township increase harassment against the Town dwellers and villagers of Rohingya villages. Every day, the police officers arrest the innocent Rohingya villagers to extorted money.

The police surveillance officer U Aung Kyaw Than of Maungdaw Town went to Baggona village and arrested two villagers— Mohamed Zuhar and another one today and brought to Maungdaw police station where they were severely tortured to extort money.
U Aung Kyaw Than gave his telephone number to every village in Maungdaw Township to contact with him. His contact number is —00-95-0945-670, 545. He listed, at least 20 to 30 villagers from every village to meet with him. The police officer threatened to the villagers that if the villagers do not meet him to pay money, they will be arrested and will be sent to Buthidaung jail.

U Aung Kyaw Than has good relation with Officer-in- Charge (OC) U Tin Hla, U Hla Sein, U Hla Myint, and U Maung Chay of Maungdaw police station. This group also involves in Yaba tablets smuggling with Bangladesh. The group uses Rakhines and Rohingys for smuggling Yaba tablets to Bangladesh and they have to pay money to the group per week.
Yesterday, at about 4:00 pm, police and Hluntin arrested Mohibullah (27), son of Tin Soe (clerk), hailed from Bohmu Para of Maungdaw township at Clock Tower junction, while he was going to his home.

'Rohingyas targeted due to their faith' - Press TV News

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says Myanmar’s security forces are instigating violence in the country, calling for an investigation into the persecution of Muslims in the South Asian state.

Reports say 650 Rohingya Muslims were killed as of June 28 during clashes in the western region of Rakhine in Myanmar. This is while 1,200 others are missing and 80,000 more have been displaced.

BURMA’S ROHINGYA ORIGIN IN THE ANCIENT KINGDOM OF ARAKAN: UNDERSTANDING THE ARAB – CHANDRA SYNTHESIS

Posted on July 29, 2012

 

(A WORKING PAPER ON ARAKAN HISTORY)
Abid Bahar
Abstract (Several issues has come to the surface from the present research on DHANNAWADI and VASALI period of ancient Arakan;
(1) That DHANNAWADI and VASALI were Indian dynasties with Hindu and Mohayana Buddhist religious followers
(2) During the Chandra rule there had been some Arab settlements in Arakan. The language of the Chandras was proto-Chittagonian: Sanskrit, Pali, and Arabic mixed similar to what Buchanon Hamilton found in 1799 with Rohingyas in Burma, also that a similar language was spoken by the Chakmas and Thanchangras of Arakan and Bangladesh, its written form similar to Bengali found in the Ananda Chandra script
(3) Beginning from 957 A.D. there had been a huge migration of Tibeto-Burman Theraveda Buddhist population into the plains of Arakan, by defeating the Chandras they took possession of Arakan and the Indian look alike people retreated either toward the Northern part of Arakan or went back to Bengal, making the event its first Indian exodus of Arakaniese people to Bengal.
(4) In our contemporary period there has been a conscious effort among Arakan’s Rakhine crudader like historians to deny and cleanse from history, not only the traces of Indian Hindu or Mohayana civilization but also the traces of Muslim population and their Arab-Chandra synthesis of the Chandras predating the Tibeto Burman Theraveda Buddhist existence. )
———————————-
The Rohingyas people of Arakan are mostly Muslims with a small Hindu population among them. They are racially Indo- Semitic. They are not an ethnic group developed from one tribal group affiliation or single racial stock. Tides of people like the the Brahmins from India, Arabs, Moghuls, Bengalis, Turks and people from Central Asia, came mostly as traders, worriors and prechers overland or through the sea route to Arakan. Many settled in Arakan, during the Indian Chandra period, mixing with the local people formed the first neclus of the Rohingya people in Arakan. Historically speaking, in their common suffering in Burma, they found an identity now known to the world as the Rohingyas of Arakan. (1) Part one of this series of articles on Rohingya history is about the first Arab Chandra synthesis; covering from 3rd century CE. to 1406 A.D in chronological order.
3rd Century (CE): “By the 3rd century (CE), the coastal region of Kala Mukh (Arakan) had been settled with the colonists dominating and coexisting warily with the indigenous people. In the sites of major habitation Sanskrit became the written language of the ruling class, and the religious beliefs were those prevalent at that time in south-Asia (or Indian sub-continent). “(2)
4th to 10th century. DHANNAWADI and VASALI (Brahminical and Mohayana Buddhist civilizations)

Mass arrest going continuous in Maungdaw

28 july 2012

In Maungdaw Township, the arrest of Rohingya Muslims is going on by Hluntin (riot police) and police personnel everyday while they are passing days and nights in their houses as Internal Displace Persons (IDPs) without getting any foodstuffs from any quarter. They are not allowed to go out from their villages to buy any food items from the markets; even Rakhine villagers do not sell rice to the Rohingya villagers. As a result, most of the villagers are starving and children and old people are dying every day, according to an elder from Maungdaw.

“A group of police personnel accompanied by Hluntin (riot police) went to the Ward No.5 of Maungdaw Town and arrested— UlLa Meah (62), the ex-village chairman, son of custom Mohamed Amin, Mohamed Eliyas (50), son of Bodi Uzaman and Sayed Alam (31), son of Lukman Hakim from their home while raided the village.A youth aged (22) was also arrested but released later before leaving a village.”

“The police made a list of villagers or town dwellers to be arrested in next time in every village and Quarter, at least 30 to 40 people are included in the list. The police occasionally went to the villages to arrest the villagers; this is another tactics to arrest and to give harassment to the Rohingya villagers.”

UN human rights leader calls for ‘independent’ Rakhine State investigation

 

Source: UN human rights leader calls for ‘independent’ Rakhine State investigation
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Friday called for a “prompt, independent” investigation into ongoing human rights violations in Burma’s Arakan (Rakhine) State after ongoing violence between the Buddhist and Muslim communities.

We have been receiving a stream of reports from independent sources alleging discriminatory and arbitrary responses by security forces, and even their instigation of and involvement in clashes,” said Commissioner Navi Pillay said.
“Reports indicate that the initial swift response of the authorities to the communal violence may have turned into a crackdown targeting Muslims, in particular members of the Rohingya community.”
Meanwhile, Tomas Quintana, the UN expert on human rights in Burma, will visit the country for four days starting on Tuesday, at the invitation of the government.
Quintana will visit Arakan State for one day said the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in a statement on Friday. Quintana will report his findings to the UN Human Rights Council, OHCHR said.

Relocate Rohingya villages, arrest Rohingya villagers, torture and sent to Buthidaung Jail

Update News of

Friday, 27 July 2012 19:56

Rathedaung

On July 25, at around 9:00 am, army accompanied by some local Rakhines forcibly relocated Upper Kyang Daung village of Rathedaung township. It has over 50 houses and the children and old people were facing very difficulties while the armies forcibly vacated them from their houses due to heavy rain, according to villagers.

However, the villagers are temporarily taking shelter in nearby three Rohingya villages-- Sowarp Prang, Auk Nanra Gon (Raza Bill) and Pring Daung villages.

The army has established temporarily camp at Raza Bill village since July 25. Earlier, they stayed at Zedi Pyin Buddhist monastery. They are observing the situation of the village.

The relocated villagers are facing ---shelter, food and medicine crisis-- as they are not allowed to go market to buy rice and other essentials.

According to government officials, in Rathedaung Township, four refugee camps are established for Rakhine community. No refugees center for Rohingya in Rathedaung. All the Rakhine family members from the town are kept in the refugee camps to show the higher officials who will visit the Rathedaung Township. Their aims are to get rations from donors and to show international community by taking fake photos. Four Rohingya villages were burned down by police, Hluntin with the help of local Rakhines. Only Rakhine community attacked the Rohingya villages and publishing Rohingya attacked Rakhine community where the authority kept the Rakhine community in the refugee camps to show and to publish.

During 4th regular session, U Shwe Maung discussed about Rohingya at Par...

Myanmar Muslims suffering amid media blackout

TEHRAN, July 25 (MNA) -- The suppression of the Rohingya Muslims in the Arakan region dates back to the World War II. On March 28, 1942, about 5,000 Rohingya Muslims were brutally massacred by the Rakhine nationalists in the Minbya and Mrohaung townships.

After that, the Muslims of the region were frequently subjected to harassment by the Burmese government which has so far refused to grant them official citizenship. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, this lack of full citizenship means that the Rohingyas should tolerate other abuses, including “restrictions on their freedom of movement, discriminatory limitations on access to education, and arbitrary confiscation of property." As the Muslims around the world cheerfully prepare for the holy month of Ramadan, the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar are subject to the appalling atrocities of the extremist Buddhists, finding their life in danger. Branded by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities of the world, Rohingyas are a group of Muslims living in the Rakhine State, located in west of Myanmar. With a population of 3 million, Rakhine state is bordered by the Bay of Bengal to the west and the majority of its residents are Theravada Buddhists and Hindus. It's said that as a result of dire living conditions and discriminatory treatment by the government, some 300,000 Rohingyas have so far immigrated to Bangladesh and 24,000 of them escaped to Malaysia in search of a better life.

Britain should withdraw invitation for Thein Sein to visit: BCUK

Wednesday, 25 July 2012

 

Anna Roberts of BCUK Photo: Facebook

The sectarian violence in Arakan State in Burma is growing into a humanitarian and human rights crisis, which has not received the international attention it deserves, Burma Campain UK (BCUK) said in a statement on Tuesday.

The current crisis has evolved into a Burmese government-led repression against the Rohingya population, it said.

In the past weeks, BCUK said it has received reports saying that Burmese police, security forces and soldiers have raped, looted, tortured and arbitrarily killed Rohingya residents.
There have been reports of camps without sufficient food or medical services, it said.
“Unknown thousands of people fled to Bangladesh, where they are getting no aid or protection, while thousands more are turned back by the government of Bangladesh, literally at gunpoint, in violation of international law,” said the statement.
Local authorities have refused to allow many Rohingya to return to some villages, shops and homes in a policy that appears designed to “cleanse” these areas of Rohingya people, said BCUK.

ဦးသိန္းစိန္အား ဖိတ္ၾကားထားမႈ ၿဗိတိန္ ျပန္႐ုတ္သိမ္းသင့္ဟု BC (UK) ေျပာ

မဇၥ်ိမသတင္းဌာန | ဗုဒၶဟူးေန႔၊ ဇူလုိင္လ ၂၅ ရက္ ၂၀၁၂ ခုႏွစ္ 

မဇၥ်ိမသတင္းဌာန ။ ။ ရခိုင္ျပည္နယ္တြင္ ျဖစ္ပြါးခဲ့ေသာ လူမ်ဳိးေရး အၾကမ္းဖက္ တိုက္ခိုက္မႈမ်ားသည္ ယခုအခါ လူအခြင့္အေရးႏွင့္ လူသားဆိုင္ရာ အၾကပ္အတည္းတခု ျဖစ္လာခဲ့ေသာ္လည္း ထိုက္သင့္ေသာ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ၏ အာ႐ုံစိုက္မႈကို မရရွိခဲ့ေၾကာင္း Burma Campaign (UK) ၏ အဂၤါေန႔က ေၾကညာခ်က္ ထုတ္ျပန္လိုက္သည္။

လက္ရွိ အၾကပ္အတည္းသည္ ျမန္မာအစိုးရ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ျပဳလုပ္ေနသည့္ ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာမ်ားအေပၚ ဖိႏွိပ္သည့္အျဖစ္သို႔
ေျပာင္းလဲသြားခဲ့ေၾကာင္း ဤေၾကညာခ်က္တြင္ ေရးသားထားသည္။

Burma Campaign (UK) ၏ အမႈေဆာင္ ညႊန္ၾကားေရးမႉး အန္နာေရာဘတ္ (ဓါတ္ပံု :: Facebook)

ရဲတပ္ဖြဲ႔ဝင္မ်ား၊ လံုၿခံဳေရးတပ္ဖြဲ႔ဝင္မ်ားႏွင့္ စစ္သားမ်ားက ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာ အရပ္သားမ်ားကို အဓမၼျပဳက်င့္ျခင္း၊ လုယက္ျခင္း၊ ႐ိုက္ႏွက္ညွဥ္းပန္း
ျခင္းႏွင့္ အရမ္းကာေရာ သတ္ျဖတ္ျခင္းမ်ားကို က်ဴးလြန္ခဲ့ေၾကာင္း
လြန္ခဲ့ေသာ ရက္သတၱပတ္မ်ား အတြင္း သတင္းမ်ား ရရွိထားသည္
ဟု BC (UK) က ေျပာသည္။

ဒုကၡသည္ စခန္းမ်ားတြင္လည္း လံုေလာက္ေသာ စားနပ္ရိကၡာႏွင့္
ေဆးဝါးကုသေပးမႈမ်ား မရွိေၾကာင္းလည္း သတင္းမ်ား ရရွိထား
သည္ဟု သူတို႔က ဆိုသည္။

“အေရအတြက္ မသိရသည့္ ေထာင္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာေသာ လူမ်ားသည္ ဘဂၤလားေဒ့ရွ္ႏိုင္ငံသို႔ ထြက္ေျပး ဝင္ေရာက္ခဲ့ၾကၿပီး သူတုိ႔သည္ အကာအကြယ္ေပးမႈ ေသာ္လည္းေကာင္း၊ အကူအညီ အေထာက္အပံ့
ေသာ္လည္းေကာင္း မရရွိခဲ့ၾကဘဲ ေထာင္ေပါင္းမ်ားစြာသည္ ဘဂၤလာေဒ့ရွ္ အာဏာပိုင္မ်ားက ႏိုင္ငံတကာ ဥပေဒႏွင့္ ဆန္႔က်င္ကာ
ေသနတ္ႏွင့္ခ်ိန္၍ ျပန္လည္ ႏွင္ထုတ္ျခင္းကို ခံခဲ့ရသည္” ဟု ေၾကညာခ်က္တြင္ ေရးသားထားသည္။

ေဒသႏၲရ အာဏာပိုင္မ်ားသည္ ႐ုိဟင္ဂ်ာ အမ်ားအျပားကို သူတို႔၏ ေက်းရြာမ်ား၊ ေစ်းဆိုင္မ်ား၊ အိမ္မ်ားသို႔ ျပန္လည္ ဝင္ေရာက္ခြင့္ မျပဳခဲ့ဘဲ ယင္းသည္ ေဒသအတြင္း ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာလူမ်ဳိး `သန္႔စင္ေရး´ရည္ရြယ္ျပဳလုပ္သည့္ မူဝါဒတရပ္ လည္း ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း BC (UK) က ေျပာဆိုထားသည္။

Burma: Planned Religious And Racial Riots Against Muslims: A Historical Overview

Islam, mainly of the Sunni sect, is practiced by 4% of the population of Burma according to the government census. However, according to the US State Departments 2006 International religious freedom report official statistics underestimate the non-Buddhist population which could be as high as 30%, the country’s non-Buddhist populations were underestimated in the census.
Muslim leaders estimate that as much as 20% of the population may be Muslims. Muslims are spread across the country in small communities. The last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah II and his family members and some followers were exiled to Yangon, Myanmar. He died during his imprisonment in Yangon and was buried on 7.11.1862. After the British took over Burma all sub groups of Burmese-Muslims formed numerous organizations, active in social welfare and religious affairs. The Indian-descended Muslims live mainly in Rangoon. The Rohingya are a minority Muslim ethnic group in Northern Rakhine State, Western Burma.

London-based think tank urges protection for Rohingyas

Ansar Ahmed Ullah, London
London-based anti-extremist think tank, Quilliam, has called for urgent action by the international community to end violence and discrimination against the Rohingya and other ethnic and religious minorities in Myanmar.

In a statement issued yesterday, it said the current communal violence and ongoing state-sponsored systematic discrimination against the Rohingya minority in Burma required a strong response by the international community and by democracy and human rights activists worldwide.

For decades, the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group primarily based in Arakan State and one of the world's most persecuted minorities, have faced severe restrictions, harassment and intimidation. Rohingya activists have been routinely subjected to arbitrary arrest, torture, and even extrajudicial killings perpetrated by the security forces and Rakhine Buddhists.

The Rohingya have effectively been declared stateless in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the 1982 Citizenship Act, which removed their citizenship granted in 1948, even if they have lived in Myanmar for generations.

Since a state of emergency was declared in June 2012, targeted attacks by the security forces against the Rohingya have increased and anti-Muslim communal violence has continued unchecked.

House speaker condemns killings of muslim Rohingya

july 24 2012



Indonesian House Speaker Marzuki Alie (FOTO ANTARA

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesian House Speaker Marzuki Alie condemned the killings of Muslim Rohingya ethnic group members in Myanmar and urged countries to take a stance against that country`s military junta responsible for the incident.

"The systemic killings of the Rohingya by Myanmar`s military junta is a very concerning humanitarian tragedy that can be categorized as a serious human rights violation and a crime against humanity and specifically leads to a genocide," Marzuki Alie said.   a press conference here on Tuesday.

In view of that he said Indonesia as a country that honors human rights and an ASEAN chairman must be pro-active and give a strong reprimand to Myanmar and urge that country to respect human rights and settle the conflict by giving the Rohingya right to live and citizenship like that for other ethnic groups.

"The UN must also be active in responding to the Rohingya case in humanitarian as well as political terms. With regard to humanitarian problems anticipation must be made to deal with refugee problem," he said.

He said the UN must urge Myanmar to respect human rights as killings or ousting of the Rohingya from country is uncivilized.

Authority again mass arrests in Northern Arakan

 

 July 24, 2012 by kaladanpress

Maungdaw, Arakan State: The concerned authorities- police , Burma border security force (Nasaka) and army- have been arresting Rohingya community since last Friday, according to a school teacher from Maungdaw.

The police officer from Three miles check point arrested 4 Rohingya from Samawna para near the Myothu Gyi villager yesterday evening at about 5:30, said an elder from Myothu Gyi village.
“The arrestees are living near the village primary school and they are Abdul Sukur, son of Reyaz, Abudl Sukur, son of Kala Meah , Rashid , son of Abdul Sukur and Putu son of Abdul Sukur.”
“Shadek Husson, son of Osman from Sawmawna para was arrested by Nasaka station near Natala ( Shetler) village yesterday at about 4;30 pm, but he was released after extorting 20,000 kyat.”
Similarly, Nasaka arrested Somi Ullah son of Dilu, Rahamat Ullah son of Dilu , Nur Hashim son of Basher and another from Guna Para of Shwezarr Village yesterday.
On the other hand, Abul Bashar son of Zakawriya and Yasein ( Converted from Rakhine) from Thanda village were arrested yesterday by army but the relative are worried for them as the army toke them to the jungle and no information about them.
Besides, Abdullah son of Nurmal Hakhin, Habib Ullah, son of Sultan, Maghgul, son of Abdul Rashid and Foor Khan, son of Ali Husson from Alay Than Kyaw were arrested by Nasaka yesterday , according to an elder from Aly Than Kyaw.