Police personnel gear up harassment of Rohingyas in Maungdaw

Maungdaw, Arakan State:  The Police personnel gear up its harassment on Rohingya community in Maungdaw after visiting of UN envoy, according to teacher from Maungdaw.

“Arafat,15, son of Nazir Ahmed and Ismile, 28,  hailed from Maung Ni village , who are sitting in their shops near the Maungdaw Juma Mosque today at about 10:00am by Police officer  Sub Inspectors Aye Tun Sein, Hla sein and Then Htun  without any allegation. After arrested, the police officers demand to release 500,000 kyats each.”

Similarly, a high school student from Ward number 5, was arrested by police today morning from the village and till reporting the faith of the student was unknown, the teacher said,
Osman Gani, 55, Abul Fayas, 40, Abul Kalam,30, Ex-Custom officer Kasim, 70 and Yasein,35 were arrested  from Ward number 5 yesterday (August 10), night  by police, according to a villager from Ward number 5.
The police personnel are going to villages/Ward at night in the name of family list checking and looting Rohingyas property and attempt to rape if they get change in the houses where no males were in the houses, said an elder from Maungdaw.
“The police took the family lists Rohingya families where the head of family member is not found in Bumu village on August 9. Same as, the police also took the family lists of Rohingys families from Myoma Khayoungdan village. The Police also arrest Rohingyas who was met in the houses.”
“Ayub, 25, son of Younous, and Moulana Rashid 45, from Bomu village were arrested by police  on August 9 at night.”
“It is very difficult for Rohingya community for checking the family list at night where most of Rohingyas are busy for fasting and most of males members were out of houses for fear of arrest. At this movement, the police personnel are using the charge to attempt to rape while they saw female only in the houses at night.”
Police personnel who are going to the villages at night for checking of family lists, taking the motorbike, if found in the houses and didn’t return to the owners. The Rohingyas show all documents of motorbikes, but the police are not returning the motorbikes, said a motorbike owner from Bomu Village.
Besides, the Burma border security force (Nasaka) also arresting Rohingya community without any allegations, said a village admin officer from Maungdaw.
“Nazir, 22, son of Kabir , Moulana Mohamed Alam and  Kaseim 25, from PoungZar village Nasaka area number 6 were arrested By Nasaka.”

Saudi Arabia donates USD 50 Million to Rohingya Muslim

The custodian of Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud  

Aug  11

The custodian of Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud ordered Saturday  sending USD 50 million in humanitarian aid to oppressed Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar. A press statement pointed out that King Abdullah ordered  the aid  alleviate the suffering of Rohiangya Muslims who are subjected to systematic human rights abuses, ethnic  cleansing  forced deportation, mass rape and killing from extremist Buddhist  groups tolerated by the government.

The move come today after Myanmar government’s acceptance to allow access to humanitarian aid to the oppressed Muslim minority.

UAE Foreign Minister calls on international community to help Rohingya

 Foreign Ministe Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan 

Abu Dhabi: The UAE has called on the international community to take an immediate action to stop violence against minority Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

Addressing the foreign ministers of the member states of the UN Security Council, Shaikh Abdullah said that the UAE is extremely concerned about the acts of sectarian violence in Myanmar which led to the death of hundreds of Muslims and displacing thousands of people.

“The UAE is deeply concerned about the ethnic violence in Myanmar which claimed hundreds of lives of the Rohingya Muslim minority group and left thousands of them homeless, bringing a renewed chapter of severe suffering,” Shaikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister, said in a letter addressed to foreign ministers of the UN Security Council’s member states, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), New Zealand, Canada, Japan and India as well as to Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary-General of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Dr. Nabil Al Araby, Secretary General of the League of Arab States and Dr. Abdullatif Rashid Al Zayani, Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Shaikh Abdullah said the international community should urge the government of Myanmar to take adequate measures to cease infringements of Rohingya’s rights and refrain from acts that disregard principles of universal basic human rights and international conventions. He stressed that Rohingya’s basic rights should be respected in a responsible manner. The UAE foreign minister urged the international community to reach a prompt end to this targeting in a way that achieves reconciliation and arrives at a final solution to the crisis.

Myanmar invites OIC probe of sectarian violence

President Thein Sein said he welcomed a visit by the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation in an effort to diffuse mounting outcry over the treatment of the Muslim Rohingya. (AP)

Myanmar has invited an influential Islamic body to visit a state rocked by sectarian violence, official media said Friday, in an effort to diffuse mounting outcry over the treatment of the Muslim Rohingya.

In a rare conciliatory move over the issue, President Thein Sein said he welcomed a visit by the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the world’s largest Muslim grouping, which has urged a probe into violence between Buddhist Rakhine and Rohingya that left scores dead.

“The president said he hoped the OIC secretary could witness the reality (in Rakhine),” state mouthpiece the New Light of Myanmar said, adding tens of thousands of displaced people from both sides are being given food and shelter.

Thein Sein’s comments came as the visiting foreign minister of Muslim-majority Turkey offered aid to the strife-stricken Rakhine state.

He also urged “the Turkish minister to explain the realities in Myanmar” to the OIC, the report added.

OIC head Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu on Sunday proposed sending a mission to probe “massacres... oppression and ethnic cleansing” of Rohingya in Rakhine, adding weight to calls by Egypt and Saudi Arabia for an investigation into the unrest.

The initial outbreak of fighting in western Rakhine state killed some 80 people from both sides in June, official figures show.

Renewed violence between Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya left several people dead in Myanmar on Sunday, underscoring tensions in the area.

Human rights groups have alleged the number of dead could be much higher, but Friday’s report said “only 77 persons” from both sides died.

The bloodshed has cast a shadow over widely praised reforms by President Thein Sein, including the release of hundreds of political prisoners and the election of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to parliament.

Myanmar’s government has rejected accusations of abuse by security forces in Rakhine, after the United Nations raised fears of a crackdown on Muslims.

The entire state has been under emergency rule since early June with a heavy army and police presence.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has accused Myanmar forces of opening fire on Rohingya, as well as committing rape and standing by as rival mobs attacked each other.

Decades of discrimination have left the Rohingya stateless, and they are viewed by the United Nations as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.

Speaking a Bengali dialect similar to one in neighboring Bangladesh, the Rohingya are seen as illegal immigrants by the Myanmar government and many Burmese, and many have attempted to flee overseas in rickety boats.

The President, the Lady, and the Plight of the Rohingya

AUG 2, 2012
By Gregory Poling and Prashanth Parameswaran

Myanmar continues to pursue reforms at an impressive pace, but the plight of the country’s Rohingya population remains a disgrace for a state seeking to engage the international community. That disgrace is not the government’s alone—it is shared by the opposition movement, including its leader Aung San Suu Kyi as well as the country’s neighbors and the international community.

The more than 800,000 Rohingyas that live in Myanmar today, most in western Rakhine state, are denied citizenship by the government and face a range of abuses including forced labor, marriage restrictions, and unlawful detention. Their suffering is so severe that many have sought refuge across the border in Bangladesh, while others have fled on dangerous voyages by boat to Thailand and Malaysia. Amnesty International July 20 noted that both security forces and Buddhists in Rakhine state have been carrying out “primarily one-sided” attacks, including massive security sweeps, detentions, and killings, against the Rohingya in the weeks after a wave of communal violence erupted between the area’s Buddhist and Muslim populations.

During the recent communal violence, the country’s news outlets engaged in base fear-mongering, equating Rohingyas with “terrorists,” and the government did nothing to dispel these assertions. Officials and most commentators from Myanmar’s majority Burman ethnic group insisted that the Rohingyas are recent migrants from Bangladesh and do not qualify as one of the country’s roughly 135 ethnic minorities. Immigration Minister Khin Yi said this week that they will not be included in the country’s 2014 census. Popular Myanmar News Journal has reported that he told Bangladesh’s ambassador to Myanmar that Rohingyas are not citizens because they only began migrating to the country after 1824.

The impossible situation in which Rohingyas find themselves has been on display since the eruption of violence nearly two months ago. Many have attempted to flee to Bangladesh with their families, where they have been stopped at the border and refused entry. Those who made it across the border face detention and deportation back to Rakhine state. Myanmar’s president Thein Sein announced that only those Rohingyas with proof of citizenship would be permitted to return to their homes, but the government has long denied Rohingyas the right to legal documentation of any kind. The president said Myanmar will not accept “illegal immigrants” and has requested that the United Nations refugee agency either place the Rohingya in refugee camps or deport them to a third country, which the UN understandably refused.

On the opposition side, the widely respected Aung San Suu Kyi has avoided the subject. During her June trip to Europe, which coincided with the outbreak of communal violence in Rakhine state, she said only that the country must clarify its citizenship laws. Whether such clarification would embrace or dispossess the Rohingya was left unclear. In her first parliamentary speech July 25, Suu Kyi spoke of soaring poverty rates and other roots of violence in “ethnic states,” but did not mention the deadly violence in Rakhine state or the government’s treatment of Rohingyas. Other leaders of her National League for Democracy have made clear that they are of one mind with the government in declaring the Rohingya squatters on their own land.

Some international commentators argue that the opposition’s position is to be expected since the issue is politically sensitive and most citizens hold extremely hostile views toward the Rohingya. But that is no excuse for silence in the face of killing, rape, and abuse of a helpless people. Some have argued that Suu Kyi herself has her arms tied now that she is an elected member of parliament from a conservative district. This wildly underestimates the influence of “the Lady.” Suu Kyi is much more than a parliamentary opposition leader; she is the scion of the nation’s greatest hero, the symbol of resistance to what was until recently one of the world’s most repressive regimes, and to many of her countrymen a bodhisattva, one on the path to enlightenment and Buddhahood.

The government of Myanmar needs to snap out of its denial and confront the Rohingya issue head on. The nearly million Rohingyas in Myanmar are the country’s responsibility, and proper rights must be accorded to them. President Thein Sein should also have a frank and practical discussion about repatriation issues with his Bangladeshi counterpart during his upcoming visit to Dhaka.

Aung San Suu Kyi must break her silence on the issue. She cannot change the collective opinions of an entire country over night, but her voice is critical in getting the ball rolling. Even if the government tomorrow decreed the Rohingya citizens of Myanmar, most of the population would still see them as intruders. Only Suu Kyi’s opinion can carry enough weight with the Burman majority to make a dent in that prejudice.

The international community also should play a stronger role. It is encouraging that ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan has taken a “personal interest” in the issue and spoke directly to Myanmar and Bangladesh during ASEAN meetings in Cambodia in July. However, the organization and its member states can do much more to facilitate a solution. A good opportunity will be at an upcoming international conference on the Rohingya in August, where progress can hopefully be made toward allowing access for aid that is currently being blocked by the government. The conference was announced by the Malaysian International Islamic Cooperation Institute, but the exact location remains undecided.

Other concerned actors ranging from the United States to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) should also hold Myanmar’s feet to the fire on this issue since it remains an enormous blemish on the country’s path to reform. The United States and Europe have spent decades condemning the treatment of the country’s other minorities, particularly the Karen and, more recently, the Kachin. Their response to the plight of the Rohingya has been, by comparison, remarkably muted. At the very least, they should support the call by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for an international inquiry into the widely reported abuses against the Rohingya by security forces in Rakhine state.

UN special rapporteur on human rights for Myanmar Tomas Ojea Quintana traveled to Rakhine state this week to assess the situation. He was told dismissively by Immigration Minister Khin Yi that “this is just a regional but not an international issue . . . so I don’t think the government will accept the call to open an inquiry as if this were an international issue.” The international community must make clear that the problem will not simply go away. The plight of the Rohingya may well constitute crimes against humanity, according to a June report by respected researchers at the Irish Center for Human Rights. Myanmar’s civilian government, its democratic opposition, the country’s neighbors, and the global community all have an obligation to confront this reality and ensure that it is rectified. (This Commentary first appeared in the August 2, 2012, issue of Southeast Asia from the Corner of 18th and K Streets.)

Gregory Poling is a research associate with the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Prashanth Parameswaran is a researcher with the CSIS Southeast Asia Program.

Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

Arrestees have been being tortured inhumanely in Buthidaung jail

Since June 2012, the military, police and NaSaKa have been collaboratively arresting the innocent Rohingya Muslims from Buthidaung and Maung daw Township, Rakhine State and confining them in jail. The arrested Rohingyas had been tortured brutally by all means before they were sent to jail as well. They were forced to be naked in jail and to eat using their mouths from the floor like animals where the foods were spread over. Most of arrestee passed away suffering severe pain resulted from the extreme abuses in the jail. Corpses were buried at a place of near to the Buthidaung jail. Last month, 43 innocent Rohingya passed away in this jail and were buried in the mentioned place. 

Currently, according to the some reliable sources, more innocent Rohingya arrestees were brought to court for hearing. But, no one is allowed to go near to the court. It is the way how they were taken to court from jail: first, they were taken to court by prison bus and when it was about to reach to the court, they were forced to crawl from the street to court like animals. Pleading is forbidden for them and they were sentenced to jail unjustly. 

The NaSaKa head that just arrived to Maungdaw as the replacement of Colonel Aung Gyi is a Rakhine Buddhist himself and have been arresting the innocent Rohingya Muslims with lame reasons. The native Rohingya Muslims are too afraid to go out of their houses till now. The extremist Rakhine Buddhists are igniting the genocide and local security forces cooperating with them.

British MP George Galloway calls on Hague to aid Rohingya people

Bradford West MP George Galloway has written to Foreign Secretary William Hague, alerting him to the plight of the ancient Rohingya people of Burma –the subject of a vicious pogrom – and asking him to do what he can to come to their aid. 

Galloway said, ‘I appreciate that Britain has little pressure to be bring to bear to influence the Burmese government. But a clear statement of condemnation of the atrocities

 which have taken place would send a message ringing round the world. Bangladesh, which has taken in around 200,000 refugees, is now turning them back by the boatload, must also be informed that it has a duty to help those fleeing persecution. The United Nations needs to discuss this urgently and take action. We cannot stand by.’