Rohingya joints European Burma Network (EBN) Meeting

Rohingya attended European Burma Network (EBN) meeting in Brussels, Belgium on February 18-19, according to Tun Khin, the President of Burmese Rohingya Organization, UK (BROUK).

BROUK delegations with European Burma Network (EBN) members after meeting in Brussels

“We also met with European Officials from European Parliament and European Commission in the meeting.” 

The Rohingya -- BROUK President Tun Khin (aka) Ziaul Gaffar and its Education and Cultural Secretary Mohamed Siddique -- attended the EBN meeting. The EBN is working for campaign together in Europe and has 15 organisations’ representatives from 10 countries to promote Democracy and Human Rights. BROUK officially become a member of EBN September.

The meeting was facilitated by Jared Genser, the President of Washington based Freedom Now Law firm.

At the meeting the speakers had briefed the following topics --- Soe Aung, the representative of Forum for Democracy in Burma, briefed current situation and change in Burma; Nant Bwa Bwa Phan, Karen National Union representative, updated situation about KNU; Tun Khin  the President, Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, briefed current situation of Rohingya people of Arakan;  Ben Rogers, East Asia Team Leader ,Christian Solidarity Worldwide, briefed recent visit to Burma and Kachin State; Wai Hnin  Pwint Thon, the Campaign Officer,  Buma Campaign UK, briefed update and perspective of 88 Generation Students and Neil, the Head of EU policy and Development, Open Society Institute-Brussels, briefed current Burma discussion within European Union.

Mohamed Siddique , Tun Khin and European Commission Principal Adminstrator South-East Asia ,European External Action Service

Tun Khin, mentioned human rights violations against Rohingya people and pinpointed the denial of citizenship rights and ethnic rights of Rohingya in Burma. All EBN members have agreed on action plans to raise the plight of Rohingya issues and 1982 citizenship law which was targeted to get rid of Rohingya people.

"I am very glad that BROUK is being a member of EBN where we had a good opportunity to raise our suffering people's situation in International Organisations. Recently releasing of high profile political prisoners have shown that international community pressure is working on Burma. It is high time, international community have to push to the regime to stop human rights violations in ethnic areas particularly in Rohingya areas where Rohingyas are facing serious discrimination," said Tun Khin.

BROUK delegation also briefed current situation of Rohingya people in "Round table discussion on political and human rights situation in Burma" at European Parliament on February 20, organised by Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

“I exposed about discrimination on Rohingya people by the military regime in Arakan at the discussion meeting and CSW east Asia Team Leader Ben Rogers mentioned about his recent visit and situation about Kachin people where Directorate -General for External Policies of the European Union (Asia, Australia and New Zealand) and other staffs from European external service Units were attended at the discussion meeting,” said Tun Khin.

CSW East Asia Team Leader Ben Rogers , CSW EU Liason Office Sofia  and Tun Khin, the President of BROUK at European Parliament

BROUK delegation met on February 21 with Andreas LIST who is Principal administrator of South-East Asia at the European Commission organized by Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

“We had valuable meetings in European and Parliament and European Commission in last two days. I have mentioned that the current changes are not genuine change. If there is genuine change, the regime has to stop ethnic cleansing in ethnic areas including Rohingya areas where basic human rights were denied. It might be just to ease sanctions from the western countries and it will be too early to life sanctions,” said the BROUK President.

“We have mentioned European officials that we just want our lost rights which are ethnic rights and citizenship rights. We want to live in our homeland with dignity and peace. We want to live with our other ethnic brothers and sisters of Burma with harmony and working together to develop our federal union of Burma. We really welcome EU continued efforts for the Human Rights and Democracy for Burma. Please raise with the regime our long time suffering Rohingya people’s issue. Instead of protecting our Rohingya people, the regime is practising more human rights violations in Rohingya areas. So international community have to protect us as we are human beings," said BROUK delegations.

Authority warns administration office of Muslim religious gathering center in Maungdaw

Maungdaw, Arakan State: The Maungdaw township authority had given warning to trustees from administration office of Muslim religious gathering center (Tabaleak Markaz) in Maungdaw in the evening of February 19, said an elder from Maungdaw.

“We all Rohingya gathered in the religious gathering center (Tabaleak Markaz) and pray for peace and listened to religious sermons, where huge Rohingya gathered in the event.”

“The Rohingya who gathered in the event are mostly farmers, religious leaders, businessmen and elders from Maungdaw Townships.”

We informed to the authority about the event, but the authority called the administration officers when the authority saw a huge Rohingya devotees in the event, said a devotee from the gathering center.

The Township administration officer warned the religious gathering center’s trustees not to do like this gathering event in the future and took bond sign, said a member of village administration office.

“The township officer also warned to the village administration officer of Myoma Kayoundan (Seikda para) not to allow like this event in the future.”

Religious persecution is still going on in the northern Arakan State after President Thein Sein’s government took office where the government declared its move towards democracy, said a politician from Maungdaw.

Visitor arrests in Nayapara refugee camp

Teknaf, Bangladesh: Two visitors who visited their relatives in the camp were arrested by the camp police of Nayapara official recognize refugee camp on February 18, said a relative of the victims.

“They were arrested when went out from the camp and on the road of Teknaf-Cox’s Bazar high way near the camp at about 6:00 pm when they went out from the camp.”

The arrested visitors were identified as Mohamed Rafique (18) and Jamil Ahamed (20) hailed from Maungdaw Township, Arakan State.

They came to Bangladesh from Burma to see their relatives at the Nayapara camp after long time without border pass.

Nurul Islam, the camp police inspector informed to the acting Camp-in-Charge about the visitors.

Their relatives of the visitors requested to the police inspector Nurul Islam and the acting Camp-in-Charge, Jalal Uddin of Kutupalong official camp for their release, but the inspector and camp-in-charge did not take any interest. However, the camp-in-charge was bribed Taka 20,000 for their release, said a source who refused his name.

“But, the police inspector also took Taka 7,500 from the visitors and the visitors were detained in the police camp for one night and one day. They were also beaten severely.”

On February 19, at about 11: 00 pm, they were handed over to the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) of Dum Dum Meah check-post and they were pushed back to Burma at night.

Nevertheless, the camp authorities took huge money from them and gave statement in local newspaper that they are the human traffickers, according to sources.

The inspector Nurul Islam has been harassing the official refugees such as arbitrary arrest, seizing mobiles and computers from the refugees and also restricted the movement of the refugees since he was appointed at the refugee camp.

Burmese envoy meets with Rohingya in Jeddah

Chittagong, Bangladesh: Burmese envoy to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia met with Rohingya during his visited to Jeddah on February 17, according to an elder from Rohingya community from Jeddah.

Burmese envoy U Khin Zaw Win with Rohingya from Jeddah

“U Khin Zaw Win, the Burmese envoy had a fruitful discussion with Rohingya politicians, businessmen, overseas workers and elders at a lunch party hosted by Rohingyas at Lasani Hotel in Jeddah.”

“The Ambassador and his team, Mohamed Rafique, the chairman of Rohingya League for Democracy (Burma), RLDB – a political party based in Jeddah - and some RLDB’s CEC members, Rohingya businessmen, Rohingya elders and Burmese expatriate workers from Jeddah region were attended in the lunch party program,” according to RLDB information desk.

The lunch party was organized by RLDB and the keynote speech was delivered by Mohamed Younous, the owner of Alabeer cold store, the RLDB information desk said.

Burmese envoy U Khin Zaw Win, Mohamed Rafiqur (chirman RLDB), Mohamed Yousuf (Alabeer cold store) and Mostafa in lunch party at Lasani Hotel in Jeddah.

The discussions were mainly for “registering Rohingyas from Saudi Arabia and subsequently issuing them with Burmese passports, repatriation of Rohingyas prisoners from Saudi Arabian prisons to their home country (Burma), establishing a Burmese school in Jeddah and assuring lost rights of Rohingyas in Burma and abroad”  a Rohingya who had joined the lunch party said on condition of anonymity.

“Rohingya prisoners’ information are collecting and checking their identity in the prisons of Jeddah and Makkah to verify as a Burmese after the discussion meeting with Burmese envoy.”

The military junta always denied and discriminated Rohingya citizen rights and other social rights; during 2009, Rohingyas were as ugly as ogres, said U Ye Myint Aung, the Burmese consular to Hong Kong, proving Burmese regime discrimination against Rohingyas while the worldwide watched the Rohingya boatpeople and the current  Burmese parliament (Hluttaw) convened in last September, the immigration minister U Khin Yee, also said Rohingyas were illegal Bangali immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh despite well existence of historical evidences supporting Rohingyas being ancient citizens of Arakan. But, now the Burmese envoy from Saudi Arabia is showing green signal to Rohingya. How long it will give these signal and will Rohingya get indigenous and birth rights in Burma which the Rohingya have lost for half a century in Arakan and now they are scattered in many countries living as refugees?, said a Rohingya politician from Makkah. 

First secretary and embassy staffs from Burmese Embassy in Saudi Arabaia at Lasani Hotel in Jeddah

This olive branch from President Thein Sein’s government is probably the result of the recent mounting criticisms from international leaders; British foreign secretary William Hague and UN Special Rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana about regime’s maltreatments on Rohingyas. International community has always reiterated the importance of National Reconciliation in Burma reforms for genuine democracy and now it is the sign that Burmese leaders have been successfully convinced and now taking serious steps towards achieving it.

Rohingyas: a people both with, and without, an origin

There are some three to four hundred thousands of them in the city, but, according to the law, they simply do not exist. The Burmese Muslims - known as Rohingyas –make up a sizable portion of illegal immigrants living in Karachi, and, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), are considered to be one of the most persecuted ethnic groups in the world.

Although they are often misconstrued as Bengalis, the Rohingyas, both culturally and linguistically, are very much different from the people of Bangladesh. “For the layman, they are all Bangladeshis, but the Burmese people are poles apart in every way, even in terms of facial features,” said Muhammad Khan Lodhi, an assistant director at the National Alien Registration Authority (Nara).

History

“The Rohingyas are a stateless people,” says Daniyal Rizvi of the Futuristic Foundation, a social research institute that works extensively on issues of illegal immigration and human trafficking in South Asia.

Rizvi said that a majority of the Burmese people living in Pakistan belong to the Arkan province of Myanmar. The Rohingyas are not considered Burmese by the government of Myanmar because they are not of a ‘pure Buddhist bloodline’.

In the late 70s, and again in early 90s, two major Rohingya exoduses took place. Their people were, for all intents and purposes, forced to leave their home country due to the imposition of laws that restricted their intermarriage and religious freedom. They took refuge in Bangladesh.

“There is not a single mosque in the whole of the Arkan province – a state where 70 percent of the population is Muslim, even after multiple resettlement programmes by the state to bring down the Muslim population,” added Rizvi, who has visited Myanmar nine times for research on these issues.

The Bangladeshi government does not consider them refugees. The Rohigyas live on the roads from Teknaf (the Bangladesh-Myanmar border) to Chittagong and are hounded by the police. They have no land of their own.

Life in the city

“My parents came to Pakistan because it is a Muslim country,” said Shabbir Hussain, a taxi driver and a madrassa graduate.

According to reports, there are 65 shantytowns populated by Rohingyas and Bengalis in which members of both communities live side by side. At least two such colonies are named after the Burmese lineage in Karachi: Arkanabad (named after the Arkan province in Burma) in Korangi Dai Number and a Burmese colony situated near Landi.

The Burmese population, like that of the Bengalis, is mainly employed by the city’s textile and fishing sector, where they have to work for ten to twelve hours a day. “They are the lumpen proletariat of Karachi,” says Salman Mukhtar, a senior social activist who works on poverty-related issues in Karachi.

“These people are basically migrant labourers. They have no legal status, no job security; they are virtually slaves to the whims of contractors who take work orders from textile and fishing companies to, for example, get an export assignment done,” he told The News.

“They work for the minimum possible wages; the Bengali and Burmese population, because of their low pay-rate, played a pivotal role in making Pakistani textiles competitive in the international market during the mid-80s and the 90s.”

Despite living in run-down shanty homes, where there is no access to electricity or clean water, the Rohingyas have managed to outstrip their Bengali counterparts in terms of being accepted by the mainstream Pakistani, a fact that does not bode well with the Bengali community leaders.

Political ambitions

The Bengalis claim that the Burmese, who started coming to Pakistan in the late 70s, call themselves Bengalis because they want an excuse to get naturalised citizenship; however, the Rohingya leadership denies having any link whatsoever to Myanmar.

“They have nothing to do with Pakistan. We are Pakistanis, we have been living here since before the fall of Dhaka, we gave sacrifices for the creation of Pakistan, we have a stake in this country,” said Masud-ur-Rehman, the general secretary of the Pak-Bangla Ittehad, a community-based Bengali organisation.

This turf war between the two groups has resulted in much political activism in recent times. Playing on the Bengali card, the Rohingyas have managed to form a party called the Action Committee which is backed by the largest political party of Karachi.

Mehsud’s claims were refuted outright by Abul Hussain Sonar, who is a member of the supreme council of the Action Committee. “We are Bengalis. We have no connection with Myanmar whatsoever. I am a second generation Pakistani. My parents migrated from Bangladesh in the 1960s.” Sonar claims that there are no Rohingyas living in Karachi, and that even if there are, there is a minimal number of them. The Bengalis, on the other hand, think that their political mandate is being exploited. Masud says the Burmese have money and are relatively better educated, which has allowed them to claim representation of the ethnic Bengalis in the city, who are at least four times more than the Rohingyas in number.

“If you actually make a comparison, you can see that there are a number of differences between our communities. For example, the Burmese have a tendency to send their children to madrassas; they are well-read and are a very close-knit community, which has given them an edge.”

Whatever the truth may be, one thing is for sure: the Rohingyas have successfully buried their violent past and have begun a new life with a new identity in the city of Karachi.
By The News International Karachi

 

One killed, two injured in Rohingya refugee camp

Ukiah, Bangladesh: A woman was killed and two were serious injured with knives in the Kutupalong makeshift camp by a drug addict refugee on February 15 at night, said a refugee elder from camp.

Rafique Uddin – a unregistered refugee from Kutupalong refugee camp – was listening music with a mobile phone nearby his shack at around 10:00pm and Jafar Alam (25) son of Ulla Meah – a drug addict—approached to him where Jafor tried to snatch mobile and become a quarrel between them, the elder added.

Rafique screamed and called his family member for help to save his mobile and his life as he was stabbed. Rafique’s mother, Azeda, (40) went to the spot to save her son and his mobile, but suddenly, Azeda was stabbed by Jafor where she died on the spot, according to neighboring refugees.

“Mamataz Meah, the father of Rafique went to the spot after hearing screamed and noisy of his family member, but he was also stabbed by Jafor  and ran away from the seen while nearby refugees rushed to the spot.”

Rafique and Mamtaz were seriously injured, admitted at Shamak hospital in Cox’s Bazar where Azeda was sent to government hospital of Cox’s Bazar for autopsy. She was buried at refugee cemetery on February 16, said a relative of the victims.

Regarding the accident, son in law of Azeda had filed a case against the Jafor in Ukhiya police station.

Jafor was arrested by the refugees on February 16 and sent to the Ukhiya police station.

According to Camp-In-Charge, Jalal Uddin of official Kutupalong camp confirmed that the accident was occurred in the unregistered makeshift camp.

BGB alerts on Rohingya along Bur ma - Bangladesh border

Teknaf, Bangladesh: Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) have alert on Rohingya to arrest, pushed back who enter Bangladesh without legal travel border pass, according to border security forces’ source.

“The alert was imposed after information was spread out along the Burma-Bangladesh border that BGB personnel from outpost camps take 100 taka per head who is crossing illegal into Bangladesh.”

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) arrested sixty two Rohingyas from different border areas on February 13 -15 after warning, said a local from Teknaf.

“Twenty Rohingyas were arrested from various buses at Whykong BGB check-post after being investigated while they were going to Cox’s Bazar.”

The conducted operation was led by Company Commander Nurul Amin of Whykong. BGB-out post. Later, they were pushed back to Burma through the entry point of Lamba Bill under Teknaf police station, according to BGB sources.

On the other hand, twenty three Rohingyas were arrested by Shapuri Dip BGB personnel, while they were entering the Bangladesh.

The Company Commander Fool Meah from Shapuri Dip BGB-out post confirmed that they were pushed back to Burma same day.

Besides, on February 13, nineteen Rohingyas were arrested by Dum Dum Meah BGB check-post after being checked on different buses which ply from Teknaf to Cox’s Bazar. Of them, twelve male, three female and four children, they all are belonging to different areas of northern Arakan State, Burma.

Sources also said that most of Rohingya people cross Burma-Bangladesh for medical treatment and visiting to their relatives who live in the refugee camps.