Burmese refugees in Bangladesh

For Rohingya refugees, see also the Arakan State section of "Administration and administrative areas" http://www.burmalibrary.org/show.php?cat=1241&lo=&sl= and the Rohingya section of Human Rights.
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Individual Documents

Title: The Rohingya conflict: Genesis, current situation and geopolitical aspects
Description: "The word “Rohingya” was used for the first time as "Rooinga" (= inhabitant of Arakan, today's province Rakhine) in 1799 in the "Journal Asiatic Researches" for a longestablished population in Rakhine (Ibrahim 2016, Gill 2015). Later they were called "Muslim Arakanese". Myanmar is one of the most ethnically diversified societies of the world. 135 "ethnic nationalities" with numerous subgroups are officially recognized in the Burma Citizenship Law from 1982, but the ethnic Rohingya were not included (Farzana 2017, 2018). In the first constitution of Myanmar in 1947, all people living at that time in “Frontier Areas” and who intended to stay permanently were considered citizens and accepted as “The People of Burma” (Farzana 2018). However, when General Ne Win came to power in 1962, the Rohingya were deemed as not compatible with other ethnic groups in Burma. Other Muslims, who do not belong to the Rohingya, have Myanmar nationality (Ibrahim 2016). The Muslims in Rakhine have not always identified themselves as an independent group. But a uniform concept with an identifying name had political advantages, since recognition as an ethnic group would increase the chances to gain the right to citizenship. The common experience generated by decades of discrimination contributed further to the identity formation of the Rohingya. The term "Rohingya" as an ethnic group spread only after the major refugee movements with the human rights debate through international organizations (Farzana 2017; Bochmann 2017)...ဓ
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Academia.edu (USA)
Date of publication: 2018-08-18
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Size: 1.26 MB (7 pages)
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Title: The Southeast Asian " Boat People Crisis " of 2015: Human (In)Security, Precarity, and the Need for an Ethic of Cohabitation
Description: "This paper problematizes the situation of vulnerable migrants, in particular, that ofrefugees and asylum seekers in Southeast Asia as against policy pronouncements towards a people-centered ASEAN. As a case in point, the paper highlights the so-called Boat People Crisis of 2015 and argues that the events that lead to and resulted from it reveal a situation ofhyper-precarity, as well as a crisis of and for human security. Additionally, the paper offersJudith Butler’s notion of an ethic of cohabitation as a means of substantiating claims for a people-centered community. From Visions of a ‘People-Centered’ Community to PrecarityMany trace the emergence of visions for a ‘people-centered’ ASEAN community to the development of human security or otherwise less state-centric approaches to security in the region. As early as the 1960s, Indonesia’s concept of ketahanan nasional or national resilience, Malaysia under Mahathir, and Singapore’s notion of Total Defence, all embrace a concept of security that goes beyond the military dimension to incorporate political, economicand socio-cultural dimensions (Caballero-Anthony, 2004: 160). Nishikawa argues that suchformulations were still essentially state-centric because protecting territory and resourcesfrom internal and external threats continue to be the main concerns for Southeast Asiancountries as a result of its postcolonial experiences. Nonetheless, since the 2004 VientianneAction Programme (VAP), which outlines ASEAN’s program of actions towards the creationof an ASEAN Security Community (ASC), Nishikawa agrees that there has been a move awayfrom a traditional military definition of security towards a more a more people- centeredapproach (Nishikawa, 2009: 217)..."
Source/publisher: Southeast Asia Research Centre via Academia.edu (USA)
Date of publication: 2016-06-17
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-09
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Title: Rohingya refugees allowed to go to school
Sub-title: Change of heart by Bangladesh government is greeted enthusiastically by refugee advocates
Description: "Rohingya children living in Bangladesh refugee camps will be allowed to receive a formal education after a change of heart by Dhaka, in a move welcomed by rights activists. Nearly one million Rohingya, including more than half a million children, live in the squalid and crowded camps near the southeastern border with Myanmar, whence many had fled in 2017 after a brutal military crackdown. The children were previously barred from studying the curriculua used in Bangladesh and Myanmar, and instead received primary education in temporary learning centers set up by the UN children’s agency UNICEF. “We don’t want a lost generation of Rohingya. We want them to have education. They will follow Myanmar curricula,” Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen told AFP on Tuesday. The decision came after a meeting of a national task force set up by the government. Local media reported that a pilot program involving more than 10,000 students would be launched soon, with UNICEF and Dhaka jointly designing the curriculum. The refugee children will be schooled in Myanmar history and culture up to age 14, and will also receive skills training so they can take up jobs back in Myanmar when they return home, the foreign ministry said..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of publication: 2020-01-29
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Stop ignoring us: Rohingya refugees demand role in running camps
Sub-title: Refugees in Cox’s Bazar complain the international aid community does not utilise their experience and say the lack of education risks creating a ‘lost generation’
Description: "In a tea room just outside Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps, a group of young activists fiddle with their phones, which have suddenly started pinging in chorus now they are finally reconnected to the internet. To circumvent a government internet blackout around the camps in Cox’s Bazar, they have to break a ban on travelling to nearby Bangladeshi towns, from where they can communicate and coordinate messages for the international community. With simple smartphones the activists have been able to build some kind of Rohingya voice, speaking to the world through WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter. But their efforts have often been frustrated, mostly for a more fundamental reason than the technological barrier in place since August: they believe the aid community sent to help them is not listening. “The Rohingya community are not weak, but the situation makes us weak,” says Mohammad Arfaat, an activist who was part of a Rohingya team that made a short film about how violence had forced them from Myanmar in 2017. He has been calling for more help for Rohingya to launch their own initiatives, for everything from education to arts, but complains there has been no support. “The Rohingya youth are very talented … but nobody sits, nobody talks with them, so their voices have stopped,” says Arfaat..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
Date of publication: 2020-02-05
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-08
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Title: Some Rohingya Return to Myanmar But Find Little There Left For Them
Description: "The more than 600 Rohingya refugees who have returned to Myanmar from Bangladesh of their own volition say they have not yet been able to go back to their original villages and are facing hardship in violence-ridden northern Rakhine state nearly three years after their expulsion by army troops. Thousands of members of the Muslim minority group were killed during a brutal military-led crackdown on their communities in 2017, while more than 740,000 others escaped across the border, where they now live in sprawling displacement camps in southeastern Bangladesh. Despite an agreement between Myanmar and Bangladesh to repatriate Rohingya refugees who receive approval to return, none of the displaced Rohingya has shown up at border crossings to go back to northern Rakhine state through the official program, citing fears of ongoing discriminatory policies and more violence. A refugee named Chowbi told RFA's Myanmar Service that he returned to northern Rakhine on his own in September 2019 via the Taungbyo border crossing. The 35-year-old fled Oodaung village during the August 2017 violence, which included indiscriminate killings, mass rapes, and community torchings, and lived for two and a half years in the Thankhali refugee camp in Bangladesh..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
Date of publication: 2020-02-03
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-07
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Title: Bangladesh allows education for Rohingya refugee children
Topic: Rohingya, refugees, children, education, Bangladesh, UNICEF
Topic: Rohingya, refugees, children, education, Bangladesh, UNICEF
Description: " Rohingya children living in Bangladesh refugee camps will be allowed to receive a formal education after a change of heart by Dhaka in a move welcomed by right activists. Nearly one million Rohingya, including more than half a million children, live in the squalid and crowded camps near the southeastern border with Myanmar, where many had fled from in 2017 after a brutal military crackdown. The children were previously barred from studying the curriculums used in Bangladesh and Myanmar, and instead received primary education in temporary learning centres set up by the UN children's agency UNICEF. "We don't want a lost generation of Rohingya. We want them to have education. They will follow Myanmar curricula," Foreign Minister A.K. Abdul Momen told AFP on Tuesday. Support more independent journalism like this. Sign up to be a Frontier member. The decision came after a meeting of a national taskforce set up by the government. Local media reported that a pilot programme involving more than 10,000 students would be launched soon, with UNICEF and Dhaka jointly designing the curriculum. The refugee children will be schooled in Myanmar history and culture up to age 14, and will also receive skills training so they can take up jobs back in Myanmar when they return home, the foreign ministry said. "I can't express my joy with words ... generations of Rohingya hardly had any education in their homeland in Myanmar as they were discriminated there and were robbed of their citizenship," Rohingya youth leader and human rights activist Rafique bin Habib said..."
Source/publisher: Agence France-Presse (AFP) (France) via "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of publication: 2020-01-28
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: U.N. Court Orders Myanmar to Protect Rohingya Muslims
Description: "Rejecting arguments made by Myanmar’s civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled on Thursday that Myanmar must take action to protect Rohingya Muslims, who have been killed and driven from their homes in what the country’s accusers call a campaign of genocide. The court said Myanmar must “take all measures within its power” to prevent its military or others from carrying out genocidal acts against the Rohingya, who it said faced “real and imminent risk.” It also essentially put Myanmar under court oversight, telling it to submit regular reports to the tribunal explaining what steps it had taken. The decision is the first international court ruling against Myanmar over its military’s brutal treatment of the Rohingya. While the court has no enforcement power, any member of the United Nations can request action from the Security Council based on its rulings. “The chances of Aung San Suu Kyi implementing this ruling will be zero unless significant international pressure is applied,” said Anna Roberts, executive director of the rights group Burma Campaign UK..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The New York Times" (USA)
Date of publication: 2020-01-23
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Bangladesh grants Rohingya refugee children access to education
Sub-title: Children aged 11-13 will be first to benefit as government eases long-standing restrictions in effort to avoid ‘lost generation’
Description: "Bangladesh has confirmed it will lift restrictions on education for young Rohingya refugees, easing bans in place since the existing camps were established 30 years ago. The government’s move to allow schooling for children aged 11-13 has been widely welcomed by activists and teachers. “We don’t want a lost generation of Rohingya. We want them to have education. They will follow Myanmar curricula,” the country’s foreign minister, AK Abdul Momen, told reporters on Tuesday. A statement put out by the UN on behalf of “the UN and humanitarian community” praised the decision. “We believe this is a positive step and a clear indication of the commitment by the government of Bangladesh to ensure access to learning for Rohingya children and adolescents, as well as to equip them with the right skills and capacities for their future and return to Myanmar when the conditions allow,” it read. “In line with the government’s decision, the education sector for the humanitarian response in Cox’s Bazar now plans to pilot the introduction of the Myanmar curriculum in the Rohingya refugee camps starting in April, initially targeting 10,000 Rohingya students in grades six to nine. The use of the Myanmar curriculum will be expanded to other grades in a phased manner.” More than 700,000 ethnic Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in 2017 after Myanmar’s military carried out a series of operations that the UN described as having “genocidal intent” against the minority, taking the total refugee population in Bangladesh to almost a million..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
Date of publication: 2020-01-29
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-03
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Title: Education the answer to Rohingya kids’ plight
Description: "Children have a right to learn and a right to an education that will support their development, growth and ability to build their future. This right to an education does not end in times of emergency. In fact, it is even more essential that children who have escaped conflict and witnessed atrocities should have access to the safe haven of schools and learning opportunities. Such children need a space to be with peers, play and learn, a space where their parents know they are safe. The impact of this space, and the stability and routine it offers, where children can grow, learn and simply be children cannot be overstated. Many Rohingya children had their lives interrupted, the ground beneath their feet ripped from under them, as they fled horrific violence in their home country more than two years ago. Education can counter this chaos, providing at least some stable ground where these children can plant their feet – ground on which they can begin to recover and rebuild. This is why a recent announcement by the Bangladeshi government is immeasurably important. This week it announced that it will provide Rohingya refugee children with access to expanded education opportunities including skills training, based on the Myanmar curriculum. Not only is this an essential first step toward giving Rohingya children back some of the stability they have lost since being forced to flee to Bangladesh, it also prepares them to reintegrate back into Myanmar society when they are able to return in a safe, voluntary and dignified manner..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of publication: 2020-02-01
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Bangladesh: Rohingya children get access to education
Description: "The Bangladesh government has announced it will offer schooling and skills training opportunities to Rohingya refugee children, two and a half years after they were forced to flee crimes against humanity in Myanmar. Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have been campaigning for the nearly half a million Rohingya children in Bangladesh’s refugee camps to be allowed to enjoy their right to quality education, warning of the costs of a ‘lost generation’. “This is an important and very positive commitment by the Bangladeshi government, allowing children to access schooling and chase their dreams for the future. They have lost two academic years already and cannot afford to lose any more time outside a classroom,” said Saad Hammadi, South Asia Campaigner at Amnesty International. “It is important that access to appropriate, accredited and quality education be extended to all children in the Cox’s Bazar area, including Rohingya refugees and the host community. The international community has a key role to play here in ensuring the Bangladesh government has the resources it needs to realize this goal.” Up to now, the Bangladesh government had resisted calls to grant Rohingya refugee children access to education, limiting learning opportunities to a few provisional learning centres that offer playtime and early primary school lessons scattered across the refugee camps in the Cox’s Bazar district. A few children who managed to gain access to local secondary schools were expelled on the government’s instructions..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Amnesty International" (UK)
Date of publication: 2020-01-28
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: 'Great news': Bangladesh allows education for Rohingya children
Sub-title: Under new programme, 10,000 Rohingya boys and girls to be enrolled in grades 6 to 9, a move hailed by rights groups.
Description: "Rights groups and activists have welcomed Bangladesh's decision to allow Rohingya children living in sprawling refugee camps to receive a formal education, calling it a "positive step". To date, only one-third of Rohingya child refugees - who fled a brutal 2017 crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar - are able to access a primary education through temporary learning centres run by international agencies. More: Rohingya facing 'lost generation' of children out of school A boy who can sing: The life of a Rohingya child refugee Akter, 20, expelled from university for being Rohingya Starting in April, a pilot programme led by the UNICEF and Bangladesh government will initially enrol 10,000 Rohingya boys and girls up to the age of 14 in the sixth to ninth grades, where they will be taught the Myanmar school curriculum and receive skills training, officials said on Wednesday. "It is a great news for us," Nay San Lwin, co-founder of Free Rohingya Coalition, told Al Jazeera. "As of now, at least the children can study up to grade 9 and youth can join skill trainings," he said. Primary education is provided to more than 145,000 children by a network of 1,600 UNICEF-run small learning centres in the refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh, where more than one million Rohingya, nearly half of whom are children, have been living since they fled persecution in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2020-01-30
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-31
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Title: Myanmar: Government Rohingya Report Falls Short
Sub-title: War Crimes Admitted, but Full Findings Not Released
Description: "Myanmar’s investigation of its 2017 “clearance operations” contains selective admissions of military wrongdoing but does not begin to address the massive violations by government security forces against Rohingya Muslims, Human Rights Watch said today. Myanmar’s donors and concerned governments should be clear that the Independent Commission of Enquiry’s report falls well short of creating the conditions for justice and accountability or the safe return of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh. The 15-page executive summary released by the Office of the President on January 21, 2020 acknowledged that members of Myanmar’s security forces committed war crimes and serious human rights violations against “Muslims” in northern Rakhine State. Yet it found “no evidence of gang rape committed by Myanmar’s security forces,” despite extensive documentation of widespread rape against Rohingya women and girls by the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar and human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch. The summary found no evidence of genocidal intent and did not address alleged crimes against humanity. The government has yet to release the full report..."
Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of publication: 2020-01-23
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-23
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Title: Rohingya refugees pray for justice as court to rule in genocide case
Description: " Rohingya refugees who fled persecution and violence in Myanmar are praying for justice as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague prepares to deliver an initial verdict on Thursday in a genocide case filed against Myanmar. More than 730,000 Muslim Rohingya fled an army offensive in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in 2017. The United Nations says gang rapes and mass killings were carried out with “genocidal intent”. Hundreds of villages were burned to the ground and later razed. Myanmar denies the charges of genocide. Gambia has asked the ICJ to order “provisional measures” to prevent more harm, a first step in a legal case that is expected to run for years. It has also asked judges to order Myanmar to ensure any evidence of atrocities is preserved. At the world’s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh, where the Rohingya who fled are settled, many hope for a ruling in their favor after years of persecution. “The Burmese (Myanmar) government and the army tried to wipe out the entire Rohingya community. We want justice,” said 30-year-old refugee Nurul Amin, who fled to Bangladesh with his pregnant wife during the 2017 army crackdown..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of publication: 2020-01-22
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-23
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Title: Atrocities against Rohingyas: ICC starts investigation
Sub-title: 'As far as I am aware an ICC team is currently visiting Bangladesh'
Description: "The International Criminal Court (ICC) has begun its investigation into the alleged crimes against humanity and other atrocity crimes committed by Myanmar against hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people sheltered in Bangladesh, said sources in Dhaka and The Hague, the Dutch capital, the house of the court. “Yes, the investigation has already begun. Multiple visits by experts from the office of the ICC Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to Bangladesh have already taken place,” a source in The Hague familiar with the investigation told Dhaka Tribune. “As far as I am aware an ICC team is currently visiting Bangladesh,” he said. The purpose of the visits of the ICC teams is to gather necessary evidence from different sources, he added. “They (ICC teams) are coming and going. They work independently without any alignment with the government. We will only provide any support if we are asked,” a source at the Foreign Ministry told this correspondent, adding, “I don’t know if any team from the ICC is currently visiting Bangladesh.” The activities of the ICC will mostly be focused on Cox’s Bazar for obvious reason, said the sources. The Prosecutor’s office did not respond to the emails from Dhaka Tribune seeking its comments in this regard. The ICC is an intergovernmental organisation and international tribunal with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2020-01-17
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-22
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Title: Is Myanmar guilty of genocide?
Topic: War crimes, Genocide, United Nations, Rohingya, Tatmadaw, Myanmar, ASEAN
Topic: War crimes, Genocide, United Nations, Rohingya, Tatmadaw, Myanmar, ASEAN
Description: "It was recently reported that Myanmar had conceded that it had committed “war crimes” against its Rohingya Muslim community. This is as far as Myanmar has ever gone in admitting responsibility for the atrocities committed against its Rohingya minority. Still, to some observers, this is not good enough. On 20 January, a Myanmar-appointed panel concluded that some soldiers likely committed war crimes against the Rohingya but that the military, however, was not guilty of genocide. The "Independent Commission of Enquiry (ICOE)" released the results of its probe just ahead of a ruling by the United Nation's (UN) top court on whether to impose urgent measures to stop alleged ongoing genocide in Myanmar. "There is insufficient evidence to argue, much less conclude, that the crimes committed were undertaken with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical (sic), racial or religious group." The fact that the ICOE would not admit that Myanmar’s military, also known as the Tatmadaw, were actively engaging in genocide as has been alleged, however, did not bode well with human rights groups..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The ASEAN Post" (Malaysia)
Date of publication: 2020-01-22
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar inquiry into treatment of Rohingya criticised after finding no evidence of rape
Sub-title: Government-appointed investigators failed to meet alleged victims living in Bangladesh
Description: "A Myanmar government-backed inquiry that dismissed allegations of genocide against the Rohingya has been condemned as a deeply flawed cover-up, after it failed to interview a single victim of rape. The full report of the panel inquiry, which has been criticised by the UN, was not made publicly available. It is not clear how many Rohingya were interviewed by the panel. An executive summary of the findings were released just days before the International Court of Justice, which is hearing a genocide case against Myanmar, is due to announce whether or not it will request for emergency measures to prevent further harm against Rohingya. In 2017, more than 700,000 Rohingya people fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh following a military-led crackdown in Rakhine state in which villages were burned, women raped and thousands killed. A UN fact-finding mission later declared that the violence had “genocidal intent”. The long-overdue report by the Myanmar-appointed inquiry stated that it did not travel to meet any of the more than one million Rohingya refugees living in refugee camps in Bangladesh, blaming the neighbouring country’s government for failing to facilitate visits..."
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
Date of publication: 2020-01-22
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-22
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Title: China supports Myanmar despite Rohingya genocide accusations
Description: "China’s president Xi Jinping expressed his support for Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is accused of overseeing a genocide against Rohingya Muslims. During a meeting in Myanmar with Suu Kyi, Xi signed 33 infrastructure and trade deals between the two countries, a move that makes China Myanmar’s largest investor. According to Myanmar’s state-run media, Xi called his visit a “historical moment” for their bilateral relations. Suu Kyi, a 74-year-old Nobel peace laureate, was once seen on the same level as Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. Her reputation has been damaged however, when she defended her country against a genocide complaint at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. She said that Myanmar was defending itself against attacks by militants. The country denounces claims that it tried to exterminate the minoruty in a bloody 2017 crackdown by its military, during which some 740,000 Rohingya were forced to flee into camps in Bangladesh. Next week the court will rule on whether “emergency measures” should be taken against Myanmar..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: New Europe (Brussels)
Date of publication: 2020-01-20
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar finds war crimes but no genocide in Rohingya crackdown
Sub-title: ICOE report comes days before UN's top court issues ruling on whether urgent measures are necessary to stop genocide.
Description: "A commission set up to investigate the 2017 crackdown in Rakhine that led hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim Rohingya to flee Myanmar, has concluded that while some soldiers probably committed war crimes there was no genocide. The Independent Commission of Enquiry (ICOE) released the findings of its investigation, but not the full report, to the country's president on Monday, a few days before the United Nations' top court is set to rule on whether to impose urgent measures to stop the alleged continuing genocide in Myanmar. More: Transcript: Aung San Suu Kyi's speech at the ICJ in full Rohingya refugees reject Aung San Suu Kyi's 'lies on genocide' Top court to rule on emergency measures against Myanmar on January 23 The ICOE conceded some security personnel had used disproportionate force and committed war crimes and serious human rights violations, including the "killing of innocent villagers and destruction of their homes". But the crimes did not constitute genocide, the panel decided..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2020-01-21
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar panel: Security forces likely committed war crimes
Description: "An independent commission established by Myanmar’s government has concluded there are reasons to believe that security forces committed war crimes in counterinsurgency operations that led more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. However, the commission, headed by a Philippine diplomat, said in a report given Monday to President Win Myint that there is no evidence supporting charges that genocide was planned or carried out against the Rohingya. The Independent Commission of Enquiry announced its findings in a statement posted on its Facebook page and the full report does not appear to have been publicly released. Nevertheless, it went further than any public statements issued by Myanmar’s government in suggesting government forces were guilty of major abuses. “Although these serious crimes and violations were committed by multiple actors, there are reasonable grounds to believe that members of Myanmar’s security forces were involved” in war crimes, serious human rights violations, and violations of domestic law in 2017, it said. “The killing of innocent villagers and destruction of their homes were committed by some members of the Myanmar’s security forces through disproportionate use of force during the internal armed conflict,” it said..."
Source/publisher: "Associated Press" (USA)
Date of publication: 2020-01-21
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: UN envoy: We are putting pressure on Myanmar to ensure peace in Rakhine
Sub-title: The envoy visited a refugee camp near the Naikhongchhari border
Description: "Visiting UN envoy Yanghee Lee on Monday suggested that the United Nations (UN) have been applying increasing diplomatic pressure to stop genocidal atrocities in the Rakhine state of Myanmar and ensure an environment that is fit for the safe return of Rohingya refugees. During her visit, the special envoy met representatives and leaders of different Rohingya organizations at the government office conference room in Kutupalong refugee camp, Ukhiya. Later, she met five out of the 63 Rohingya refugees who had recently relocated in the refugee camps in Bangladesh after serving prison sentences. Yanghee Lee then visited a refugee camp near the Naikhongchhari border and spoke to refugees at the camp. Previously, she visited Bangladesh in January 2018 to visit the refugee camps..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2020-01-20
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: War crimes, not genocide committed against Rohingya: Myanmar probe
Description: "A Myanmar-appointed panel concluded on Monday (Jan 20) that some soldiers likely committed war crimes against its Rohingya Muslim community but the military was not guilty of genocide, findings swiftly condemned by rights groups. The "Independent Commission Of Enquiry (ICOE)" released the results of its probe just ahead of a ruling on Thursday by the UN's top court on whether to impose urgent measures to stop alleged ongoing genocide in Myanmar. It conceded some security personnel had used disproportionate force and committed war crimes and serious human rights violations, including the "killing of innocent villagers and destruction of their homes". But the crimes did not constitute genocide, the panel decided. "There is insufficient evidence to argue, much less conclude, that the crimes committed were undertaken with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical (sic), racial or religious group." Military operations from August 2017 forced about 740,000 Rohingya to flee over the border into sprawling camps in Bangladesh..."
Source/publisher: "CNA" ( Singapore)
Date of publication: 2020-01-21
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: China president holds talks with Myanmar
Topic: China, Myanmar, Rakhine, repatriation, Rohingya
Topic: China, Myanmar, Rakhine, repatriation, Rohingya
Description: "China has reaffirmed its willingness to provide further support, within its capacity, to Myanmar in the Rohingya repatriation process and resettlement of the displaced people from Rakhine State. This was mentioned in a statement issued on Sunday at the end of the visit of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s two-day state visit to Myanmar. The two countries signed a number of deals. The Chinese side supports the efforts of Myanmar to address the humanitarian situation and promote peace, stability and development for all communities in Rakhine State, reads the statement. Myanmar reiterated its commitment to receive verified displaced people based on the bilateral agreement reached between Myanmar and Bangladesh, according to the joint statement. Myanmar thanked China for its understanding of the complexity of the issue and for all its support to Myanmar. Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a repatriation deal on November 23, 2017. On January 16, 2018, Bangladesh and Myanmar inked a document on ‘Physical Arrangement’, which was supposed to facilitate the repatriation..."
Source/publisher: newagebd.net
Date of publication: 2020-01-20
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-20
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Title: China struggles in new diplomatic role, trying to return Rohingya to Myanmar
Description: "In a muddy field in western Myanmar, hundreds of Chinese shipping containers fitted with single narrow windows stand in neat lines, empty of the refugees they were designed to host. The gray boxes were sent by China two years ago as quick and cheap housing for some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar for Bangladesh during a military-led crackdown in 2017 that the United Nations said was conducted with genocidal intent. The empty containers, situated near the town of Maungdaw in Rakhine state, reflect months of failed efforts to entice the Rohingya to return to Myanmar despite a diplomatic drive by the country’s close ally and neighbor, China. In a sharp departure from its official policy of non-interference in the affairs of other countries, China has positioned itself as the key mediator in resolving the protracted crisis. But like the Indonesian and United Nations envoys who previously attempted to mediate between the parties, China is finding the business of diplomacy tough going, with little signs that the crisis will soon be resolved..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of publication: 2020-01-20
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Long-term solutions for the Rohingya response
Description: "Two years after the people of the Rohingya minority fled Myanmar, 900.000 refugees are trying to rebuild their lives in neighbouring Bangladesh. NORCAP experts support the humanitarian response and our projects target some of the most critical gaps in the assistance. The violence and abuse against the Rohingya population in Myanmar led to 750.000 refugees entering Bangladesh in less than three months at the end of 2017. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) referred to the attacks as “textbook ethnic cleansing”. Today, the district of Cox’s Bazar, only a few kilometres from the Myanmar border, houses one of the world’s largest refugee camps, with close to 900,000 refugees living in temporary shelters. The concentration of people in these camps is amongst the densest in the world and the conditions are poor. People lack proper shelters, toilet facilities, clean water and food. The national authorities in Bangladesh and Myanmar have established a repatriation agreement, but few Rohingya are willing to return to Myanmar as long as the Myanmar government does not guarantee them citizenship and protection from further violence..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Norwegian Refugee Council (Oslo)
Date of publication: 2020-01-12
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: India’s ominous threat to Rohingya Muslim refugees
Description: "The tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled to India to escape widespread and systematic violence and discrimination in Myanmar face an existential threat from a new source: India’s government. Early this month, a senior government minister announced that Indian authorities would move expeditiously to deport the country’s sizable Rohingya refugee population back to Myanmar regardless of the risks to the refugees. “There are no ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ … what would happen here is that the next move would be in relation to [the deportation] of Rohingyas,” Jitendra Singh, minister of state for development of the North Eastern Region, stated on January 4. Singh justified that call for Rohingya deportation on the terms of India’s controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Act. The CAA, passed by India’s Parliament on December 12, explicitly denies the rights of Muslim “irregular immigrants,” those who lack UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) identity cards. Singh’s comments constitute a visceral threat to the safety of the thousands of Rohingya who have sought safety in India over the past decade. The government estimates that 40,000 Rohingya refugees live in India, of whom fewer than half possess UNHCR identity cards designed to protect them from “harassment, arbitrary arrests, detention and deportation.” Those refugees have fled Myanmar government-imposed institutionalized discrimination, including restrictions on movement, education and health-care access, as well as spasms of deadly violence such as the bloody purge perpetrated against Rohingya in northern Rakhine state in late 2017..."
Creator/author:
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Rights group: Myanmar continues to deny Rohingya rights
Sub-title: Bangkok-based Fortify Rights says Myanmar government instructing officials to issue IDs describing Rohingya as 'Bengali'
Description: "Myanmar continues to deny basic citizenship rights to persecuted Rohingya community, a rights group said on Thursday. The Bangkok-based Fortify Rights group revealed internal communications in the Myanmar government directing junior officials to issue National Verification Cards (NVCs) to Rohingya in internment camps. "The document states the team would be tasked with issuing NVCs to 'Bengali people' -- a term often used by Myanmar officials to refer to Rohingya, implying that they are from Bangladesh and their ethnic Rohingya identity does not exist," the group said in a statement that included the testimonies of five Rohingya people. The rights group demanded Myanmar take steps to "urgently restore full citizenship rights to Rohingya". "New evidence collected by Fortify Rights […] confirms that Myanmar authorities are continuing to force and coerce Rohingya to accept National Verification Cards, which effectively identify Rohingya as foreigners and strip them of access to full citizenship rights," it added. Fortify Rights also assessed a new strategy by Myanmar that it said sought to close camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Anadolu Agency" (Ankara)
Date of publication: 2020-01-16
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: UN expert on Myanmar on her final mission to Bangladesh
Sub-title: Myanmar continues denying Yanghee Lee access to that country
Description: "Special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee will carry out her final mission to Bangladesh next week. Lee will visit Thailand and Bangladesh from January 15 to 23 on her final leg as the rapporteur. She will come to Bangladesh from Thailand. Despite her last request to visit Myanmar being denied by the government, Lee will visit Thailand and Bangladesh to speak to interlocutors and receive information about the situation in Myanmar from both sides of the border, said a news release forwarded by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva on Tuesday. Myanmar has been constantly denying her office access to the country since 2017. Myanmar’s denial of access has not dissuaded me from doing everything I can to impartially report to the international community accurate first-hand information that has been provided to me during my visits to the region,” Lee said. “My mission and the end of my tenure come at a critical time for human rights in Myanmar and I will continue to strive to do my utmost to improve the situation,” she said. Lee has held the mandate of special rapporteur since 2014 and enjoyed biannual visits to the country until she was denied entry from December 2017. She will report to the Human Rights Council session in March, 2020..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2020-01-14
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar sends Rohingya captured at sea to Rakhine
Topic: Rohingya, Rakhine, Myanmar, Bangladesh
Topic: Rohingya, Rakhine, Myanmar, Bangladesh
Description: "Nearly 200 Rohingya Muslims arrested at sea last month by Myanmar's navy after a voyage of hundreds of kilometres have been sent back to Rakhine state, officials said Monday. Seasonal calmer waters have seen an increase in the number of Rohingya putting their lives in the hands of traffickers in a desperate bid to reach Malaysia or Indonesia by boat. But few make it as far as Kawthaung, Myanmar's southern-most tip, where the group of 173 were picked up mid-December. Images taken on Monday showed 17 men, women and children looking exhausted from their ordeal as they climbed down from a wooden boat on to a beach near western Rakhine state's capital, Sittwe. Wearing identification numbers around their necks, they lined up on the sand clutching their meagre belongings before being escorted away by armed police. They were taken to Thechaung camp, while the remaining 156 were transported further north to Ngakhuya camp in Maungdaw township, Rakhine State minister for security and border affairs said. Ngakhuya is a processing site for returning refugees on the Bangladeshi border. "I'm not sure whether action will be taken against them or not," Colonel Min Than told the media, adding that their fate would be decided by the UEHRD, a government department overseeing Rakhine..."
Source/publisher: "The ASEAN Post" (Malaysia)
Date of publication: 2020-01-14
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Rohingya Deportation Case: UN Special Rapporteur Seeks to Aid SC
Sub-title: E. Tendayi Achiume said she would like to assist the court by offering her expertise on "the issue of State parties’ obligations under international law with regard to the prevention of racial discrimination”.
Description: "A UN-appointed expert has filed an application in the Supreme Court’s ongoing hearing challenging the deportation of Rohingyas from India, to seek permission to assist on the issue of states’ obligations under international law. The Supreme Court is currently hearing a petition filed in 2017 against the Indian government’s plan to deport all Rohingya Muslims, estimated to be around 40,000, back to Myanmar. On January 10, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance E. Tendayi Achiume filed an application seeking to intervene in the ongoing case, which is being heard three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice S.A. Bobde. Special Rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the UNHRC with specific thematic mandates. Achiume, who is also a professor at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law, said that the aim of her intervention was “to assist the Court by offering her expertise and experience on the issue of State parties’ obligations under international law with regard to the prevention of racial discrimination”..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Wire"
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: U.N. condemns Myanmar's abuses against Rohingya
Description: "The U.N. General Assembly approved a resolution Friday strongly condemning human rights abuses against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims and other minorities, including arbitrary arrests, torture, rape and deaths in detention. The 193-member world body voted 134-9 with 28 abstentions in favor of the resolution which also calls on Myanmar’s government to take urgent measures to combat incitement of hatred against the Rohingya and other minorities in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan states. General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding but they do reflect world opinion. Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982, effectively rendering them stateless, and they are also denied freedom of movement and other basic rights. The long-simmering Rohingya crisis exploded on Aug. 25, 2017, when Myanmar’s military launched what it called a clearance campaign in Rakhine in response to an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. The campaign led to the mass Rohingya exodus to Bangladesh and to accusations that security forces committed mass rapes and killings and burned thousands of homes..."
Source/publisher: "Japan Times" (Japan)
Date of publication: 2019-12-28
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: EU releases new tranche of $11m aid for Rohingyas
Sub-title: The fund will help address the under-nutrition for the one million Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh
Description: "The European Commission has released $11.19 million in humanitarian support for the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and the displaced people in Myanmar’s Rakhine. The new tranche of funding, announced on December 23 last year, brought the EU’s total support for the Rohingya crisis through 2019 to around $48.12 million, a European commission statement said. It said the new funding will focus on providing quality health care and help address the under-nutrition for the one million Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh, after living conditions further deteriorated over the last months. It will also provide food nutrition and protection for all displaced people living in Myanmar's Rakhine state, where the humanitarian situation has further deteriorated this year due to the escalation of violence in the region, the statement added. European Union’s (EU) Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič said: “The EU's support has helped save countless lives over the last two years since the crisis began, but cannot stop now as hundreds of thousands of Rohingya rely on humanitarian aid to survive. Today's additional funding is another clear sign that the EU remains committed to stand by the side of the Rohingya for as long as it takes..."
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2020-01-02
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: UN condemns Myanmar over human rights abuses against Rohingya
Sub-title: General assembly’s vote in favour of resolution also calls on Myanmar to urgently combat incitement of hatred
Description: "The United Nations general assembly has approved a resolution condemning human rights abuses against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims and other minorities, including arbitrary arrests, torture, rape and deaths in detention. The 193-member body voted 134-9 with 28 abstentions on Friday in favour of the resolution, which also calls on Myanmar’s government to take urgent measures to combat incitement of hatred against the Rohingya and other minorities in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan states. General assembly resolutions are not legally binding but do reflect world opinion. Buddhist-majority Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh, even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982, effectively rendering them stateless, and they are also denied freedom of movement and other basic rights. The long-simmering Rohingya crisis exploded in August 2017 when Myanmar’s military launched what it called a clearance campaign in Rakhine in response to an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. The campaign led to the Rohingya exodus to Bangladesh and to accusations that security forces committed mass rapes and killings and burned thousands of homes..."
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
Date of publication: 2019-12-28
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: ‘Growing Together Campaign’ launches Rohingya children’s art exhibition
Description: "The Earth Society organised an eight-day exhibition with drawings made by Rohingya children, aged between nine and twelve. The event opened at EMK Center, Dhanmondi, on January 4. 21 drawings, portraying the heart-wrenching reality of the Rohingyas and the genocide and torture by the Myanmar Military, are on exhibit at the show. The Earth Society is a local NGO working with capacity building, youth engagement, development, disaster management and refugee crisis, among other things. Their ‘Growing Together Campaign’ includes the youth of two different countries finding sustainable ways to address the refugee crisis. The campaign was organised by The Earth Society, with support from InterCollege, FGU, UNG AKTION, and co-funded by Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. 25 young people from the Danish organisation Youth Action and 27 young people from The Earth Society teamed up to build a project that would help both Rohingya children and their local communities through the Youth Exchange Program 2019. They visited two refugee camps, some of the host communities and participated in a number of interactive sessions with the refugees..."
Source/publisher: "The Daily Star" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2020-01-07
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Bangladesh-Myanmar border conference begins in Dhaka
Sub-title: Illegal immigration, border crimes, joint patrolling to be highlighted in 5-day conference, says press release
Description: "A high-profile border conference between the border security forces of Bangladesh and Myanmar began in the former's capital Dhaka on Sunday. Issues of bilateral interest, such as illegal entering of Myanmar's citizens into Bangladesh, curbing smuggling especially narcotics, combating border crimes including terrorist activities and launching combined patrolling in common borders will be highlighted in the five-day conference, according to a press release by the Border Guard Bangladesh on Sunday. Sensitive issues, including exchange of detained members of border security forces of both countries who entered into the other's territory, either during rough weather or "involuntarily", controlling firing by Myanmar's Border Guard Police or army in border areas, and exchanging information for border safety will also be discussed in the conference, it added. Myanmar's eight-member team, led by the country's Chief of Police General Staff Brig. Gen. Myo Than, has taken part in the conference, while Maj. Gen. Md Shafeenul Islam, the head of BGB, is leading the 14-member team of Bangladesh, it added..."
Source/publisher: "Anadolu Agency" (Ankara)
Date of publication: 2020-01-05
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: New documentary explores the roots of Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya community
Description: "The film ‘Exiled’, directed by veteran war reporter Shahida Tulaganova, “explores the roots of increasing violence” in Myanmar’s Rakhine State from the perspectives of Rohingya refugees, former Burmese government officials and radical Buddhist monks. Also interviewed in the film is General Khin Nyunt, the former head of Burmese Military Intelligence accused of masterminding the policy of persecution of Rohingya. Myanmar has a predominantly Buddhist population, but also has more than one hundred ethnic minority groups, including the Rohingya, whom the government refuses to recognize and considers ‘illegal migrants’ from Bangladesh and India. In recent years, communal violence erupted in Rakhine between some Rohingya and radical Buddhist groups. Hate speech against the Rohingya, who are mostly Muslim, is also amplified online. Since 2017, thousands of Rohingya were forced to flee their homes after the government army clashed with the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army..."
Source/publisher: "Global Voices"
Date of publication: 2019-06-22
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Fences go up at Bangladesh’s Rohingya camps
Sub-title: Failure of repatriation attempt fueled tensions between government and refugees
Description: "The Bangladeshi military has started erecting fences around camps housing hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees despite complaints from community leaders and rights groups. A correspondent on Tuesday saw troops in military fatigues erecting pillars for barbed-wire fences around one large camp at Balukhali in the southeastern border district Cox’s Bazar. Bangladesh’s refugee commissioner Mahhbub Alam Talukder confirmed that construction had started, but declined to comment further. Army chief General Aziz Ahmed said late last month that army engineers had begun erecting the pillars and that the military had “placed orders” for barbed wire..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times"
Date of publication: 2019-12-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Rohingya campaigners launch Myanmar boycott
Sub-title: The Free Rohingya Coalition begins 'Boycott Myanmar Campaign' in the face of genocide hearings at the ICJ.
Description: "Human rights campaigners supporting Myanmar's Rohingya mainly Muslim minority have called for a global boycott of the country, a day before genocide hearings begin at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The Free Rohingya Coalition (FRC) said in a statement on Monday it was starting the "Boycott Myanmar Campaign" with 30 organisations in 10 countries. It called on "corporations, foreign investors, professional and cultural organizations to sever their institutional ties with Myanmar". More: Bangladeshi-American teen activist fighting for climate action Myanmar sets up special legal unit as Rohingya cases loom A boy who can sing: The life of a Rohingya child refugee More than 730,000 Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh following the brutal crackdown by the military in August 2017, which United Nations investigators have concluded was carried out with "genocidal intent". The FRC statement added that the campaign was intended to "to bring to bear economic, cultural, diplomatic and political pressure on Myanmar's coalition government of Aung San Suu Kyi and the military"..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2019-12-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Canada: Using all tools against Myanmar for solution to Rohingya crisis
Sub-title: The causes and solutions to the crisis lie in Myanmar, Benoit Préfontaine said
Description: "Canada has said they are using all tools at their disposal, including sanctions, against Myanmar leaders and companies as well as diplomatic efforts to help find a solution to Rohingya crisis. "We fully agree that the causes and solutions to the crisis lie in Myanmar, and this is why we are using all tools at our disposal to help," Canadian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Benoit Préfontaine. The High Commissioner was addressing a symposium titled “Bangladesh-Canada Relations: Prognosis for Partnership” at a Dhaka hotel organized by Cosmos Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Cosmos Group, as part of its Ambassador’s Lecture Series on Saturday. Highlighting Canada’s supports over Rohingya issue, Foreign Secretary (Senior Secretary) Md Shahidul Haque, who spoke at the event as the chief guest, termed Bangladesh-Canada relation a trouble-free one which is growing on all fronts, reports UNB. Chairman of the Cosmos Foundation Enayetullah Khan delivered the welcome speech at the symposium chaired by Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, the Principal Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, and former foreign affairs Adviser to Bangladesh’s previous caretaker government..."
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-12-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Exploring The Issue Of Citizenship In Rakhine State
Description: "There are over one million Muslims in Rakhine State whose legal status is obscure. They are generally referred to as “Rohingya”, an ethnic designation unknown to the former British administration. Though the Rohingya are primarily located in the northern part of the State, there are many thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Muslims of Chittagonian origin living elsewhere in Myanmar who are likely to be inhibited from claiming openly to be Rohingya. There are in addition another million or more Rohingya said to be living overseas, as refugees in Bangladesh and elsewhere, or as workers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States. For some time the international community has been urging the Myanmar Government to grant full citizenship rights to the Rohingya, and to review the controversial 1982 Citizenship Law in this context. But this is easier said than done as the extent of illegal immigration from Bangladesh into Rakhine State since independence in 1948 is difficult if not impossible to assess. I also argue that it is not so much the Law itself which is at fault as the failure to implement the Law in Rakhine State in a timely and responsible manner. The longer the Government delays action to resolve the impasse, the more entrenched and potentially explosive the situation is likely to become. Controversy surrounds the designation of some one million or more people of Islamic faith who live in Rakhine State in Myanmar. For some, this controversy is as unwelcome as it is unnecessary, since the issue at stake is the human rights, and especially the citizenship status of the people concerned. For others, the designation of the community as “Rohingya” is vital to their very survival and is not to be dismissed as a distraction..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
Date of publication: 2017-06-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 972.47 KB (43 pages)
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Title: Stateless and hopeless
Sub-title: The Rohingya are a people under attack in their place of birth. India wants to deport them, a marked departure in its response towards asylum seekers.
Description: "Myanmar’s historically intriguing Rohingya question is one of the most misunderstood and ill-informed international crises of our time. So much ignorance is attached to the subject that the world is blind even to the precise headcount of Rohingyas. From the first ever census in 1872 to the latest in 2014 there is no record of the Rohingya numbers. W. W. Hunter, the census commissioner of 1872 noted that a total of 64,315 Muhammadans—not Rohingya—were living in Arakan (now Rakhine state). In 1931, the last combined census of British-held India and Burma, J. J. Bennison, superintendent of census operations for Burma, reported that the total Muslim population was 584,839. No census ever used the word Rohingya. Therefore, the numbers, from one million to three million Rohingya Muslims, as claimed by various agencies and media houses are imaginary or based on hearsay. Even the origin of the pervasive but unverified phrase “ethnic Rohingyas are among the most persecuted minority groups in the world” ascribed to the United Nations, is shrouded in mystery. There is no record available that has ever linked the statement to any of the UN organs, therefore making it a propagandist’s tool to influence world opinion. Enmity between followers of Theravada Buddhism and the Rohingya Muslims stems from the latter’s alleged treachery, betrayal and secessionist behaviour in Burma’s freedom struggle..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
Date of publication: 2017-12-06
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-08
Copyright holder: html
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 361.12 KB (12 pages)
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Title: Rohingya Minority In Myanmar Between The Religious Persecution And The Reality Of Constitutional Protection
Description: "The government's performance in the State of Myanmar raises questions about the reality of its position on what is happening to the range of its citizens who are Muslims Alrohengjian, it bear full responsibility for the protection and preservation of their rights. Despite the government's signing of Myanmar on the international agreements and conventions on human rights, despite its stated commitment to the protection of human rights and the promotion of democracy and the rule of law; the government has not taken any real action to protect the Rohingyas and address violence or stop racist policy of ethnic cleansing, which govern the Muslims of Rohingya by Buddhist extremists. We will discuss in this paper what is really happening to the Muslims Alrohengjian in Myanmar, especially in the recent wave of persecution and ethnic cleansing against them, and we are exposed to historical backgrounds of these crimes and the role of internal constitutional provisions and the provisions of international conventions on the protection of this vulnerable minority..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
Date of publication: 2016-10-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 102.53 KB (21 pages)
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Title: Impact of the Rohingya Refugee Crisis on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
Sub-title: A short paper on the region‘s response to the recent refugee crisis.
Description: "The objectives of this short report are to: (a) give a comprehensive historical background on the plight of the Rohgingya and the events of the migrant crisis; (b) identify, explain the role and response of entities such as the governments of ASEAN and other organizations such as the United Nations (UN) and relevant non-governmental organizations (NGOs); (c) explain the political, economic and social aspects, factors and developments on the issue; (d) give a conclusion and recommendations based on the author‘s research. Studying refugees and forced displacement flows is essential in understanding emerging trends in migration, as well as an indicator of consequences of conflict, economic stagnation, and environmental degradation. As of 2014, the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) reported an accelerated growth in global forced displacement whilst reaching unprecedented levels. There are 59.5 million individuals globally that were forcibly displaced because of persecution, armed conflict, generalized violence, or human rights violation1 . Crises in the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia have severely stretched the global humanitarian system. In addition, the gaps can be observed on the current global legal framework in protecting, asylum seekers, refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). Out of the 59.5 million displaced, 19.5 million are refugees, 28.2 million are IDPs, and 1.8 million are asylum-seekers. 42,500 individuals are forcibly displaced daily due to conflict and persecution..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
Date of publication: 2015-11-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 540.62 KB (12 pages)
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Title: Republic of The Union of Myanmar's Actions on Handling The Rohingya
Description: "National interest has a big impact to the implementation of some particular actions of a nation state. A nation state might jeopardize another very important aspect of the existence of humankind, such as the human rights. The government of Myanmar has not been able to solve the case of one of the most prosecuted group of people, which is the Rohingya. Arguing on behalf of the lack of citizenship of the Rohingya until to the inability of the government which caused a more severe situation. Somehow, within this implementation of action, there are also a massive human right abuses and the actions of ethnic cleansing are detected. Whether the Rohingya is justified as a citizen or not, it is still wrong for the government of Myanmar to not pay attention to the human right abuses. 1. Introduction Forced migration which produced refugee is a problem of humanitarian condition that is usual in the eyes of common society. The forced movement nowadays is not caused by the government any more, the unstable conditions of a country also could be a factor of a group of people to move out from their home country. A lot of aspects are being harmed under this condition of migration crisis, such as starvation, sanitary and health issue, absence of educational system for the youth, and human right abuses to the very far extent of example. The world has been facing refugee crisis since a long time ago, yet somehow the problem cannot be tackled-down even up until right now. This is because the actions and policies that applied by both the world as a whole and by the encountering state are not suitable or even cause another new problem instead. The reason on why the problematic country cannot handle this refugee crisis is due to the sovereign government that is not capable in handling the issues of placement, funding, development, and protection..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
Date of publication: 2016-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 442.49 KB (13 pages)
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Title: How to protect the rights of the stateless Rohingya people in Myanmar?
Description: "Few years ago, I was in London attending a human rights festival, where I watched a documentary about Myanmar. At that time I knew little about Myanmar, but that movie struck my attention and gave a different direction to my life. I decided to take action and understand what was behind the Junta’s curtain and the military violence against its own people. Therefore, few months later, I started a Master in Human Rights & Conflict Management at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, Italy and then spent four months at the United Nations Regional Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Bangkok. During my time at OHCHR, I got closer to the Rohingya’s cause when in October 2012, following an escalation of violence in Myanmar, they organized a protest in front of the UN building in Bangkok, asking the United Nations Security Council to deploy, within 72 hours, UN Peacekeeping Forces in the Rakhine State to protect the Rohingya people and to constitute a UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate the international crimes committed against them and bring the perpetrators to justice. The decision to research on the topic of the stateless Rohingya has been taken as a way to stand for their cause. Their particular vulnerability and determination at the same time, inspired me..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Institute of Law, Politics and Development"
Date of publication: 2013-03-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 1.91 MB (74 pages)
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Title: Muslim Minority In Myanmar: A Case Study Of Myanmar Government And Rohingya Muslims
Description: "The discrimination suffered by Rohingya Muslims is increasingly blewed up in media in last decade. The peak of the discriminatory treatment against Rohingya Muslim by Myanmar government is the unavailability of shelter from Myanmar government. In the perspective of international law, Myanmar government’s actions constitute a serious violence, because it ignores the rights of its citizens. Even a series of massacres and inhumane treatment became a major offense committed by Myanmar government in terms of humanity. This attracted international attention in solving the problem. This article illustrated the fate of Rohingyas who are not given citizenship rights by Myanmar government. It also revealed the irony of Muslims of Rohingya life who are discriminated by the government of Myanmar, both in the practical as well as in the political context. Diskriminasi yang diderita oleh Muslim Rohingya semakin mengemuka di media dalam dekade terakhir. Puncak perlakuan diskriminatif terhadap Muslim Rohingya adalah tidak tersedianya tempat tinggal dari pemerintah Myanmar. Dalam perspektif hukum internasional, tindakan pemerintah Myanmar ini merupakan..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
Date of publication: 2017-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 155.59 KB (303 pages)
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Title: Bangladesh: Rohingya Children Denied Education
Sub-title: Unlawful Restrictions on Schooling Risk Creating a Lost Generation
Description: "The government of Bangladesh is blocking aid groups from providing any meaningful education to Rohingya children in refugee camps and banning the children from attending schools outside the camps, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The government should urgently lift the restrictions that unlawfully deprive almost 400,000 Rohingya refugee children of their right to education. The 81-page report, “‘Are We Not Human?’: Denial of Education for Rohingya Refugee Children in Bangladesh,” documents how Bangladesh prohibits aid groups in the refugee camps in the Cox’s Bazar district from providing Rohingya children with accredited or formal education. There is no secondary-level education, and groups are barred from teaching the Bengali language and using the Bangladesh curriculum. Rohingya children have no opportunity to enroll in or continue their education at private or public schools outside the refugee camps. “Bangladesh has made it clear that it doesn’t want the Rohingya to remain indefinitely, but depriving children of education just compounds the harm to the children and won’t resolve the refugees’ plight any faster,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “The government of Bangladesh saved countless lives by opening its borders and providing refuge to the Rohingya, but it needs to end its misguided policy of blocking education for Rohingya children.”..."
Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of publication: 2019-12-02
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Title: Can Suu Kyi stand up to the lawsuit avalanche?
Sub-title: International pressure to rehabilitate the Rohingya and reform Rakhine is unlikely to dissipate
Description: "Myanmar’s top leaders -- both military and civilian -- have been shell-shocked by the avalanche of international legal cases they are now facing. In the space of days, three cases have been lodged in separate courts, all intended to make the Myanmar government and the country’s military leaders accountable for the horrendous events that unfolded in strife-torn western Rakhine state during military operations over the last three years. But the key case -- at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) brought by Gambia on behalf of the 57-nation member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) -- has finally propelled the Myanmar government to take decisive action. The State Counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi, announced late last week that she will lead the country’s defense team, supported by a panel of prominent international lawyers to contest the case submitted by Gambia. “The Myanmar government is taking this case very seriously,” the minister for international cooperation and deputy foreign minister, Kyaw Tin told the Bangkok Post in the sidelines of a major economic conference in the capital Naypitaw on Friday. In fact, as Myanmar is a signatory to this convention -- which the democratic government of U Nu’s signed in 1956 -- it cannot ignore the process..."
Source/publisher: Bangkok Post (Thailand) via "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-12-02
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Half of displaced Rohingyas faced a near-death experience in Myanmar
Sub-title: Nearly, one-third has had a family member or friend murdered, or forcibly isolated from others, reveals a report
Description: "About half of the forcibly displaced Rohingyas - living in refugee camps at Cox’s Bazar- had suffered some form of abuse, torture, aggression and even near-death or impending death experiences in Myanmar. Nearly, one-third has had a family member or friend murdered, or forcibly isolated from others, reveals a report. The survey-study, jointly conducted by Innovations Poverty Action (IPA), the International Growth Center (IGC), and Yale University, USA, was revealed yesterday at a workshop in Dhaka. The outcome of the survey is based on extensive interviews with more than 25,000 Rohingyas. The survey-study was carried out between March and August in 2019. However, the survey also reveals that more than one-quarter of the forcibly displaced Rohingyas were separated from their families. "The data of Rohingyas and host communities allows us to actually understand the population we work with, which will allow organizations to better target and design their programs to efficiently meet the needs," said Imran Matin, Executive Director of BRAC Institute of Governance and Development..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-12-04
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: IOM: Bangladesh hosts most stateless people in the world
Sub-title: Côte d’Ivoire and Myanmar with 692,000 and 620,000 stateless people respectively followed the list after Bangladesh
Description: "Bangladesh is currently hosting the largest number of stateless people in the world with about 906,000 persons, mainly because of the Rohingya exodus that began in August 2017. This number is one fourth of the total number of stateless persons globally with 3.9million as of 2018, according to the World Migration Report-2020, launched on Wednesday by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Côte d’Ivoire and Myanmar with 692,000 and 620,000 stateless people respectively followed the list after Bangladesh. Several hundred thousands of Rohingya fleeing their homeland following violence in Myanmar since August 25, 2017 contributed largely to the mammoth number of stateless people in Bangladesh. Following the crackdown, mainly on Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar security forces, Bangladesh opened its borders and sheltered these people at the sprawling refugee camps in Cox's Bazar. “Due to violence and persecution of Rohingya people, Myanmar produced the third largest refugee population in the region, and the fourth largest in the world in 2018, with most refugees hosted in Bangladesh,” said the report. There has been an increase in displacement in the subregion due to violence, systemic persecution and marginalization. The Rohingya refugee situation is the most acute, and remains one of the most complex refugee crises in the world, it added..."
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-11-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar’s legacy of rape as a terror tactic
Description: "While it is a well-docu-mented fact that more than 700,000 Rohingya had to flee Myanmar’s Rakhine state since the latest onslaught of violence unleashed on them by the Myanmar military and nearly 9,000 Rohingya had been killed in Rakhine between August 25 and September 24 in 2017—as recorded by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)—the number of women and girls who have suffered sexual violence at the hands of the military (also known as the Tatmadaw) remains unclear. Figures from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) suggest that after arriving in Bangladesh, around 13,500 Rohingya women sought medical assistance and support to address the sexual violence—including gang rapes—that they had to endure at the hands of the Tatmadaw. But the actual number of women and girls facing sexual violence is expected to be much higher, since shame and fear of social stigma deter a lot of women from acknowledging the sexual violence that they had been inflicted upon by the Myanmar military. Between August 2017 and February 2018, MFS recorded 160 cases of pregnant rape victims. And there were hundreds and thousands of women who chose to deliver their baby in confinement to hide their pregnancy. Young, unmarried girls, who became victims of unwanted pregnancy due to rape, were especially encouraged by their families to give birth in seclusion so that their prospects of marriage would not be hampered. The result? Unwanted infants dumped in dustbins, left at the makeshift hospitals, given away to other families..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Daily Star" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-12-04
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: What We're Watching: Myanmar's Nobel Peace Prize winner at the Hague
Description: "Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace prize winner who spent years under house arrest in Myanmar before being elected leader of the country in 2015, will travel to the Hague next month to defend her country against allegations of genocide. Few have been punished since the military-led crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine state in 2017, which left thousands dead and forced more than 700,000 people to flee to Bangladesh. Aung San Suu Kyi is thought to have little control over the army (a junta until recently), but she has refused to condemn its actions. Until now, Aung San Suu Kyi has defended the onslaught as a legitimate counterinsurgency against Muslim militants. The first public hearing at the International Court of Justice will begin on December 10. Violent clashes in Lebanon – Clashes between Lebanese protesters and supporters of Hezbollah and Amal – the forces representing the country's large Shia population – intensified on Tuesday with reports of gunfire in some cities. The confrontations are some of the worst since protests erupted in mid-October, forcing Prime Minister Saad Hariri to step down. And they're a worrying display of precisely the political and sectarian strains that demonstrators say they want to get rid of. Consultations to appoint a new prime minister are expected to begin later this week. We're watching to see if this new appointment– a post reserved for a Sunni Muslim in Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing system – will defuse tensions, or inflame them..."
Source/publisher: "GZERO Media"
Date of publication: 2019-11-26
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: ASEAN, Myanmar And The Rakhine Crisis: Two Years On – Analysis
Sub-title: In 2017 Myanmar established the Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development in Rakhine State (UEHRD) to facilitate peacebuilding. Two years on, peace remains elusive.
Description: "On October 18, 2019, Myanmar celebrated the second anniversary of the formation of the Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development in Rakhine State (UEHRD), an institution to facilitate peacebuilding in the Myanmar state that has attracted much global attention. The event in Nay Pyi Daw was attended by representatives of the Myanmar government, military, local civil society, as well as organisations like ASEAN. Speaking in her role as Chairperson of the UEHRD, Aung San Suu Kyi emphasised self-reliance in resolving challenges in Rakhine State. Her statement came even as Myanmar responds to international pressure, especially on the fate of the Rohingya. Suu Kyi understands well her need for ASEAN as an organisational buffer to help manage the international pressure to build peace in Rakhine State. But the space for ASEAN to manoeuvre in the situation is limited, and subject to Myanmar’s willingness to cooperate..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Eurasia Review"
Date of publication: 2019-12-03
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: PM to international community: Maintain pressure on Myanmar
Description: "The premier said Rohingyas are cutting down trees in the hilly areas in order to create habitats for them Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has renewed her call to the world community, including the European countries, for maintaining pressure on Myanmar to speed up Rohingya repatration. She made the appeal during her separate meetings with Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and President of the European Council Charles Michel at Feria de Madrid on the sidelines of the Climate Change Summit on Monday. Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen briefed reporters after both the meetings, reports UNB. "Myanmar is our friendly neighbouring country. They always said that they would take Rohingyas back. They created the problem and they would give the solution. However, their authority lacks sincerity and we need help in this regard," the prime minister was quoted while holding a meeting with her Dutch counterpart..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-12-02
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Aung San Suu Kyi faces first legal action over 'existential threat' to Rohingya
Description: "Former democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is among several top Myanmar officials named Wednesday in a case filed in Argentina for crimes against Rohingya Muslims, the first time the Nobel Laureate has been legally targeted over the crisis. Rohingya and Latin American human rights groups submitted the lawsuit in Argentina under the principle of "universal jurisdiction," a legal concept enshrined in many countries' laws. The premise is that some acts - including war crimes and crimes against humanity - are so horrific they are not specific to one nation and can be tried anywhere. "This complaint seeks the criminal sanction of the perpetrators, accomplices and cover-ups of the genocide. We are doing it through Argentina because they have no other possibility of filing the criminal complaint anywhere else," lawyer Tomas Ojea told AFP. The lawsuit demands top military and political leaders - including army chief Min Aung Hlaing and civilian leader Suu Kyi - face justice over the "existential threat" faced by the Rohingya Muslim minority..."
Source/publisher: Agence France-Presse (AFP) (France) via "The Telegraph" (UK)
Date of publication: 2019-11-14
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Rohingya crisis: Responsible journalism at stake
Sub-title: Some reports may provide excuses to the Myanmar government to stay away from taking responsibilities for their crimes, experts have said
Description: "Both local and international print and electronic media have played a role, as a catalyst to draw global attention to Rohingya refugees seeking justice for the persecutions they faced in Myanmar. After fleeing shocking violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state, over 1 million Rohingyas are now living in Bangladesh in the world’s biggest refugee camp. Despite the welcome they have received, many are now struggling to imagine a future for themselves. At the onset of the refugee influx starting on August 25, 2017, the media in general put forth its commitment to expose the abuse, exploitation and persecution that the Rohingya people had long been enduring. However, since the talks to repatriate them from the Cox’s Bazar camps began, particularly before the second anniversary of the Rohingya exodus, the media reports have largely portrayed the sufferings of the host communities..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Suu Kyi probably shares her countrymen’s aversion to the darker-skinned Rohingya
Sub-title: The problem of the 21st century is the problem of colour lines
Description: "If Aung San Suu Kyi had been in London last week, a visit to the sprawling Westfield shopping mall in unfashionable Stratford might have reiterated for her the truism that England is indeed the home of lost causes. A trip to the other Westfield, the older and seemingly somewhat smaller mall in equally insalubrious Shepherd’s Bush, might have shown that hope, like love, still flourishes among the ruins. Myanmar’s Nobel laureate State Counsellor, the equivalent of a prime minister, should at once have realized that both malls portray variants of the trauma suffered by Manchester United’s French-born, ethnic Guinean midfielder, Paul Pogba. The anti-racism body, Kick It Out, is currently investigating the racist abuse aimed at Pogba on social media. The Red Cross’s modest eight-day interactive exhibition in the Stratford Westfield depicted the plight of the darker-skinned Rohingyas whom Myanmar treats with the utmost cruelty. Gurinder Chadha’s film, Blinded by the Light, at the Shepherd’s Bush Westfield, shows how Javed, a young British-born Pakistani, triumphed over what used to be called the ‘colour bar’ in the British industrial town of Luton in the Eighties..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Telegraph" (UK)
Date of publication: 2019-08-24
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar sets up special legal unit as Rohingya cases loom
Topic: Asia Pacific, Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, Asia, Rohingya
Sub-title: The unit will provide advice on international criminal justice as government prepares to defend itself at The Hague.
Topic: Asia Pacific, Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, Asia, Rohingya
Description: "Myanmar's government has set up a special unit on "international criminal justice" as it faces a series of lawsuits over its brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in 2017. The unit is designed to strengthen legal expertise and provide opinion to government ministries in relation to international criminal law, according to a statement from the office of State Counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi. More: Will cases brought against Myanmar deliver justice to the Rohingya? Lawsuit: Aung San Suu Kyi 'committed crimes' against Rohingya Gambia files Rohingya genocide case against Myanmar at UN court The country's de facto leader and Nobel Peace prize winner is heading the country's delegation to the United Nations' top court where it faces accusations of genocide against the Rohingya. The hearings are due to start on December 10. More than 730,000 Rohingya, most of them Muslims, fled to neighbouring Bangladesh following the brutal crackdown by the military, which UN investigators have concluded was carried out with "genocidal intent"..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2019-11-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis is moving backwards. Here’s how to resolve it
Description: "Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis is sliding dangerously backwards. The denial of civil rights, a massive land grab and an upsurge in armed fighting undermine any real hope for change. Despite reports that some Rohingya refugees have returned to Myanmar, the suggestion that more will follow stands in stark contrast to what I witnessed recently when visiting the areas from which they fled. International solidarity with these stateless people needs a fundamental rethink. If we succeed to only administer the crisis, we will fail to ever resolve it. In 2012, the world watched as a wave of violence pushed at least 110,000 Rohingya people in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state from their land. Families wound up in overcrowded, flood-prone displacement camps, surrounded by armed guards, with neither the permission nor security to return home. The unmaking of their communities began. They were still waiting for permission to return and security when I met them in camps outside Sittwe town at the end of October..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "South China Morning Post" (Hong Kong)
Date of publication: 2019-11-25
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: A boy who can sing: The life of a Rohingya child refugee
Sub-title: In the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, 10-year-old Kassem sings about the suffering of his people.
Description: "The sun was burning over Kutupalong camp, the largest refugee settlement in the world. It was midday, so hot that it was hard to breathe. I was looking for a child to sing Rohingya songs for a film I was making about the history of the Rohingya in Myanmar, searching among the endless makeshift huts that seemed to stretch to the horizon. This used to be a forest. But the trees have been cut down to make space for the more than one million Rohingya refugees who live here, many having fled what the UN described as "ethnic cleansing" in Myanmar. Now this former forest, which was once a favourite honeymoon destination for Bangladeshis, is full of people carrying construction materials, food supplies and water; full of tiny huts; full of sorrow and loss. I searched for the child among them, not knowing who that child would be, but sure that I would know when I found them. On my second day in the camp, I came across a large tree with a small makeshift shop beneath it, selling chewing gum, sweets, cigarettes and packets of crisps that have passed their sell-by date. The shopkeeper kept a watchful eye on a group of young boys who were deep in conversation nearby..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2019-11-27
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Childhood challenged
Sub-title: A visual perspective on children affected by mass migration.
Description: "To mark the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the World Press Photo Foundation and UNICEF jointly present a selection of stories showing the impact of mass migration on children, awarded in the World Press Photo Contests from 2016 – 2019. Thirty years ago, world leaders made a promise to every child to promote and protect their rights by adopting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child – an international agreement on childhood. The Convention became the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history. Since then, governments across the world have taken action to ensure that more children survive and develop to their full potential. Thirty years on, child rights have not changed – they have no expiry date. But childhood has changed. The rise of digital technology, environmental changes and mass migration are creating new threats for children. For too many children, migration is not a choice but a necessity. More than 30 million children in the world today have moved across borders. Migration has been omnipresent in the news and is a recurrent theme in the recent World Press Photo contests. Through different perspectives, these curated stories draw attention to the physical, emotional and psychological impact of mass migration on children from various parts of the world. It highlights the importance of protecting the rights of every child, wherever they are..."
Source/publisher: UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) (New York)
Date of publication: 2019-11-22
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Exiled: The Roots of Myanmar's Persecution of the Rohingya
Description: ""After killing all the men, they asked: 'Who are you?' We replied: 'We are Rohingya, Rohingya'. They said: 'This is not your country, you can't live here," recalls Rowza Begun, a Rohingya refugee. In August 2017, Myanmar's military launched a large-scale "security clearance operation" in the northern Rakhine state which left thousands dead and drove more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee their homes to neighbouring Bangladesh. The crackdown on the Rohingya has been described by the UN as ethnic cleansing and possible genocide, and UN investigators have warned that the genocide threat for Myanmar's Rohingya is greater than ever. Despite historical evidence of their long-standing presence in Rakhine state, Myanmar's government and army refuses to recognise the Rohingya's right to citizenship and classifies them as "illegal migrants" from Bangladesh and India. "They call themselves Rohingya, but to us they are Bengali. What do you want us to do? There's too many of them," says U Parmaukha, a nationalist Buddhist monk. When modern Burma was established after gaining independence from Britain in 1948, the Rohingya were first recognised as part of the Burmese nation and were registered as citizens, as an ethnic minority. But "as early as 1966, the Burmese military started to see the Rohingya as a problem," says Burmese academic Maung Zarni and explains that the government set up special forces to deal with the Muslim minority..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2019-11-26
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar's military must be sanctioned
Sub-title: Myanmar's army continues to fund its brutal campaigns through its vast economic operations. It must be stopped.
Description: "During the optimistic years that ultimately led to the National League for Democracy forming a government in 2016, the international community confirmed its faith in Myanmar's transition from military rule by lifting a succession of economic sanctions that had been imposed on the country. But there were warnings that this response came too soon. With the army's involvement in politics protected by the constitution it drafted in 2008, continued progress in the reforms was not guaranteed. Removing the sanctions reduced important leverage against the military, which could have been instrumental to the new government. For its part, the military-allied elite had spent years carefully positioning itself to be the main beneficiary of economic liberalisation and Myanmar's re-engagement with the global market. As Myanmar now once again approaches general elections in 2020, the optimism has decidedly diminished. Under Aung San Suu Kyi's government, the reforms have stalled, and the human rights situation has deteriorated across the country. Democratic freedoms have been curbed, armed conflict has plagued the lives of hundreds of thousands, and the relentless plunder of natural resources has persisted unabated. The emboldened military leadership retains a firm grip on politics and the economy, while the government has so far proved unwilling or unable to make any significant move against it..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2019-11-26
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Hopes shattered for Myanmar's Rohingya refugees who fled to Malaysia
Description: " Before he flew to Thailand on a fake Bangladeshi passport and then crossed into Malaysia, Mohammed Imran was one of the most influential Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. He headed an 18,000-strong camp and represented them on the big stage. In late 2017, at the peak of a mass exodus of Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh fleeing violence in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, Imran paid traffickers $4,720 to be smuggled into Malaysia in search of a better life. Malaysia has become home to more than 100,000 Rohingya refugees, the second-highest number in the world, after Bangladesh, with most braving the Andaman Sea on rickety boats or paying human smugglers for fake travel documents. But Imran and nearly two dozen other Rohingya men Reuters spoke to in the Malaysian state of Penang said their hopes had been shattered because of a lack of jobs and harassment by police because they are deemed illegal immigrants. They tell friends and family to stay in Bangladesh, despite the hostile conditions there, and some are thinking of heading back. “I thought I would have a life here — basic things like freedom to work, freedom to move around without always worrying about being bullied by police,” said Imran, 30, sitting cross-legged in a run-down apartment he shares with three other Rohingya men..."
Source/publisher: "Japan Times" (Japan)
Date of publication: 2019-11-20
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar: New Al Jazeera documentary uncovers Rohingya abuse
Topic: Asia Myanmar Human Rights
Sub-title: As Myanmar goes on trial at the International Court of Justice over its crackdown on Muslim Rohingya, Al Jazeera sheds new light on some of its alleged crimes.
Topic: Asia Myanmar Human Rights
Description: "Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to defend her military against allegations of genocide at the International Court of Justice. The army is accused of targeting the country's Rohingya Muslim minority in 2017. A documentary being aired on Al Jazeera sheds new light on the abuses. Al Jazeera's Osama Bin Javaid reports. Warning, this report contains some disturbing images..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2019-11-24
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Gain China, India’s support over Rohingya return
Description: "Former ambassadors and security analysts yesterday called upon the Bangladesh government to strengthen diplomatic efforts to earn China and India’s support for Rohingya repatriation, saying their roles are imperative to resolve the crisis. As the countries are regional powers, Myanmar maintains good relationships with them while they (India and China) also have their own economic and geopolitical interests in the Southeast country, the ambassadors and analysts said at a roundtable discussion. They said Bangladesh also needed to continue its diplomacy with the US and the United Nations to make them impose sanctions on Myanmar over “genocide” charges. Institute of Conflict, Law and Development Studies (ICLDS) and Bangla daily Bhorer Kagoj jointly organised the roundtable on the “Necessity of Rohingya Repatriation in Regional and Global Contexts” at the capital’s Jatiya Press Club..."
Source/publisher: "The Daily Star" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-11-19
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar rejects ICC probe into alleged crimes against Rohingya
Sub-title: ICC investigation into alleged crimes against Rohingya 'not in accordance with international law', says government.
Description: "Myanmar has rejected an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into alleged crimes against the Rohingya, as its faces mounting global legal pressure over its treatment of the minority ethnic group. The Hague-based court on Thursday approved a full probe into Myanmar's bloody 2017 military crackdown against the mostly-Muslim group - a move welcomed by the rights groups. "The investigation over Myanmar by the ICC is not in accordance with international law," government spokesman Zaw Htay said at a news conference on Friday. More: UN chief 'deeply concerned' over Rohingya crisis ICC approves probe into Myanmar's alleged crimes against Rohingya What will happen to the Rohingya people? Zaw Htay repeated that Myanmar's own committees would investigate any abuses and ensure accountability if needed. A brutal army campaign in August 2017 forced more than 740,000 Rohingya to flee Myanmar's Rakhine State, most seeking refuge in overcrowded camps across the border in Bangladesh..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2019-11-16
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar not to shirk responsibility to take care of rights, security of people: state counselor
Description: " Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi has underscored that the country will not shirk its responsibility to take care of the rights and security of people, according to the Foreign Ministry Monday. The counselor made the response to the remarks by United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres regarding Rakhine issue. At the opening session of the 10th ASEAN-UN Summit in Bangkok on Sunday, Guterres expressed concern over the situation in Rakhine state and the plight of the refugees in Cox's Bazaar, saying Myanmar is responsible to ensure a conducive environment for safe, voluntary and dignified return of refugees. The counselor pointed out that the Rakhine issue is a most complex one and that the UN and its agencies, which have been present in the region for 10 times longer than the present government has been in office, must have some idea of the extent of the complexities. The Myanmar government was fully committed to take back the verified returnees based on the bilateral agreement signed with Bangladesh and the trilateral agreement signed with UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and UN Development Program (UNDP), she said. She expressed appreciation to ASEAN and the ASEAN Secretariat for their constructive contribution to Myanmar's efforts in creating the most suitable environment to which the displaced people can return in peace and security and voluntarily..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of publication: 2019-11-04
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: 57 countries sue Myanmar over reported genocide of Rohingya in historic lawsuit
Description: "Fifty-seven nations are suing Myanmar at the International Court of Justice, alleging in a historic lawsuit that the government has conducted genocide against its Rohingya minority. The suit comes just weeks after the United Nations warned that the violent campaign against the Rohingya is continuing in northwest Myanmar, and its special envoy called for the U.N. Security Council to refer Myanmar's senior officials to the International Criminal Court, a separate international body. Over 700,000 Rohingya, a Muslim-majority ethnic minority, have fled Myanmar since a campaign by the country's military to push them out and raze their villages began in August 2017. Myanmar, previously called Burma, has denied any wrongdoing, saying that the campaign was against an Islamist extremist group. (MORE: Rohingya refugees say they would choose death over repatriation to Myanmar) The Gambia, a small West African country, filed the lawsuit Monday on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a coalition of countries with significant Muslim populations. It asks the ICJ to investigate whether Myanmar's government has violated the Geneva Convention, which prohibits genocide..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "ABC News" (Australia)
Date of publication: 2019-11-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Canada supports genocide case against Myanmar at International Criminal Court
Sub-title: The case targets systemic violence that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee their country
Description: "Canada is supporting a genocide prosecution of the Myanmar government for systemic violence that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee their country. Gambia filed the genocide case Monday with the International Criminal Court in The Hague on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Co-operation, a group of 57 Muslim countries. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement the move will advance accountability for the crime of genocide, which includes mass murder, systemic discrimination, hate speech and sexual and gender-based violence. The Canadian government will look for ways to support Gambia’s legal efforts, she added. To that end, she said the government will enlist the help of former Liberal interim leader and longtime politician Bob Rae, who also served as Canada’s special envoy to Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: "Penticton Western News"
Date of publication: 2019-11-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Gambia Brings Genocide Case Against Myanmar
Sub-title: International Court of Justice to Address Atrocities Against Rohingya
Description: "The Gambia’s case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for violating the Genocide Convention, filed on November 11, 2019, will bring the first judicial scrutiny of Myanmar’s campaign of murder, rape, arson, and other atrocities against Rohingya Muslims, 10 nongovernmental organizations said. States that are party to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide agreed that genocide “whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish” and, by extension, have an obligation not to commit it. The convention permits member states to bring a dispute before the ICJ alleging another state’s breach of the convention, and states can seek provisional measures to stop continuing violations. Myanmar became a party to the Genocide Convention in 1956..."
Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of publication: 2019-11-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Gambia files Rohingya genocide case against Myanmar at World Court
Sub-title: Gambia has filed a "game-changing" case at the United Nations' top court, accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against its Rohingya Muslim minority.
Description: "The International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, is the UN's top legal institution that rules on disputes between states. Gambia's application alleges Myanmar has carried out mass murder and rape in Rakhine state and asked the ICJ to urgently order measures "to stop Myanmar's genocidal conduct immediately". The 46-page case will bring the first judicial scrutiny of what a UN fact-finding mission called a systematic military campaign of murder, gang rape, arson, and "genocidal intent" against Rohingya Muslims — warning just last month that there was "a serious risk of genocide recurring". The mission also said in its final report in September that Myanmar should be held responsible in international legal forums for alleged genocide against the Rohingya. More than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to neighbouring Bangladesh following a 2017 crackdown by Myanmar's military in response to an insurgency attack. Myanmar, which has a Buddhist majority, denies accusations of genocide and says its crackdown targeted militant separatists in Rakhine state. Both Gambia and Myanmar are signatories to the 1948 Genocide Convention, which not only prohibits states from committing genocide but also compels all signatory states to prevent and punish the crime of genocide. Under the rules of the ICJ, the application argues, member states can bring actions against other member states over disputes alleging breaches of international law..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "ABC News" (Australia)
Date of publication: 2019-11-12
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-12
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Title: Myanmar faces genocide lawsuit at top UN court
Description: "Myanmar faced accusations of genocide in a landmark lawsuit filed by Gambia at the UN's top court on Monday (Nov 11) over the Southeast Asian nation's treatment of Rohingya Muslims, Gambia's government said. Gambia said it was acting on behalf of the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in bringing the case against Myanmar before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The lawsuit accuses mainly Buddhist Myanmar of breaching the 1948 UN Genocide Convention through a brutal military campaign targeting the Rohingya minority in Rakhine state. The 2017 crackdown forced 740,000 Rohingya to flee over the border into sprawling camps in Bangladesh, in violence that United Nations investigators say amounts to "genocide". "The Gambia is taking this action to seek justice and accountability for the genocide being committed by Myanmar against the Rohingya," Justice Minister Abubacarr Tambadou said in a statement. The court is expected to hold its first hearings in December on Gambia's request for urgent interim measures "to protect the Rohingya against further harm", Gambia's lawyers Foley Hoag said in a statement, describing the case as "historic". Human Rights Watch hailed the move by the tiny west African state, saying it was the "first judicial scrutiny" of Myanmar's alleged crimes against the Rohingya..."
Source/publisher: "CNA" ( Singapore)
Date of publication: 2019-11-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-12
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Title: Myanmar sued for genocide
Sub-title: On behalf of OIC, the Gambia files the case with International Court of Justice seeking orders to stop atrocities on Rohingyas immediately
Description: "The Gambia has filed a case with the top court of the United Nations, accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against its Rohingya Muslim minority, more than two years after some 750,000 Rohingyas fled a military crackdown in the Rakhine State. “We have just submitted our application to the ICJ under the Genocide Convention,” Gambian Justice Minister Abubacarr Tambadou said at a news conference yesterday in The Hague, where the court is based. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, is the UN’s top legal institution that rules on disputes between states. The West African nation, which is predominantly Muslim, has filed the case on behalf of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which has held a series of meetings to encourage its 57 members to support the case. “The aim is to get Myanmar to account for its actions against its own people: the Rohingya. It is a shame for our generation that we do nothing while genocide is unfolding right under our own eyes,” he said, reports Reuters. Both the Gambia and Myanmar are signatories to the 1948 Genocide Convention, which not only prohibits states from committing genocide but also compels all signatory states to prevent and punish the crime. Tambadou, who has worked for more than a decade as a lawyer at the UN tribunal that dealt with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, assumed a position of leadership in the lawsuit because of his special expertise..."
Source/publisher: "The Daily Star" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-11-12
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-12
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Title: Rohingya crisis: The Gambia accuses Myanmar of genocide at top UN court
Sub-title: The small west African nation of The Gambia has filed a lawsuit at the UN's top court formally accusing Myanmar of genocide against Rohingya Muslims.
Description: "It was filed at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which normally rules on disputes between states. Last year, the UN issued a damning report into the violence in Myanmar, saying military leaders should go on trial for genocide. Myanmar's government denies its troops carried out such crimes. Thousands of Rohingya were killed and more than 700,000 fled to neighbouring Bangladesh during an army crackdown in the Buddhist-majority country in 2017. The UN's Independent International Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar said in August 2018 that the army's tactics were "grossly disproportionate to actual security threats" and that "military necessity would never justify killing indiscriminately, gang raping women, assaulting children, and burning entire villages." Myanmar rejected the report. It has consistently said its operations targeted militant or insurgent threats..."
Source/publisher: "BBC News" (London)
Date of publication: 2019-11-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar’s Neighbors Must Build Trust Among Rohingya Refugees
Description: "At the 33d summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Singapore last year, the issue of Myanmar’s Rakhine/Rohingya crisis was high on the agenda. The chairman’s closing statement expressed the group’s readiness to support Myanmar in repatriating refugees by conducting a needs-assessment overview in Rakhine State. The Muslim Rohingya had fled ethnic persecution there, committed by the Burmese-led army. The association, or Asean, recognized the need to find comprehensive and durable solutions to the crisis and to create conducive conditions for refugees to return and rebuild their lives. Myanmar, also still known as Burma, was encouraged to carry out the recommendations of the Rakhine advisory commission led by the late Kofi Annan. A year later, as the 35th Asean biannual summit ended in Thailand last week, only two paragraphs in the 17-page chairman’s statement — a summary of the conference’s consensus — were devoted to the Rohingya crisis. While much in those paragraphs repeated the language of the year before, the 2019 concluding statement showed that Asean was heeding the urgent need to garner more consistent political attention to the Rakhine problem..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "PassBlue" (New York)
Date of publication: 2019-11-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Japan’s quiet embrace of Myanmar’s top rights abuser
Description: 'Drowned out by the noise of the Rugby World Cup and overshadowed by the deadly devastation wrought by Typhoon Hagibis was a meeting between Japan’s leaders and an alleged war criminal, which went largely unreported by the media and unnoticed by the public. Myanmar military commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing – whom a United Nations-backed fact-finding mission found should be “investigated and prosecuted” for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine state – visited Tokyo this month at the invitation of Japan’s Defense Ministry. There he met with government ministers, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Abe reportedly told Min Aung Hlaing that the Myanmar military should address the allegations of human-rights violations in Rakhine state by implementing proposals from the government-created Independent Commission of Inquiry. Abe apparently did not mention ongoing efforts by the UN and concerned governments to carry out a genuinely independent and impartial investigation into the atrocities, according to a Defense Ministry press release..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
Date of publication: 2019-10-23
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: ASEAN can no longer turn a blind eye to Myanmar's atrocities
Sub-title: ASEAN has a responsibility to help facilitate a repatriation process that prioritises the well-being of the Rohingya.
Description: "After fighters attacked security targets in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state on August 25, 2017, the Myanmar military responded by killing and maiming thousands of Rohingya civilians, raping hundreds of women and girls, and burning entire villages to the ground. Almost two years after the military-led "clearance operation" that forced more than 745,000 Rohingya men, women and children to flee and seek refuge in Bangladesh, this humanitarian crisis seems more intractable than ever. Systematic state discrimination against the Rohingya, making them stateless and without rights, and recurring state-sanctioned violence has spurred various influxes of refugees into Bangladesh in the 1970s and 1990s. Together with more than 300,000 Rohingya who had already taken shelter during these previous waves of violence, Bangladesh now hosts over one million Rohingya refugees - most of whom reside in Cox's Bazar, now the world's largest refugee camp. It is a testament to Bangladesh's historic generosity that it did not turn away any recent arrivals despite already hosting large numbers of refugees..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2019-07-22
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Bangladesh: Myanmar misleads int’l community with fabricated info
Sub-title: Nay Pyi Taw must act decisively to address real causes, Dhaka says rejecting baseless accusation
Description: "Bangladesh has reacted sharply on Myanmar's persistent campaign to mislead the international community with fabricated information, misrepresentation of facts, unsubstantiated claims and undue accusations. Dhaka made it clear that Nay Pyi Taw is doing so to avoid its obligations for the sustained repatriation and reintegration of the forcibly displaced Rohingya in safety and dignity, reports UNB. Myanmar must act decisively to address the real causes that are preventing the displaced Rohingya from going back voluntarily, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' External Publicity Wing on Wednesday. It is a matter of utter dismay to witness the persistent campaign on the part of the Government of Myanmar to mislead the international community, it added. Bangladesh recently noticed yet another round of such attempts by Myanmar Union Minister for International Cooperation U Kyaw Tin. He resorted to misrepresentation of the whole issue as well as laying unjustified blames on Bangladesh in his effort to refute the well-founded remarks by Bangladesh Foreign Minister on Rohingya crisis at the Preparatory Ministerial Meeting of the 18th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement on October 23 in Baku, Azerbaijan..."
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-10-30
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: US continues to pressure Myanmar for Rohingya repatriation
Sub-title: She was an official visit to check on the condition of the locals affected by the Rohingya refugees
Description: "United States Agency for International Development (UNAID) Deputy Administrator Bonnie Glick has stressed the importance of pressuring Myanmar for a safe and sustainable repatriation of the Rohingya refugees, who fled their homes due to the military crackdown carried out in the Rakhine state. "We are grateful to the Bangladesh government for giving asylum to more than 1.1 million Rohingyas, and we are always prepared to provide necessary support to resolve this pressing issue," Ms Glick said while talking to reporters after her visit to the camps in Ramu, Cox’s Bazar on Thursday afternoon. She was an official visit to check on the condition of the locals affected by the Rohingya refugees, the overall sanitation condition in the region, and the ever increasing rate of human trafficking. US is continually pressuring Myanmar for the safe repatriation of the Rohingyas and taking necessary steps to reduce the distress faced by the locals, added Ms Glick. A seven-member delegate team discussed the human trafficking situation in the Rohingya camps with Young Power in Social Action (YPSA), a non-profit social development organization, under the leadership of Bonnie Glick. They also talked with the human trafficking victims there. Later, they went to Rajarkul in Ramu upazila where they conversed with the Rohingyas, and the locals who were affected by their immigration..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-11-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: ASEAN’s role in Rakhine
Description: "Since August 2017, widespread persecution and violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state has forced hundreds of thousands of primarily Muslim minority residents, often identified as ‘Rohingyas’, to flee their homes and seek refuge in Bangladesh. According to UN figures, an estimated 200,000 people from Myanmar were already taking shelter in Bangladesh after earlier displacements. Many have also travelled to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, often with the help of human traffickers. In Myanmar, civilian and military leaders deny targeting Muslims in Rakhine and insinuate that the international community is exaggerating the severity of the violence — a view echoed by nationalist hardliners. The number of people in Bangladeshi camps has increased to more than 720,000, prompting ASEAN to deliberate a credible response. During the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in January 2019, discussion focussed on safe and voluntary repatriation of refugees currently living in displacement camps in Bangladesh. They finalised plans for the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre) to conduct a needs assessment in Rakhine. This will allow them to better understand areas of cooperation that ASEAN could support in the repatriation process to build the confidence and trust of refugees to return home. ASEAN seeks to establish a safe and sustainable environment that refugees will voluntarily return to. But the recent escalation of violence between the Myanmar national armed forces and the outlawed Arakan Army, an insurgent group in Rakhine, forced ASEAN to postpone the AHA Centre needs assessment. ASEAN released a statement at the 33rd ASEAN Summit held in Singapore to express their deep concern at the growing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "East Asia Forum" (Australia)
Date of publication: 2019-03-08
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Title: How Bangladesh And Myanmar Used The Rohingya Crisis To Direct Anger At Each Other
Sub-title: Joseph Allchin looks at Bangladesh's travails with extremism and politics in his book 'Many Rivers, One Sea: Bangladesh and the challenge of Islamist Militancy'.
Description: "The Awami League government in Dhaka had been jittery about Rohingya militancy in Myanmar in the years leading up to 2017’s vast exodus. The government saw it as a potential nuisance, and seemed suspicious of those wanting to work with the group. Sheikh Hasina personally stated in 2012 that the Rohingya issue ‘is not our responsibility.’ They were especially wary of international Islamic charities, and banned Muslim Aid and Islamic Relief among others, because they were believed to ‘encourage radicalism and provide funds to militants, and we cannot let them do so with Rohingyas.’ However, once the magnitude of the exodus became apparent, Muslims and non-Muslims both inside and outside Bangladesh were horrified by the human suffering, Islamist organisations not least among them..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Huff Post" (USA)
Date of publication: 2019-11-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Mental health issues cast doubt on Rohingya repatriation
Sub-title: This is the last part of a two-part series on them mental health of the Roghingya refugees
Description: "As the world takes stock of the situation two years on from the forced mass expulsion of the Rohingya from Myanmar, the 'leaders' of the refugee community in Cox's Bazar placed a five point charter of demands. Syed Ullah, refugee leader and secretary of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights (ARSPHR), placed the demands at a press briefing in Jamtoli camp of Cox's Bazar in August 2019. It has now been two years since a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing by the Myanmar military forced out of the country, more than two-thirds of the Rohingya population living in Myanmar. Talking to reporters at refugee camps in Ukhiya and Teknaf, youth and elderly alike said they want to return to their homeland but before that they want reassurance from Myanmar authorities about a conducive environment in northern Rakhine state. They said the ultimate solution to the Rohingya crisis will be a safe, voluntary, dignified, and sustainable return of those who fled their homes in Myanmar. Meanwhile, the failure in the reparations and repatriation of Rohingya refugees has been causing mental health problems among the refugee population and people of the host communities as well. A sense of resentment prevails among locals who now fear repatriation of the refugees might take longer than they had anticipated..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-11-03
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Modi tells Suu Kyi to take quick steps in Rohingya repatriation
Sub-title: India is keen on improving physical connectivity in Myanmar through building roads, ports, and other infrastructure, he said.
Description: "Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has underlined the importance of speedy, safe, and sustainable” return of Rohingyas to their homes in Rakhine in the interest of the people, and regions of the three countries -- India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. Prime Minister Modi has conveyed this message to Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi during their meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN-India Summit in Bangkok. Mentioning the completion of the first Indian project to build 250 prefabricated houses, which were handed over to the Myanmar government this July, Modi said his country is ready to carry out more such projects in Myanmar. In a recent letter written to Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen, his Indian counterpart Dr S Jaishankar mentioned that the “safe, speedy, and sustainable” return of displaced persons to Myanmar is in the best interests of all concerned. “This is also in the best interest of lasting regional security, and stability,” said the Indian External Affairs Minister. Jaishankar also expressed deep admiration for Bangladesh in shouldering the burden of hosting the displaced people from Rakhine State in Myanmar, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here. Bangladesh is now hosting over 1.1 million Rohingyas who have fled their homeland in Rakhine State after being persecuted by their own country..."
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-11-04
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: State Counsellor responds to the remarks made by the UN Secretary General on Rakhine issue (4 Nov 2019) [EN/MY]
Description: "State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi responded to the remarks made by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres regarding the Rakhine issue. She underscored that Myanmar will not shirk its responsibility to take care of the rights and security of all those whom it must protect. In the opening session of the 10th ASEAN-UN Summit in Bangkok on 3 November 2019, the UN Secretary General expressed concern over the situation in Rakhine State and the plight of the refugees in Cox’s Bazaar. He also stressed that it was Myanmar’s responsibility to ensure a conducive environment for safe, voluntary and dignified return of refugees. In response to the remarks of the Secretary General, the State Counsellor underscored that the issue of Rakhine is a most complex one and that the UN and its agencies which have been present in the region for ten times longer than the present Government has been in office, must have some idea of the extent of the complexities. She stressed that the Government will not shirk its responsibility to take care of the security and rights of all those who it must protect. She added that the Government of Myanmar was fully committed to take back the verified returnees based on the bilateral agreement signed with Bangladesh and the trilateral agreement signed with UNHCR and UNDP. She expressed appreciation to ASEAN, the ASEAN Secretariat and the AHA Centre for their constructive contribution to our efforts in creating the most suitable environment to which the displaced people can return in peace and security and voluntarily. She reaffirmed Myanmar’s intension to continue its work with the help of our friends who approach the problems in Rakhine in a practical and balanced way.....ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံ၊ ဗန်ကောက်မြို့၌ ၃-၁၁-၂၀၁၉ ရက်တွင် ကျင်းပသည့် (၁၀) ကြိမ်မြောက် အာဆီယံ-ကုလသမဂ္ဂ ထိပ်သီးအစည်းအဝေး၌ ကုလသမဂ္ဂ အတွင်းရေးမှူးချုပ် Antonio Guterres က ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ် အရေးကိစ္စအပေါ် စိုးရိမ်ပူပန်ကြောင်း၊ ပြဿနာအရင်းအမြစ်ကို ဖြေရှင်းရေးနှင့် နေရပ်စွန့်ခွာသူများ မိမိဆန္ဒအလျောက် ဘေးကင်းလုံခြုံစွာ ဂုဏ်သိက္ခာရှိရှိ ပြန်လာနိုင်ရေးမှာ မြန်မာအစိုးရ၏ တာဝန်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း၊ မြန်မာနှင့် အာဆီယံတို့အကြား ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်မှုကို ကြိုဆိုကြောင်းနှင့် ဆက်လက် ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်သွားရန် တိုက်တွန်းကြောင်း ထည့်သွင်းပြောကြားခဲ့သည်။ အဆိုပါကိစ္စနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ နိုင်ငံတော်၏ အတိုင်ပင်ခံပုဂ္ဂိုလ်က ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ် အရေးကိစ္စမှာ အလွန်သိမ်မွေ့ ရှုပ်ထွေးသည့် ကိစ္စတစ်ခုဖြစ်ကြောင်း၊ မိမိတို့ လက်ရှိအစိုးရသက်တမ်းထက် ဆယ်ဆမက ကာလရှည်လျားစွာ ယင်းဒေသ၌ ရောက်ရှိနေကြသည့် ကုလသမဂ္ဂ အဖွဲ့အစည်းများအနေဖြင့် ပြဿနာ၏ သိမ်မွေ့ရှုပ်ထွေးမှု အတိုင်းအတာကို အနည်းအကျဉ်းမျှ သိထားရန် လိုအပ်ကြောင်း၊ မိမိတို့ ကာကွယ်စောင့်ရှောက် ပေးရမည့်သူများအားလုံး၏ လုံခြုံရေးနှင့် အခွင့်အရေးများအား ကာကွယ်ပေးရန် တာဝန်ကို မိမိတို့ အစိုးရအနေဖြင့် ရှောင်လွှဲမည် မဟုတ်ကြောင်း၊ ဘင်္ဂလားဒေ့ရှ်နိုင်ငံနှင့် လက်မှတ်ရေးထိုးထားသည့် နှစ်နိုင်ငံ သဘောတူညီချက်၊ UNHCR ၊ UNDP တို့နှင့် လက်မှတ်ရေးထိုးထားသည့် သုံးပွင့်ဆိုင် သဘောတူညီချက်တို့နှင့်အညီ စိစစ်အတည်ပြုပြီးဖြစ်သည့် နေရပ်စွန့်ခွာသူများကို ပြန်လည်လက်ခံရန် အပြည့်အဝ ကတိပြုထားပြီးဖြစ်ကြောင်း၊ နေရပ်စွန့်ခွာသူများ မိမိဆန္ဒအလျောက် အေးချမ်းလုံခြုံစွာဖြင့် ပြန်လာနိုင်မည့် အသင့်လျော်ဆုံး ပတ်ဝန်းကျင် ဖြစ်စေရေးအတွက် မိမိတို့၏ ကြိုးပမ်းဆောင်ရွက်နေမှုကို ကူညီပံ့ပိုးပေးကြသည့် အာဆီယံ၊ အာဆီယံအတွင်းရေးမှူးချုပ်ရုံးနှင့် AHA Centre တို့အပေါ် ကျေးဇူးတင်ရှိကြောင်း၊ ပြဿနာအပေါ် လက်တွေ့ကျပြီး ဘက်လိုက်မှုမရှိဘဲ မျှတသည့် ချဉ်းကပ်မှုဖြင့် အကူအညီပေးနေကြသော မိတ်ဆွေများ၏ အကူအညီဖြင့် ဆက်လက် ကြိုးပမ်းဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ပြန်လည်တုံ့ပြန်ပြောကြားခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရှိရပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Government of Myanmar via Reliefweb (USA)
Date of publication: 2019-11-04
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf (Burmese version)
Size: 103.93 KB (1 page)
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Title: Suu Kyi: Myanmar will not shrink from responsibility on Rohingya
Sub-title: At the opening session of the 10th Asean-UN Summit in Bangkok on November 3, UN Secretary General António Guterres said Myanmar was responsible for ensuring a conducive environment for the safe
Description: "Responding to the UN secretary general’s remarks on the Rohingya issue, Myanmar State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said the Myanmar government will not shrink from its responsibility and reaffirmed that it will work with friends who approach the issue in a "practical and balanced way." At the opening session of the 10th Asean-UN Summit in Bangkok on November 3, UN Secretary General António Guterres said Myanmar was responsible for ensuring a conducive environment for the safe, voluntary, and dignified return of Rohingya refugees currently residing in Bangladesh, reports The Irrawaddy. "The [Myanmar] government will not shirk its responsibility to take care of the security and rights of all those who it must protect," Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told the audience during the same event..."
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-11-04
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-05
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Title: 'Our only aim is to go home': removal plans raise tensions in Rohingya camp
Description: "Life in the world’s largest refugee camp has grown harder in the past few months. Mohammad, a Rohingya farmer who lost his leg fleeing violence in Myanmar, does not understand why. “We got a lot more before in terms of food and help, but now it feels like we are not getting enough support from the government and NGOs. We are also more restricted in our movement,” he says, sitting on a bench outside his house, surrounded by discarded plastic bottles and rotting food. The Bangladeshi government has launched a crackdown in the camp, shutting shops run by refugees, blocking internet services, confiscating mobile phones, putting up fencing and setting an 8pm curfew, meaning people can’t leave their homes at night. Bangladesh appears to be getting frustrated with its more than 1 million guests. Politics is turning and it has been reported that locals in Cox’s Bazar are running out of patience. The government is finalising plans to move 100,000 refugees to an island in the Bay of Bengal and refugees wonder if it is all connected..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
Date of publication: 2019-11-04
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: UN chief 'deeply concerned' over Rohingya crisis
Sub-title: Guterres addresses ASEAN summit, where leaders try to salvage progress towards what could be world's biggest trade bloc.
Description: "United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has expressed "deep" concern over the plight of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees, urging Myanmar to assume responsibility by dealing with the "root causes" of their flight and work towards their safe repatriation. A brutal army campaign in August 2017 forced more than 740,000 members of the mostly-Muslim minority to flee Myanmar's Rakhine state, most seeking refuge in overcrowded camps across the border in Bangladesh. During its crackdown, which was launched in response to attacks by an armed group, the military carried out mass killings and gang rapes with "genocidal intent", according to United Nations-mandated investigators..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2019-11-04
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Bangladesh to verify Myanmar’s claim of ‘voluntary’ Rohingya repatriation
Sub-title: Myanmar Embassy in Dhaka claimed 46 displaced persons returned to Myanmar from Bangladesh
Description: "Bangladesh will verify Myanmar’s claim over voluntary nature of some Rohingyas to Myanmar as Myanmar keeps spreading misleading information to the international community to avoid repatriation. "We will issue a press statement after verifying the claim," Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen told reporters on Thursday, reports UNB. The Myanmar Embassy in Dhaka in a Facebook post claimed 46 displaced persons returned to Myanmar from Bangladesh on their own volition through TaungPyoLetwe and NgaKhuYa Reception Centers on Thursday. Myanmar claimed that the returnees were warmly received by the officials from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, and Ministry of Labour, Population and Immigration, and other officials concerned. Myanmar also claimed that a total of 397 displaced persons have voluntarily returned from Bangladesh to Myanmar till date and they were duly provided with rice, cooking oil and foodstuff monthly by the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement. A diplomatic source said the UNHCR and the officials at the RRRC are not aware of such voluntary return..."
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-10-31
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Rohingya refugees turn down second Myanmar repatriation effort
Sub-title: Bangladeshi official says potential returnees fear for their safety in Rakhine state
Description: "A second attempt to repatriate the thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh has failed after the authorities failed to convince the refugees it would be safe to return. The Myanmar government had approved more than 3,000 Rohingya to be brought back to the country beginning on Thursday but, as during the first repatriation attempt in November, no refugees agreed to voluntarily board the buses to Myanmar. A Bangladeshi government official confirmed that four families, or about 18 people, from Shalbagan camp 26 in Cox’s Bazar had initially expressed interest in going back. They had almost boarded a vehicle to cross the border, but were dissuaded by fellow refugees who told them they would not be able to return to their original villages or have a pathway to citizenship. A statement from the UN refugee agency said: “So far none of those interviewed have indicated a willingness to repatriate at this time. UNHCR will continue assisting the government of Bangladesh in this process to ensure that all those cleared for return are interviewed.”..."
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
Date of publication: 2019-08-22
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Rohingya Repatriation: Dhaka seeks effective role from Asean
Description: "Bangladesh wants a strong and effective role of the Asean in the Rohingya repatriation as the regional bloc begins its four-day summit in Bangkok today. Dhaka says the problem, created by Myanmar, is now turning into a regional crisis, with the Rohingyas spreading across the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). The crisis will aggravate in future if it is not resolved. “As a member of Asean, Myanmar’s role is more important now than ever before,” Col (retd) Faruk Khan, chair of the parliamentary standing committee on the foreign ministry, told The Daily Star yesterday. He led a parliamentary delegation to Thailand, the current chair of Asean, and Singapore, with the specific objective of convincing those countries to come forward with a stronger role in making sure that Myanmar creates conducive conditions in Rakhine for the return of the Rohingyas. The delegation highlighted the negative consequences of the Rohingyas’ prolonged stay in Bangladesh and some other Asean countries, and requested them to strongly raise the Rohingya issue at the summit with due importance..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Daily Star" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-11-02
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: It Isn’t Just the Rohingya. Myanmar Is Now Attacking Buddhists in Rakhine State, Too.
Sub-title: This latest battle could be the army’s undoing.
Description: "MRAUK U, Myanmar—Here in the town of Mrauk U, in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine state, there has been little to celebrate during this October’s Thadingyut, the second-most important annual festival of the Buddhist calendar. Normally, the auspicious full moon would be hailed with a floating armada of delicate candlelit paper lanterns and song, theater, and dance. Yet this year, there are no celebrations. Instead, at 9 p.m. sharp, a curfew falls as soldiers from the Myanmar Army, known as the Tatmadaw, emerge from their posts to pull barbed wire and steel barricades across roads. Shops and businesses shutter, the streets empty and lights flickering out. Under the looming gaze of hundreds of medieval temples—relics of a time when this was the capital of one of the richest and most powerful states in Southeast Asia—parents gather up their children by flashlight and head into makeshift bunkers, dug into the soft clay beneath their houses. These gimcrack dugouts, ringed with old sand-filled cement bags, may not look much, but they provide at least some shelter from the shells, rockets, and bullets now increasingly flying between the Tatmadaw and local rebels, up above..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Foreign Policy" (USA)
Date of publication: 2019-10-31
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Asean must lead in Rakhine crisis
Description: "'We are hungry for sustainable solutions. Four times we have been refugees. We need to stop being refugees", said a Rohingya man at Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh. Southeast Asia's leaders are expected to discuss the issue of Rohingya refugees and ways of enhancing Asean's role in facilitating the voluntary repatriation process at their regional summit in Bangkok later this week. As this year's Asean chair, Thailand has a critical leadership role to play in supporting durable solutions for Rohingya displaced in Myanmar as well as for those living in exile as refugees in Bangladesh and across the region. This must include prioritising refugee participation in decision-making. Days before the second anniversary of the Rohingya refugee crisis in August, the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed to start repatriation. This announcement was a surprise to many, including Rohingya refugees. So far, no refugees have volunteered to go back. The refugees have sent a message and Asean must pay heed: Without meaningful progress in realising equal rights, citizenship and justice for Rohingya, one of the world's largest refugee crises will continue..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Bangkok Post" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2019-10-30
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Thailand: Ensure Accountability for Mass Trafficking of Rohingya, Provide Compensation for Survivors
Sub-title: Court to deliver verdict on appeals of Thailand's largest-ever human trafficking trial
Description: "The Government of Thailand should establish a public trust fund to provide financial reparations for tens of thousands of Rohingya survivors of human trafficking through Thailand from 2012 to 2015, said Fortify Rights today. The Thai judicial system should also ensure all perpetrators responsible for the mass-scale trafficking of Rohingya refugees and others are held legally accountable. The Criminal Court Division for Human Trafficking in Bangkok is expected to issue decisions tomorrow in response to appeals submitted by the prosecution and the defense in the largest human trafficking case in Thailand’s history, which concluded in July 2017. “The lower court set an important precedent in Thailand and the region by convicting scores of human traffickers involved in horrific abuses against Rohingya refugees. These earlier convictions demonstrated a welcomed commitment to combatting trafficking,” said Amy Smith, Executive Director of Fortify Rights. “The court and the government now have an opportunity to reiterate the message that there are severe consequences for human trafficking and that survivors will be protected and compensated.” The prosecutor and the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security as co-plaintiffs submitted an appeal to the court, calling for increased sentences against those convicted in 2017 for trafficking Rohingya and others and reconsideration of the cases against 28 defendants dismissed by the lower court. The defendants also submitted an appeal seeking a reduction in the sentences imposed by the lower court..."
Source/publisher: "Fortify Rights"
Date of publication: 2019-10-30
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: From Aracan Mahomedans to Muslim Rohingyas
Description: "The present essay contributes to the investigation of the historical background of the Rakhine State crisis which, since 2012, has attracted wide international attention for the Muslim Rohingyas. Arguing that the changes in names used by and for Muslims in the frontier region of Bengal/Bangladesh and Burma/Myanmar reflect the political, social and demographic development, the essay calls for an archive of naming practices as a pool of references and information to be included in the ongoing debate..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
Date of publication: 2018-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 5.5 MB (33 pages)
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Title: History and Victimhood: Engaging with Rohingya Issues
Description: "II n today’s world, the immediacy of humanitarian crises tends to bar a deeper interest in the complexity of the historical roots of a conflict. The deteriorating situation of the Muslim minority in the Rakhine State of Myanmar, a group now widely known as the Rohingya, is a case in point. They have been presented as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world due to a track record of human rights violations, while the local Islamic history and the emergence of Muslim nationalism at the margins of Muslim Bengal (East Pakistan/ Bangladesh) and Buddhist Burma (Myanmar) has barely begun to inform international understanding of the regional conflict. The present article argues in favor of historical research as a prerequisite both for understanding the nature of the conflict and for keeping opportunities for competing historical interpretations alive. It also contributes to the ongoing question of collective representations of “voiceless” non-Western victims as deprived of political agency.1 The article supports the argument that victimhood is a form of agency, but, as in the case of the Rohingya crisis since 2012, it bears the risk of encapsulating people and isolating them from their historical context..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
Date of publication: 2018-01-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 448.83 KB (118 pages)
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Title: Rohingya issue: NAM calls for creating conducive conditions in Rakhine
Sub-title: They also stressed the implementation of the arrangement of Rohingya repatriation signed between Bangladesh and Myanmar in this regard, UNB reported on Sunday
Description: "The heads of state and government of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) have underscored the importance of creating “conducive conditions” in Rakhine State of Myanmar for the voluntary return of Rohingyas to their place of origin in a “safe, secure and dignified” manner. They also stressed the implementation of the arrangement of Rohingya repatriation signed between Bangladesh and Myanmar in this regard, UNB reported on Sunday. Bangladesh has been hosting over 1.1 million Rohingyas and most of them entered Cox’s Bazar since August 25, 2017 amid military crackdown on them in Rakhine State. The 18th Summit of the heads of state and government of NAM, a forum of 120 member countries, 17 observer countries and 10 observer organizations, was held on October 25-26 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has also attended the Summit. It was preceded by the Preparatory Senior Officials Meeting on October 21-22 and the Preparatory Ministerial Meeting on October 23-24, where Azerbaijan took over the chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement for the next three years, said an official. On October 24, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee called for sanctions against Myanmar military-run companies and commanders responsible for serious rights violations..."
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-10-27
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Rohingya man arrested in Bangladesh after $5m drug haul
Sub-title: Special police staged raid on a beach in Cox's Bazar following tip that trawler carrying drugs would land there.
Description: "The spokesman said 800,000 pills were found in sacks in the trawler and one Rohingya suspect was detained while several others escaped. About 740,000 Rohingya arrived in Bangladesh after a Myanmar military crackdown in August 2017 and drug dealing has become a growing problem in the refugee camps in Cox's Bazar where they live. The seizure was the biggest made this year of the methamphetamine pills, known as yaba, which have become a popular drug among young people in the nation of 168 million. Since a crackdown was launched last year, more than 500 suspected drug traffickers - including at least 25 Rohingya - have been shot dead by police and security forces..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2019-10-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Rohingya repatriation: Bangladesh, Myanmar, China joint mechanism begins work
Sub-title: The tripartite forum held its first meeting last week, according to Foreign Ministry sources
Description: "The joint mechanism among Bangladesh, Myanmar, and China, aiming to expedite the repatriation of Rohingya refugees to their homes in Rakhine, Myanmar, has begun its operation, with its maiden meeting held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last week, diplomatic sources have told Dhaka Tribune. The director general of the Foreign Ministry’s Southeast Asia wing, and ambassadors of Myanmar, and China in Bangladesh are the members of the tripartite forum. Following the foreign minister-level meeting among Bangladesh, Myanmar, and China on the sidelines of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, US on September 23, the formation of such a mechanism was agreed upon to expedite the repatriation process. “Yes, we have started our activities, having held the forum’s first meeting last week,” a senior foreign ministry official told Dhaka Tribune. “At the first meeting, the director general and the two ambassadors talked about the modalities for moving forward to begin the repatriation,” he said, adding that another meeting is scheduled for next week..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune" (Bangladesh)
Date of publication: 2019-10-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Competing Identities and the Hybridized History of the Rohingyas
Description: "The successive waves of violence and aggression involving Muslims and Buddhists in Rakhine state of Myanmar1 in 2012 and 2013 attracted widespread international attention. The communal violence resulted in the death of more than 200 people and the displacement of over 130,000, mostly Muslims, as well as the destruction of housing properties. It highlighted ethno-religious tensions, harsh social problems and long-standing resentment. It also demonstrated, over the last two years, the risks inherent in the political transformation of the country, releasing tensions that had been repressed for decades 1 The word “Rakhine”, a spelling adopted after 1991, is an ethnonym and can be used as an adjective. Rakhine state is the official name of the state in western Myanmar that is still known in most history books as Arakan. The people of the state are the Rakhine or Arakanese, and they refer to their country as “Rakhine-pray”. For reasons of convenience, as this article mostly deals with history, the name “Arakan” will be used to refer to the former kingdom whose territory extended, at times, far beyond the borders of the current administrative division, to the colonial province, and to the current Rakhine state. UN organizations and international non-government organizations that deal with the situation of the Muslim Rohingyas have established the acronym NRS, that is, Northern Rakhine State, referring to the area where Muslims form the majority population. The majority people of Myanmar will be referred to as “Burmese”..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
Date of publication: 2015-07-27
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 362 KB
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Title: 29 more displaced people return to Myanmar from Bangladesh
Description: "Twenty-nine more displaced people have returned to Myanmar from Bangladesh as the second group back on their own volition, according to the immigration authorities Thursday. The displaced, made up of five families including 11 women, were received at the Taung Pyo Letwe reception center in Maungtaw, Rakhine state, on Tuesday. The Myanmar authorities managed their repatriation process, providing them with humanitarian assistance after scrutiny in accordance with the immigration and security rules. Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed in August 2018 at the two countries' ministerial meeting held in Nay Pyi Taw for early repatriation of displaced persons from the Myanmar western state who fled to Bangladesh. On June 6, 2018, Myanmar also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the UN Development Program (UNDP) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on assisting Myanmar's repatriation process of displaced people from Rakhine state..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China)
Date of publication: 2019-10-24
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
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