"Myanmar faces calls to release 30 Rohingya men, women and children arrested in September while trying to travel from Rakhine state to the city of Yangon. A total of 21 Rohingya face up to two years in jail under Myanmar’s Residents of Burma Registration Act, which stipulates that citizens must be in possession of “registration cards” to prove their identity. The act has been used against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority, who are denied citizenship of the country and are officially stateless. Nine children travelling as part of the group were sent to juvenile detention centres. A five-year-old boy’s fate is yet to be decided, activists said. Authorities told Radio Free Asia that the Rohingya, having left villages in Rakhine state where they reportedly faced violence and ethnic cleansing, were attempting to reach Malaysia. They allegedly paid traffickers between 500,000 and 700,000 kyats (£270-£380) to transport them to Yangon, where they hoped to find work or passage out of Myanmar. “It’s a cruel irony that these Rohingya will be trading what was effectively confinement to open-air detention in Rakhinestate for confinement in a state prison in Pathein,” said Brad Adams, executive director at Human Rights Watch (HRW)..."