Breakingnews >Myanmar blasted for Rohingya policies

 Bangkok Post

Mass killing of Rohingya on 16 February

Wednesday, February 26, 2014 

By Aung Aung 
The Stateless

18 Rohingya from Minpya and Mrauk U towns of Arakan were persuaded to go to Yangon by a broker Maung Ni, (35 years of age). As Rohingyas are generally blocked from moving around, leaving their villages is impossible without the permission of the police. The broker had a good relationship with the police who had been blocking the Rohingya from leaving their villages.

On 16 February 2014, 18 Rohingya were transported by the broker and police by truck.  3 police accompanied them up to an area of dense forest where they saw another person. The police handed over those 18 Rohingya to the person standing there.  One of the Rohingya asked the person who was standing there why they could not continue by truck and why they needed to go on foot. He told them that there was a checkpoint on the highway and that they needed to pass that. After a few minutes walking, there saw a group of armed people. The person who was leading them rushed over to the group. That group started shooting so everyone ran away, according to the testimony of one of the survivors. 

2 survivors reached the next village after 3 days.  They told people that they ran into the forest to escape. They said - “We heard some people screaming, we didn't how could we reach here, 3 days, hiding and starving on the way. We can't go to our village, we are hiding in another village, because if police heard about us, they would arrest us. We think all of those who were killed by them”.

Those 18 Rohingya are:

1/Nazir Ahmad s/o Mv abdulzalil 18 years from Harapine village Minpya

2/Kararshay, s/o Abdurrahman 17years Harapine village

3/Mg Ba, s/o Abdurrazak 25years Harapine

4/Abdul Mabud, s/o Dudu Alam, 23years Harapine

5/Zaenal Abiddin, s/o Faza Rashid, 19years Harapine village

6/-Nezamul Haq, s/o Hamza, 22years Satkya village , Minpya

7/Aliakbar, s/o Md Akbar 25 years, Satkya village

8/Md Nur, s/o Abu Tahir ,30 years, Satkya village

9/Anwar, s/o Nur Hasan 20years Satkya village

10/Wajib, s/o Abul Hashim 23years, Satkya Minbya

11/Nur Krim, s/o Nur Husan 22 years old,Latta Auk village

12/Mv Md Alam, s/o Kalu 35years old,Lakma village

13/Dil Md,s/o Lalu 18years old, Lama village

14/Md Sharif, s/o Md Dulhaq 20years old, Lama village

15/Ahmad, s/o Abdul Hakim 25years old,Chandaung village Myauk Oo town

16/Larshu, s/o Nur Husan 15years old, Chandaung village Myauk Oo.

17/Umar Faruq, s/o Abdul Gafur 24 years ,Satkya village Minbya

18/Muhiddin, s/o Zainal Abiddin 25 years Aungdaing village

Out of the 18 Rohingya, only 2 escaped the brutal massacre of 16.2.14.

Rohingya whose movements are blocked have two options: die while trying to leave or die in their own houses because of malnutrition, starvation, and lack of medical access.

Raid on Traffickers' Secret Jungle Camp Exposes Divided Thai Villagers

     FELLOW MUSLIM TAKING UNLAWFUL OPPORTUNITY IN THE NAME OF HELPING ROHINGYA IS CONDEMNED!

The southern Thai Muslim should have to to trace out heartless traffickers It is completely against the teaching of holy book to sucking blood from genocide escaping Rohingyas. If the Thai Muslim and Rohingya residing in the south jointly police the trafficking , the inhuman trafficking will be eliminated .The social leaders and civil society of Thai Muslim are sincerely requested to educate the villagers not to help the traffickers .We are asking civil society's cooperation to mobilize the people against the trafficking and pressure the government to handle the Rohingya's cases humanely as per international standard.

Posted by Maung Kyaw Nu,Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand ,BRAT. on February 26, 2014 01:39

A walk through a rubber plantation, looking for human traffickers

Photo by phuketwan.com

Raid on Traffickers' Secret Jungle Camp Exposes Divided Thai Villagers

By Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison

Monday, February 24, 2014

PHOTO ALBUM It was meant to bring traffickers to justice but a raid on a secret Rohingya jungle camp exposed Thailand's growing divide between the honest and the greedy. More »

http://phuketwan.com/tourism/raid-traffickers-secret-jungle-camp-exposes-divided-thai-villagers-19810/

Photo by phuketwan.com

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Myanmar: Abolish Abusive Restrictions & Practices Against Rohingya Muslims

Maung Kyaw Nu with Matthew Smith and Taylor Landis from Fortify Rights

Maung Kyaw Nu with Greg Constantine and Abdul Mahboud

Rohingya Conference at FCCT with B.R.A.T. members in attendance

B.R.A.T. memebers with Kachin Baptist Church leader Hkang Brang Mai and Lance Woodruff

Photographer Greg Constantine from the Holocaust Museum with B.R.A.T. president Maung Kyaw Nu

B.R.A.T. President Maung Kyaw Nu taking part in Q&A at FCCT

B.R.A.T. members at FCCT with Khadra Absughe

B.R.A.T. members with multi-ethnic women representative from Burma at FCCT

Myanmar: Abolish Abusive Restrictions & Practices Against Rohingya Muslims

Leaked Documents Implicate Government Actors in Crimes Against Humanity 

(Bangkok, February 25, 2014)— Leaked government documents reveal severe violations of human rights of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, including restrictions on the freedom of movement, marriage, childbirth, and other aspects of daily life in northern Rakhine State, Fortify Rights said in a new report released today. The report implicates state and central government officials as perpetrators of the crime against humanity of persecution. Crimes against humanity are among the most serious crimes under international law.     

“The impacts of these restrictions are severe and have been well-documented for decades, but the official orders have been kept out of the public domain until now,” said Matthew Smith, executive director of Fortify Rights. “This architecture of abuse contributes to political instability and violence and must be lifted immediately.”   

The 79-page report, Policies of Persecution: Ending Abusive State Policies Against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, is based primarily on the analysis of 12 leaked official documents and a review of public records, as well as interviews with Rohingya and others in Myanmar and Thailand. The documents published in the report reveal restrictions that deny Rohingya basic human rights, including the rights to nondiscrimination, freedom of movement, marriage, family, health, and privacy. All of the restrictions and enforcement methods described in the report appear to be in effect at the time of writing. 

“Regional Order 1/2005,” obtained by Fortify Rights, lays the foundation for a two-child policy enforced in Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships, requiring Rohingya “who have permission to marry” to “limit the number of children, in order to control the birth rate so that there is enough food and shelter.” This order—which in practice translates to a strict two-child policy— also prohibits Rohingya from having children out of wedlock.

Confidential enforcement guidelines, also obtained by Fortify Rights, authorize security forces to use abusive methods to implement these “population control” measures. One document instructs officials to confirm women are the birth mothers of infants and to accurately record the number of children in each family when entering private homes unannounced. The guideline urges the authorities to force Rohingya women to breastfeed infants in their presence “if there is suspicion of someone being substituted” in the family registry.

Some state and central government officials showed public support for the Rohingya two-child policy in northern Rakhine State last year, while others offered the international community categorical denials that childbirth restrictions ever existed. Information obtained by Fortify Rights not only confirms the policies existed but also indicates they are still in effect.

Birth restrictions violate the human rights of Rohingya couples to marry, found a family, and determine for themselves the number and spacing of their children. Fears of penalties for unsanctioned pregnancies have caused Rohingya to flee the country or undergo illegal and unsafe abortions, often leading to untreated health consequences and even death, Fortify Rights said. 

“The government is systematically persecuting Rohingya on the basis of ethnicity, religion, and at times gender,” Matthew Smith said. “Rohingya women in particular find themselves in the crosshairs of these targeted policies, facing severe discrimination because they’re women as well as Rohingya Muslims.”

Confidential documents published in Policies of Persecution reveal that official orders issued by Rakhine State authorities from 1993 to 2008 outline a consistent state policy of restrictions on Rohingya marriage. Rohingya couples cannot live together unless they are married, and they must meet ten administrative requirements before the authorities will consider issuing permission to marry. The authorities typically require applicants to pay high fees as well. 

Other policies curtail Rohingya freedom of movement. Rohingya in Rakhine State are barred from travelling within or between townships without authorization, and they are only permitted to travel outside the state in rare circumstances with additional, difficult-to-obtain authorizations. Restrictions on movement severely inhibit livelihoods and access to healthcare, even in medical emergencies, impinging upon their right to health.

Government policies described in this report explicitly provide criminal punishments for Rohingya who violate the restrictions, with penalties including up to several years in prison, fines, or both.

The abuses resulting from the policies of persecution explained in this report are central to the forced migration of Rohingya in Southeast Asia, Fortify Rights said. The policies appear to be designed to make life so intolerable for Rohingya that they will leave the country, and indeed many have. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, and elsewhere over the last two decades, in many cases risking death at sea and abuses by human traffickers, including killings and ill treatment.

Policies of Persecution explains how the abuses taking place in Rakhine State rise to the level of persecution as a crime against humanity, implicating the involvement of state and central government authorities. Three “regional orders” from Rakhine State—dated 1993, 2005, and 2008—are signed by state-level government officials and copied to various departments falling under state and central government jurisdictions. Rakhine State government officials and ministers of the central government have also discussed on record the restrictions against Rohingya since at least 2011.   

In 2011, the Minister of Defense at the time, Lieutenant-General Hla Min, approvingly referenced and explained in Myanmar’s parliament the restrictive policies against Rohingya. On July 31, 2012, Myanmar’s Minister of Home Affairs Lieutenant-General Ko Ko told parliament that the authorities were “tightening the regulations [against Rohingya] in order to handle travelling, birth, death, immigration, migration, marriage, construction of new religious buildings, repairing and land ownership and [the] right to construct building[s]….” 

“The reality is that the official state policies and practices against Rohingya are plainly abusive,” said Matthew Smith. “The international community should unequivocally condemn these policies and practices and work with the government of Myanmar to ensure they’re abolished.” 

Fortify Rights is calling for an independent investigation by international and Myanmar actors into human rights abuses in Rakhine State, including into abusive restrictions against Rohingya.

For more information, please contact:

Matthew Smith, matthew.smith@fortifyrights.org, +66.85.028.0044 (Thailand),

Follow us on Twitter: @matthewfsmith, @fortifyrights, @taylormlandis

www.fortifyrights.org

Background

There are at least 1.33 million Rohingya in Myanmar; all but 40,000 are stateless due to the country’s 1982 Citizenship Law, which denies Rohingya equal access to citizenship rights. The government refers to Rohingya as “Bengali” and regards them as “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh, despite the fact that they have lived in Myanmar for generations. The restrictions imposed on Rohingya are ostensibly framed by the government of Myanmar as a response to an “illegal immigration” problem and threats to “national security.” Tensions between Rakhine Buddhists—also a repressed ethnic minority of Myanmar—and Rohingya Muslims have existed for decades. In 2012, significant waves of violence and well-coordinated arson attacks erupted, disproportionately affecting the Rohingya population and other Muslim communities, and in some cases involving killings by state-security forces. More than 140,000 Rohingya have been displaced to under-resourced internal displacement camps. International health and aid workers face threats and obstructions to their work from members of the local Rakhine population.

About Fortify Rights

Fortify Rights is an independent organization that strives to strengthen the human rights movement through the defense and protection of human rights. We provide technical support to human rights defenders and conduct independent monitoring and strategic advocacy. By independently documenting and exposing human rights violations while teaming with activists to advocate for change at local, national, and international levels, we aim to fortify the human rights movement. We are a non-profit human rights organization based in Southeast Asia and registered in Switzerland and the United States. Follow us on Twitter @FortifyRights.

Two Malaysians Trapped Under Five-Hour Seige In Sitwee, Return Home Safely

SEPANG, Feb 21 (Bernama) -- Two Malaysians working for Al-Hijrah television had a fright of their lives when they were besieged for five hours by about one hundred villagers in Sitwee, Myanmar, on Thursday.

Mohd Muhaimin Samad, 28, an assistant producer, said in the incident at about 8pm, he was out of the hotel with cameraman Mohd Fithri Ahmad, 42.

The journalist was in Myanmar since Tuesday on a humanitarian mission organised by the Malaysian Consultative Council for Islamic Organisations (MAPIM) as well as to shoot a documentary on the lives of the Rohingya community there.

"We had just met another humanitarian group before being surrounded. Fortunately, about 50 policemen came to our rescue," he said when met by reporters at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport after arriving from Yangon, Myanmar Friday night.

He said the group of police escorted them inside the hotel to ensure their safety.

Mohd Muhaimin said at the hotel, they were questioned by the villagers on the purpose of their visit.

"Luckily, one of the villagers could understand Bahasa Melayu and helped us clear the situation," he said.

After that, both of them were brought to a police station at about 1am and remained there until 5pm Friday, before flying home in the evening.

He said even though they had been to the country several times, this was the first time they came across such a harrowing experience and they were also pleased their filming was safe as well.

It is learnt that four more MAPIM volunteers were still at Sitwee under the same mission but they could not be contacted.

--BERNAMA

Nameless Graves Mark the End of Tortured Existence for Rohingya in Thailand

    ROHINGYA MASS GRAVE BUT RELIGIOUS RITES WAS MET!
    Maung Kyaw Nu

A final resting place ends long and cruel treatment for five Rohingya

Click

Rohingya situation at the hands of traffickers and detention centers are very dire and miserable. The captives who failed to pay big amount of money are severely tortured and killed or left in the jungle without any support. if any local see any abounded dead body or sick people ,then the news come out  .At present one tortured victim whose genital was hurt by traffickers  is at the hospital in Hadjai. After learning the accident news our community members visited to the hospital at this weekend .At that times ,they were informed that five dead bodies were already at the hospital cold room for days .Finally ,all five dead bodies were buried at Baan Chalom of Songkhla division  by a dozen of Rohingyas and local Muslim.The injured Rohingya,from Maungdaw,is going to be surgery today. Our BRAT member Salim and friends  take care him. There is another severely sick Rohingya at the same hospital.There are many cases like this in remote areas where Rohingyas are being kept by traffickers. This is very difficult to get all death news and sick people. Most of them die due to torture and sickness at hand of traffickers. Most of the death cases are unknown.The Rohingyas boat people lives are circling in between traffickers and detention centers . Most of them felt at the hands of traffickers and detention more than one times . So the Rohingya naturally become so sick and die.The deat cases are alarming. Thanks to the Phuketwan for high lighting forgotten Rohingyas' news.

Maung Kyaw Nu

http://phuketwan.com/tourism/nameless-graves-mark-tortured-existence-rohingya-thailand-19736/

Nameless Graves Mark the End of Tortured Existence for Rohingya in Thailand

By Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Latest There was no saving five men who were buried in nameless graves after more than 12 months of tortured existence at the hands of Thai officials and traffickers. More 
 Credit:Phuketwan