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By Fayas (Kaladan Press)

It is indeed a matter of serious concern that Arakan north remain as dangerous as ever, courtesy of the persistent harassments being perpetrated by the Burma’s border security force (Nasaka), army, despite a number of changes in Burma after elections in November 2010. 

Photo :Arakankotawchay
According to reports in the last few days, the situation in north Arakan appears to have worsened. For instances, from January 19 to 21 (within three days) the Nasaka arrested 20 villagers from Kawarbill village of Maungdaw Township while going to forest to collect firewood and are being detained in Nasaka headquarters of Kawarbill (Kyigan Pyin). They were arrested by the Nasaka of Nasaka headquarters because some of villagers gave complaints to the Parliament members about the Nasaka’s harassments when the parliament members held a meeting inviting local villagers at Kawarbill village on January 12. 

Presently, Nasaka seriously restricts the movement of Rohingya people, increases in night sentry at villages and taking huge amount to give permission to build or renovate houses. Besides, the Nasaka specially creates a new chapter of black list of Rohingya kids. All these were made after giving speech on January 12 in public meetings held in Maungdaw north by U Aung Zaw Win and U Htay Win, the upper house and lower house parliament members respectively. The two MPs are the members of Union Solitary and Development party (USDP). 

The parliament members are U Aung Zaw Win (Upper Parliament member) and U Htay Win (Lower Parliament member), both are from Union Solidarity and Development Party and arrived at Maungdaw on January 9, from Rangoon. In the meeting, the parliament members asked to the participants to appraise any difficulty they have been facing in their villages. Getting this opportunity, some of the villagers appraised the harassments of Nasaka against the Rohingya community. This made Nasaka very angry and tried to take revenge on the villagers whenever they got a chance. As a result, they arrested 20 villagers while going to forest for firewood collection and brought to the Nasaka headquarters where they were detained. After that they asked the arrestees to come back the said parliament members from Rangoon to release them. The parliament members are assaulted by them. 

The arrestees are not fed from the camp and the relatives of the victims have to pay Kyat 2,000 per head everyday for their food, moreover, they paid extra Kyat 20,000 per each for excluding from torture. 

On January 24, a group of Nsaka from Nari Bill out-post camp went to the house of Mohamed Sidique (60), son of Oli Ahmed, hailed from Nari Bill west village of Maungdaw Township and took away 100 bamboos from his house without giving any allegation. The current value is about Kyat 40,000 per 100 bamboos. He bought it from Bawli Bazar for his house’s renovation and had already paid Kyat 3,000 tax to the concerned authority. He has not committed any fault. The Nasaka is doing against the Rohingya community as they like because there is no action against the culprits, but they are rewarded. 

So far, the Nasaka and army are taking forced labor from villagers and force them--- to carry water for their kitchen, collect firewood from nearby forest, clean their latrines, grow paddy and vegetables in their compound, build camp and renovate the houses in the camp and to cut bamboos from the forest, etc. They also force the villagers to give night sentry at their own village. It makes them very difficult to the villagers. 

If a villager wants to go from one place to another, he/she will pay Kyat 500 to the Nasaka whether it has documents or not from the concerned authority. 

Since January 21, the Nasaka personnel of Nasaka area No.6 of Maungdaw Township have been trying to arrest Maulana Ismail (40), hailed from Paung Zaar village of Maungdaw Township as he had appraised the Nasaka’s harassments in the said meeting which was held on January 12. The Nasaka is moreover trying to arrest other villagers who gave complaints against the Nasaka in the meeting which was held by the parliament members in Maungdaw north. 

President Thein Sein has introduced a series of political and economic reforms. He has announced cease-fires with armed ethnic minorities that have been fighting the government for decades. Many groups have reached a truce with the government, while others are in negotiations. He has also relieved restrictions on the media, and a significant number of political prisoners were released in recent months.
We believe that the government only wants in order to get recognition from the international community by showing they are working towards peace in the country. The main thing the government needs to change is the 2008 constitution because the military has able to take all the main positions in the government. It is also required to release all political prisoners, freedom of the press and freedom of movement. 

Last year, the USDP members and Nasaka Director gave assurance on stopping harassments against the Rohingya community in north Arakan. But, so far, there are so many forced labors, restriction of movements, restriction of marriage and arbitrary extortion. On one side they have a cease-fire, while on the other side there is brutality practiced against minorities. 

Nasaka has now resorted to medieval (AD 1100-1500) forms of harassments against the Rohingya community. The bigger question now is whether the ongoing trend of reform can bring a durable peace and stability to the country.

Source : Kaladan Press


     Date :Thursday 9 Feb 2012, Time : 16.00-18.00 

The Rohingyas, a Muslim minority group in Burma, were made stateless in 1982 by the military dictatorship. Thousands of Rohingyas have fled brutal suppression in their home country to poverty, misery and abuse in neighbouring Bangladesh. Bangladesh does not accept them as refugees while Burma don´t want them back.
This film describes the nightmarish legal limbo they are living in.

The Rohingyas of Burma are stateless and have been living in misery for decades. They are a forgotten people. Why is it so difficult to find a solution to their situation and to give them a life with dignity? 

We screen the film The Exodus of The Rohingyas, which is followed by a debate

Participants:
  • Tun Khin, President of the Burmese Rohingya Organization UK. 
  • Johan Meyer, Refugee Policy Director at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
  • Erik Abild, Political Advisor at the Norwegian Refugee Council. 

Moderator: Kristian Stokke, Professor at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo. 

_________________________________________________

About the Rohingyas (in Norwegian) here

Velkommen - og spre gjerne videre! 

Vennlig hilsen 
Ã…se Sand 
Den norske Burmakomité / Norwegian Burma Committee 
Det norske menneskerettighetshuset 

Kirkegata 5 
0153 Oslo, Norge 
Mobil: + 47 915 76 251 
www.twitter.com/Burmakomite

Source here
By Palash R. Ghosh , International Business Times

As Myanmar (or Burma) gradually opens up to Western nations after a half-century of isolation, observers are wondering how far the Burmese government will actually go into enacting democratic reforms. 

Having elected a (nominally) civilian government last year, the new president of Burma, Thein Sein, has promised a series of liberalizing measures, including the legalization of trade unions, the release of (some) political prisoners, as well as “fair and free” elections. He has even opened up talks with pro-democracy activist and opposition figure, Aung San Suu Kyi. 

However, given the still-heavy presence of military figures in the “civilian” government, there are doubts that Burma will reform at all. 

In addition, Burma has one of the worst human rights records of any nation on earth. The military-led abuse and mistreatment of its ethnic minorities remains a sordid, black mark on the country’s psyche. 

Among the victims of this state-sanctioned oppression are the Rohingya people, an ethnic Muslim group that has long suffered in Buddhist-dominated Burma. 

About 2-million Ronhingya live in the northwestern parts of Burma, near the Bangladesh border. 

Hundreds of thousands of Burmese Ronhingya are currently living in neighboring Bangladesh, where they are unwanted refugees. But lacking Burmese citizenship, they are essentially stateless and existing in a kind of limbo. 

Late last month, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported that the Burmese government agreed to take back some refugees from Bangladesh – excluding Rohingya. 

According to the United Nations, the Rohingya who live in Burma don’t have it much better – they are forbidden from owning property, marrying or even travelling without state permission. Many are subject to forced slave labor and extortion by authorities. 

Mizzima, the India-based Burmese news agency reported a few years ago that Rohingya women in Burma are frequently subject to sexual abuse and rape by Burmese soldiers. Reportedly, Burma’s military continues to commit atrocities against the civilian Rohingya population. 

As such, desperate Rohingya pour across the borders into Bangladesh every year – although they are Muslims like the overwhelming majority of Bangladeshis, the Rohingya are despised and rejected there as well. Bangladesh, already impoverished and overpopulated, simply cannot cope with the influx. 

Mojibar Rahman, a Rohingya refugee living in a United Nations camps in Bangladesh, told AFP: "We thought that after the election [of a civilian government in Burma], the situation would improve for Rohingya in Myanmar, but it hasn't… no one wants to go back.” 

Indeed, Rohingyas are trapped in a hopeless Catch-22… unwanted in Bangladesh, rejected by Burma since they lack Burmese citizenship.
Some Rohingya refugees have made it as far as Malaysia I the east or the Arab countries towards the west. Many are also in Thailand. But wherever they are, Rohinya remain vulnerable. 

Refugees International has reported that “in both Bangladesh and Malaysia, repressive government policies and lack of adequate international support force the Rohingya to struggle for survival in both countries. The inability of the Rohingya to access basic services in both Bangladesh and Malaysia is further compounding their vulnerability.” 

An elder Rohingya refugee living in a camp in Kutupalong, Bangladesh, told BBC: "We have nothing in Burma. We are disabled people, like slaves. We cannot work because our hands and feet are cut off. If we don't permission to travel we are sent to jail. We are really like slaves there.” 

A younger Rohingya at the same camp lamented: "If I stay in Bangladesh, what will I do? Even if I build a house here people will treat me as Burmese... this is a hated word. I have a ray of hope in my heart that one day there will be peace in Burma and my people will get back all their lives." 

Panchali Saikia, a research officer at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in India, recently wrote of the Ronhingya: “After providing shelter to the Rohingyas for nearly three decades, Bangladesh is now concerned about the annual increase in their numbers. Apart from being an economic burden, the Rohingyas’ involvement in insurgent activities along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border is feared by the government. Hence to reduce the influx, the government has declared that it will no more consider any asylum seeker as refugee.” 

She further stated: “Anti-Rohingya communities in Bangladesh have also pressurized the government to repatriate the Rohingyas. Due to the denial of protection, assistance, and fear of repatriation, the Rohingyas are now escaping to Malaysia through the sea route. Malaysia is seen as the best destination because of the religion factor. Also, the Malaysian government’s permit to access the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has attracted asylum seekers.” 

Saikia added: “The plight of the Rohingyas and the growing concern over their influx is not only confined to Myanmar, Bangladesh and Thailand. Other regional powers like India, Indonesia and Malaysia must also engage themselves considering its security implications. The forcible push-backs are a major threat to the maritime as well as border security of these countries. Left with no other option, the Rohingyas are vulnerable to being recruited by sea pirates and involved in arms and drug smuggling.” 

Now, as Burma appears to be opening up to western nations, it will be interesting to see how its human rights abuses – and the plight of the Rohingya – will be assessed and handled. 


Credit here


By KATE KELLY


Dickson wants to complete his education in a western country and help improve the lives of his students (Kate Kelly)


Dickson Hoo is 24 years old, a grade nine mathematics teacher and deputy principal at a mission school. He’s a bright young man who knows all his students by their first names. But instead of air-conditioned classrooms and computer screens, he teaches quadratics on a donated blackboard with a ragged piece of chalk while his students jostle for a place on rough wooden benches, their feet dangling above a well-swept dirt floor.

Dickson has lived and taught in Mae La refugee camp for the past five years. Mae La is the biggest of nine refugee camps peppered along the Thai border with Burma and overflowing with around 50,000 traumatised, desperate people.

Dickson’s father Saw Tar Hoo is a pastor, a tall solemn man who fled Rangoon with his wife Daisy and their children in 2006 to escape the brutal Burmese military regime. Dickson and his family belong to the Karen ethnic group, which has suffered at the hands of the Burmese government since the country’s independence from British rule in 1948.

The UN Human Rights Commission (UNHCR) reports over 90 per cent of Mae La’s refugees are of Karen ethnic origin and most have fled attacks in southeastern Burma.

Dickson says his students, around 1,300 boys and girls ranging from 11 to 20 years of age, are some of the lucky ones.

“There are still so many children in the camp who cannot come to school because we simply don’t have any more room for them,” he says sadly.

He proudly shows me their small library with rough wooden shelves stacked with books donated from various NGOs. A young Karen girl is sitting in the corner, bent over her books. Dickson says she’s busy studying for the end of year exams, although he sadly admits that for most of his students there are no further opportunities once they’ve finished their schooling.

“Around one or two per cent of our students may have the opportunity to go to a third country with their families and of course, that’s what everyone here is hoping for,” he says.

Dickson’s elder brother, Nickson, was one of those fortunate to be accepted in the last round of the UNHCR’s resettlement program and now lives in the US. His eyes light up as he tells me how he dreams of following his brother and finishing his own education at a western university.

“I want to get a good education, to become a qualified teacher then come back here to help my Karen people,” he tells me.

He had only just completed the second year of a mathematics degree at West Rangoon University in Burma’s former capital before being forced to abandon his studies, home and childhood friends when his family fled for the safety of the refugee camp.

Dickson says he tried to register himself and his family with the UNHCR and apply for the resettlement program as soon as they arrived in Mae La refugee camp on Boxing Day 2006, but was told by camp authorities the UN was not taking on any new refugees. He says he’s confused and angry because of conflicting information from camp authorities. “In 2007, they told me to wait until 2010, I went back later and they said 2011. Now they’ve told me maybe we can register in 2013 or 2014.”

One camp official told him to stop asking because the UN is not taking on any more refugees. “‘You’ll stay in this camp for the rest of your life,’ he told me.”

Nobody has told Dickson that unless the UNHCR can convince the Thai government to reopen its refugee pre-screening and registration program, his future and that of almost 70,000 other displaced Burmese, is in limbo.

Because his family arrived after the Thai government suspended its screening program in late 2005, he does not have official UNHCR refugee status and therefore cannot apply for third country resettlement. It also means he cannot leave the confines of the camp, go to a library, an internet café or the UNHCR field office in nearby Mae Sot because he does not possess an official UNHCR registration card, which is the only protection that refugees have against arrest and detention by Thai authorities.

Aid agency, the Thai Burma Border Consortium (TBBC), reported in October 2011 that almost 70,000 of some 150,000 of residents across all nine camps are unregistered refugees and most new arrivals since 2005 are not registered.

The UNHCR has resettled over 58,000 refugees in third countries since 2005, mostly the US, Canada and Australia, in a bid to alleviate the congestion in the camps. Some, including Mae La camp, have been operating for more than 20 years.

However, TBBC reports show that despite the mass resettlement program, the population of the camps has remained constant as thousands more displaced Burmese seek refuge from persecution.

However, Dickson and many others hoping to forget the torments of their past and start new lives in a third country do not realise that unless they registered before 2005, they have no chance.

The Thai government has been under pressure from Burmese authorities to close down the camps, giving vulnerable residents no choice but to return to the uncertainty and persecution from which they originally fled.

In April, Thai authorities said they had a three-year plan to close all nine refugee camps, something TBBC deputy executive director Sally Thompson says is unrealistic and premature.

“We all want the camps to close and for the people to return to their homes. But that can only happen when the situation in Burma improves and people are guaranteed safety and security. At the moment people do not feel safe to return,” Thompson says.

But Dickson’s father is growing weary with the desperation and hopelessness of their situation. “It’s like house arrest, we are prisoners here,” he says sadly, staring at the floor. “The Thai authorities won’t allow us to leave the camp but we can’t go back to Burma because we will be killed.”

Nestled at the base of a looming mountain range which is all that stands between the Thai border with Burma, Mae La refugee camp bakes quietly in the heat of the December sun.

Run by the Thai Ministry of Interior, the camp is surrounded by barbed wire and high bamboo fences topped with jagged spikes. A young man in uniform lounges in the sparse shade offered by a makeshift guard post.

A few hundred metres down the road at an official checkpoint, uniformed and armed authorities scrutinise the comings and goings of every vehicle. Burmese refugees caught without an official identity card face imprisonment and deportation.

But this hasn’t deterred a group of youths standing defiantly by the side of the road, around the corner and out of sight of the Thai guards. Theirs is not the bright and shiny world of shopping malls, video games and cinemas.

Even if they did manage to hitch a ride some 60 kilometres to the sleepy border town of Mae Sot, avoiding the various police checkpoints along the way, with no money and no understanding of the Thai language, they would be targets for exploitation by unscrupulous employers who prefer Burmese workers because they can pay them less than a third of the usual going daily rate, around 60 Baht, or $US2 per day.

Dickson says while people know the dangers, some prefer to take their chances because they are desperate and have lost hoping waiting for help in the camp. “Some people have been here 20 years … some have been resettled but so many of us are still here, waiting and wasting our lives.

“If I didn’t have my school … and my family here with me, sometimes I don’t know what I would do,” he says quietly. “Of course we want to go home … I want to see Burma, my country. But it’s not safe for us there.”

Then as a bell rings for the start of school, he squares his shoulders and follows a line of students inside the squat tin-roofed buildings for another day at High School Two, Mae La camp.

credit here






A Rohingya refugee boy carries firewood at a refugee camp (photo: Dr Habib Siddiqui)
Myanmar President Thein Sein yesterday agreed to pursue the repatriation of ethnic Rohingya during bilateral talks with Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, though questions remain about how any agreement would be carried out.

Hasina traveled to the administrative capital Naypyidaw for a three-day state visit that ended today, during which the regional neighbors also discussed closer cooperation on energy, trade and transportation, according to the Bangladesh national news agency.

“We would … take back all Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh after verifying them and as per the agreed criterion between the two countries,” Thein Sein was quoted as saying by the news agency.

Myanmar first expressed its willingness to consider repatriation when the state visit was announced in October, though few details have emerged about how the process would be carried out.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees has granted official refugee status to 28,000 Rohingya living in camps near the two countries’ border.

However, an estimated 200,000 unofficial refugees live in makeshift camps with no legal protections and little access to food and health care.

Grave human rights abuses have driven the largely Muslim Rohingya across the border to Bangladesh to escape forced labor, restrictions on movement and no acknowledgment of citizenship within Myanmar, among other abuses documented by human rights groups.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, said the announcement raises serious questions in the international community about the legitimacy of the proposed repatriation.

“Bangladesh has been willfully failing in its obligations to receive refugees,” he said, adding that the root problem is “human rights abuses against the Rohingya in Burma, aided and abetted by the horrendous treatment they receive in Bangladesh.”

“Rather than working with the international community, these two governments have reached an in-the-dark agreement with no details and no recognition of human rights abuses.”

Nural Haq, 19, a Rohingya living in Cox’s Bazar, told ucanews.com that he would only return to Myanmar if the government guaranteed his safety.

“We will go back to our country if the government assures us that we can live there in peace. We must be provided with all basic human rights.”


By Laurinda Luffman for SOS children

The media is full of news about the recent visit to Myanmar (formerly Burma) made by the US secretary of state, Hilary Clinton. Mrs Clinton’s time with Aung San Suu Kyi and her meeting with the Burmese government are seen as hopeful signs that Burma’s rulers may finally be open to reform. But as these stirrings of optimism grow, there seems little hope for a change in the situation of Myanmar’s most persecuted people – the Rohingya.


The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority who were persecuted by the military junta in Myanmar. In 1991, to flee persecution, a large number crossed the border into Bangladesh from the Arakan state of western Myanmar. Some estimates put the number of Rohingya in Bangladesh as high as 300,000. Around 35,000 of the displaced live in registered refugee camps and receive some aid from non-governmental organisations (NGOs). But over a quarter of a million live around towns and villages along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border, where most live in miserable conditions.

Bangladesh is not a signatory to the International Refugee Convention, where countries agree to give refugees favorable treatment and access to services. Therefore, there is no official recognition of the Rohingya and their needs. Any assistance is provided by outside agencies. So for example, 21 primary schools are operated by the UN Children’s Fund alongside other NGOs.

Without any rights, the Rohingya face widespread discrimination in Bangladesh and NGOs have expressed regular concerns about intimidation and abuse of the refugees. In a recent article on the plight of the Rohingya, the Guardian highlights just one example, the case of a badly-burned young girl. The family who took her in as a servant tried to burn the orphan girl to death in order to hide their crimes against her. Doctors at the Lada refugee camp in southern Bangladesh have been trying to care for her, though she has only a slim chance of survival. Staff at the camp do not have access to the kind of advanced treatments which might save her.

Because of the pitiful conditions in which many Rohingya refugees live and the daily struggle of families simply to survive, the BBC has dubbed these people “one of the world’s most persecuted minority groups”. Even if Myanmar’s rulers do now decide to relax their iron grip over the Burmese people, it is unlikely they will restore the rights of the Muslim Rohingya people to own land or receive state services. (In Myanmar, the Rohingya are even forbidden to marry and have children without government permission.) But until their citizenship is reinstated, these desperate people have nowhere to go and will continue to suffer abuse and the life of the unwanted.



Credit here



Diplomatic Correspondent,


Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina leaves for Myanmar today on a three-day official visit with officials saying that repatriation of Rohingya refugees, energy cooperation, maritime dispute, trade and connectivity is high on the agenda.

During the visit the two countries are expected to sign several deals aimed at boosting economic cooperation and improving bilateral relations, foreign ministry sources in Dhaka said.

The Bangladesh cabinet has given go ahead for signing an agreement on capital investment, development and its preservation in both the countries.

Relations between Bangladesh and Myanmar are considered warm in spite of disputes over maritime boundary and the influx of ethnic Rohingya refugees from Myanmar's eastern state of Arakan.

Bangladesh wants Myanmar to speed up the repatriation of about 28,000 Rohingya refugees who have been living in government-registered camps in the border region of Tekhnaf.

Official sources in Bangladesh said another about 300,000 Rohingyas have fled Myanmar over the years alleging persecution. These unregistered refugees live outside the camps, many of them mingling with the local people.

Bangladesh and Myanmar are also trying to resolve their dispute over the maritime boundary in the resource-rich Bay of Bengal.

The prime minister's trip takes place at a time when the long-isolated Southeast Asian nation's first civilian government in decades are opening up with promises to carry out reforms.

Her trip follows two high profile separate visits to Myanmar by Chinese Vice-president Xi Jinping and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The premier will leave Dhaka for Nay Pyi Taw, the new capital of Myanmar, at 2:00pm today on a special flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, according to foreign ministry officials.

Myanmar's Union Minister for Foreign Affairs U Wunna Maung Lwin will receive Sheikh Hasina at Nay Pyi Taw Airport at around 4:00pm local time. Foreign Minister Dipu Moni will accompany the PM, among others.

She will meet Myanmar President Thein Sein and hold talks aimed at boosting bilateral cooperation and removing irritants between the two neighbours.

A host of issues including import of natural gas and electricity, taking lease of land in Arakan for cultivation, building a direct road link, opening direct air and shipping links, easing procedures for issuing business visas and introduction of facilities for banking and financial transactions will be discussed.

From Myanmar the prime minister will fly to Bali, the Indonesian goddess island, on Wednesday to attend an international democracy conference on December 7-9.

Credit : Daily News
By Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison ,

PHUKET: A boatload of Rohingya were spotted by coastal residents north of Phuket today, quickly apprehended by Marine Police and immediately turned over to the Thai Army.

Local authorities confirmed that 54 would-be refugees were in the vessel that was intercepted near Ra island, close to the fishing port of Kuraburi, north of Phuket. 

A group of 92 boatpeople, apprehended nearby on November 24, was trucked north to the Thai-Burma border in police vehicles to be handed over at some point in unconventional circumstances to the Thai Army.

Today, the Thai Army picked up the 54 would-be refugees in an Army vehicle before carrying them off to an unknown destination. 

Local authorities said that the Army's Internal Security Operations Command was involved in today's operation. An Isoc officer had given orders not to talk to the media or send on photographs, one official said by telephone. 

As with the 92 men and boys apprehended on November 24, the likely destination and fate of the 54 boatpeople captured today is not known and unlikely to be revealed by Isoc. 

Thailand's policy towards the Rohingya boatpeople has again become covert and increasingly of concern to United Nations organisations and international aid groups. 

Four days after the first 92 boatpeople vanished, Human Rights Watch called on the Government of Thailand to disclose their whereabouts and explain the Army's role in the unconventional apprehension and detention of the group. 

After January 2009, when the South China Morning Post newspaper in Hong Kong and Phuketwan revealed that large numbers of boatpeople were being towed out to international waters and cut adrift by the military and paramilitary, the detention of unwanted arrivals by sea on Thailand's coast reverted to Immigration officials. 

More boatloads of Rohingya are reported to have sailed from northern Burma or Bangladesh in recent days, disenchanted at the lack of change in the ''new'' Burma, where they remain deprived of citizenship and controlled by repressive measures. 

The US was previously one of the Rohingya's strongest public and private advocates. 

However, official calls for a change in attitude towards the Rohingya in Burma and Thailand have not been made for some time. 

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with government leaders and opposition democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma this week. 

Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phil Robertson said today that Thailand's ''apparently discriminatory'' policy in dealing with the Rohingya gave comfort to the Burmese Government.

Credit here
By Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian

PHUKET: Human Rights Watch is calling on the Government of Thailand to reveal the whereabouts of a boatload of would-be refugees and explain the Army's role in the unconventional apprehension and detention of the group.

The 92 Rohingya waded ashore on the Thai mainland north of Phuket on Thursday and were last seen being trucked to an unknown destination. Locals were told the men and boys were headed for an Army base.
The deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, Phil Roberson, said yesterday evening: ''We are concerned by these reports and we would like the Government to clearly explain where these people are and what they plan to do with them.''

It was a ''worrisome development'' to have the detention of illegal arrivals in Thailand once again removed from the Immigration authorities who usually handle such matters, he said.

Fresh questions about Thailand's policy towards the Rohingya boatpeople are being raised as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepares for a history-making visit to Burma, where the Muslim minority is deprived of citizenship and driven to pay people traffickers to escape by sea.

While the Burmese government wants to chair the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2014 and has recently shown limited but encouraging signs of reform, its most repugnant policy, under which the Rohingya are denied every basic human right, remains in place.

Burma's denial of Rohingya rights leaves the whole region without a hope of resolving the Rohingya boatpeople issue. Thousands are expected to put to sea between now and April, aiming for neighboring countries, to try to flee Burma's repression.

In 2008-2009, after almost 5000 boatpeople arrived in a single ''sailing season'', Thailand took the covert and drastic measure of towing unwanted Rohingya out to sea and cutting them adrift.

Hundreds drowned before survivors arrived in Indonesia and India's Andaman and Nicobar islands, as Phuketwan and the South China Morning Post newspaper in Hong Kong were the first to reveal.

The concern of Human Rights Watch and other international bodies is that the disappearance of the latest batch of unwanted arrivals is a ghastly reminder of that tragic failed policy.

''Thailand needs to produce these people,'' Mr Robertson said. ''Trucking them off into the distance is no answer to this problem.''

There was a whole list of questions about the unexplained detention of the group that needed to be answered to ensure Thailand was meeting its human rights obligations, he said.

The absence of information from the Thai Government was cause for ''very serious concern.''

The latest Rohingya arrivals scuttled their rickety vessel on Thursday and waded ashore near the port of Kuraburi, in Phang Nga province, north of the international holiday island of Phuket.

Local authorities were told the men and boys would be handed to the Army, which has a base in the province of Ranong, further north on the border with Burma.

It was on a small, uninhabited island off the coast near the Army base that Rohingya were first secretly detained in 2009, then towed out to sea and cut adrift.

After that reprehensible treatment was revealed, boatloads were again handed over in the conventional manner to Thai Immigration officials. Immigration detained groups who landed on Phuket and south of Phuket earlier this year.

Because the Rohingya do not have citizenship, they cannot be officially returned to Burma. It is believed groups apprehended in Thailand earlier this year have been surreptitiously returned to the people traffickers.

Credit here
Teknaf, Bangladesh: About 17 people were rescued and around 138 were missing while a Malaysia voyage’s boat capsized in the Bay of Bengal on November 23, at night, according to an elder from Alaythankyaw, Maungdaw south.


The Rohingya boat-people dead body floating in the Naf River

“The boat was capsized between Saint Martin and Shapuri Dip Island at the Bay of Bengal of Burma side.”

“The boat was capsized while it attacked the rock between Saint Martin and Shapuri Dip Island.”

The Burmese border security force (Nasaka) and its collaborators boarded 155 Rohingya boat people – 120 from Maungdaw and 35 from Buthidaung- after collecting 300000 kyat per head where Nasaka took 30000 kyat per head, according to a school teacher from Maungdaw.

The camp-in-charge of Donkhali (Pa Yaunbang Gyi) Nasaka camp had given green signal to board the boatpeople from the Nasaka camp. The permission was issued by the Major Kyaw Aung, the commander of Nasaka area 7 as the Nasaka was involved in this trafficking of boat people, according to an aide of Nasaka.

The Nasaka collaborators are:- Abul Kalam, hailed from Lamba Ghona, Moslim, hailed from Dawn Khali, and Yasin from Konna Para- who are now hiding in the Donkhali (Pa Yaunbang Gyi) Nasaka camp because some of the concerned authorities from Maungdaw Town went to the spot to inquiry the event.

“The rescued 17 persons are being hidden by the Nasaka personnel as fear of exposing their involvement in the boatpeople trafficking. But, the Nasaka demands money from the rescued boatpeople to stay continuously in their villages,” the aide said

The dead bodies floating in the Naf River are not allowed to collect and bury by their relatives and villagers. The dead bodies were drowned in the sea by the Nasaka personnel after fastening heavy stone with dead bodies for destroying the evidences of the event.

The Rohingya community in northern Arakan is facing same as before such as discriminations - restriction of movement, marriage, education, health, employment and etc.-. Though there is some reforms appear to be marked in the Burma, the repression and oppression of the Rohingya community are not stopped, said a trader from Maungdaw.

The Nasaka is using the policy of “killing two birds in one shot” means the Nasaka is trying to reduce the population of Rohingya community from Arakan soil and earning money by giving permission to go abroad. But, there is no permission for Rohingya community to enter their homeland again.


Police in Kuraburi, Phang Nga province, have confirmed that 95 Rohingya landed on the island of Koh Phra Thong on Thursday morning. The island lies in the Andaman sea about 110km north of Phuket.

“We received a call from local villagers on the island saying that a boat full of Rohingya people had landed on the shore there, but by the time I got there the Army was already there,” Lt Col Akekachai Pueakmanee, Deputy Superintendent of Kuraburi Police Station, told the Phuket Gazette.

“The Army had already assembled all 95 of them at the Tung Laong Pier on the mainland,” he added.

Lt Col Akekachai did not specify how many of the refugees were men, women or children.

“An Army officer told us that all Rohingya of the ‘captured’ will be taken to the 2nd Infantry Battalion, 25th Military unit, Rattanarangson Camp, in Ratchakud District, Ranong province,” he said.

“I’m not sure if they will be sent to a third country or if they will remain in the camp,” he added.

The Gazette was told to call the Thai-Burma Border Patrol Police headquarters in Surat Thani, which is responsible for border patrol in the area where the Rohingya landed.

However, the officer the Gazette spoke with said he was unaware of the case and referred our reporter back to the police involved.

Lt Col Songsak Chanthep, who accompanied Lt Col Akekachai to Koh Phra Thong on Thursday, told us that, “The local villagers told me that Rohingya land on the shore of Koh Phra Thong every year.

“They seem to know that they will be safe if they make it to that spot,” he said.

Carlow, Ireland: Rohingya community of Ireland celebrated Rohingya Refugee Memorial Day (18th November-2011) and prayed magfreth for the soil of murders at new oak community centre with the present of some local and NGO bodies in Carlow, Ireland today.

Some Rohingya community members delivered theirs speeches. Mr Eliys, Mr Rabi, Mrs Hamida, Mr Rahied, Mr Osman and Mr Rafique aid on theirs important speech “As our experience of 17 years. Bangladesh has been playing an offensive unlimited time football game with the ball (Rohingya) against Burmese govt. for decades.

For being well founded fear of Burmese persecution approximately 265,000 Rohingya victims fled from their beloved homeland Burma on 1991-92 and the UN Refugee Agency has come to assist and protect them.


After a year passed Bangladesh govt started its commercial game with Rohingya refugees by forceful repatriation named voluntary repatriation. Its voluntary repatriation was a well planned forceful repatriation as a single, two; three members were repatriated by the police operation in the camp they took away even a single baby of a family to repatriate to Burma.


So refugees demonstrated against forceful named voluntary repatriation at all (19) camps in the same time. Bangladesh govt crackdown numeral polices to fire cats and dogs upon refugee protestors where over a thousand were killed and wounded in numeral.

Like that Bangladesh used its great plot to repatriate Rohingya forcefully in many term where no life security is denied.

Refugees also demonstrated 4 time against forceful repatriation.

No1.Referred on 1993.
No 2. On 1997 more than two hundreds innocent refugees were sent to jail.

No 3. On 6th February 1998 polices arrested an old man named Dil Mohammed, who was killed by beating at police custody at Kutupalong refugee camp to assent for repatriation complaining human traffic (which was completely fabricated ), from their operation.

So refugees hold demands to get rid of such killing and inhuman tortures with the hunger strike to draw attention of world governing bodies but it’s gone vain on 13th february 1998 when Bangladesh government recruited thousands of polices, Ansars, armies, arms forces and so on.

On that day our young leader Md Younus (23?) was killed by inhuman tortures, as putting sands in mouth when saying Allah, many were wounded and more than 100 innocent’s refugees were impressioned.

No 4. The final and important was occurred in 2004. Polices and govt office staffs hunt refugees to repatriate at nights such before. On June 6, 2004 at mid-night CIC (Camp In Charge), Abu Hurraira, with his staffs and polices, entered the camp and plot to arrest some innocent refugees but refugees in competed it with awaken all refugees.



Anyhow CIC compelled to flee to his office by shooting blank fire. Following day refugees started hunger strike again to draw kind attention of such sorts of government inhuman activisms raising demands to UNO, UN refugee agency and Bangladesh govt.

It was a great sorrow that on November 18, 2004 Bangladesh govt in competed the peaceful demonstration. They fired upon refugees and killed Ahsan Ullah(15), Saleh Ahammed(60) and Md Saber(28). see here



Rohingya refugees have signed the day as Rohingya refugee Memorial Day. After the following year we have been celebrating the day.

Alhamdulillah we could able to celebrate it in Ireland this year. I am requesting to the world governing bodies to notice the situation occurring upon Rohingya in the world.
We do not want to death in the sea like boat people any more"
Mrs Hamida said " Rohingya refugees have been facing rape, extortion, arbitrary arrest, human trafficking, fabricated cases and so on in Bangladesh refugees camps."

She also raised questions to the UNO members what is faded to luck of Rohingya in her speech.

All the speech deliverers feel the importance of the Rohingyas' national life to remember the sorrowful moments. And we also feel the assistance of United Nations and European Union as well as ASEAN for durable solution of Rohingya Nation.

Credit here


By Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison

PHUKET: Reports have reached Phuketwan that as many as eight boats laden with would-be refugees have set sail from Bangladesh and northern Burma in the past few days.

A more certain report says that a boatload of boys and men who sailed earlier this month was intercepted and ''helped on'' off the Thai island of Prayam in the border province of Ranong just yesterday.

If those reports are correct and if the departures continue at this rate, tourists on day-trips and fishermen off Phuket and the Andaman coast can expect to encounter Rohingya boatpeople at sea sometime soon this ''sailing season.''

The reason why so many departures are being reported after a couple of quieter sailing seasons lies with the new elected Parliament in Burma, and the people traffickers. 

After the tragic loss of hundreds of lives at sea because of the inhumane ''pushbacks'' from Thailand in 2008-2009, the Rohingya, treated as outcasts in their native Burma and in neighboring Bangladesh, bided their time. 

Their hope was that the new and seemingly more democratic government in Burma, elected last year, would provide them with citizenship and a chance at change. 

It didn't happen. Once the ''new'' Burma made plain in Parliament that the Rohingya would stay outcasts, the oppressed Muslim minority was left with no choice but to accept their status and cast themselves into the hands of people smugglers again. 

Observers fully expect the number of sailings this safe and tranquil season, when tourists pack the beaches of Phuket and the neighboring Andaman province of Phang Nga, to rival 2007-2008, when almost 5000 boatpeople landed in Thailand.

The Royal Thai Navy's ''help on'' policy, which replaced the reprehensible push-backs, may see a larger number of vessels sail past Thailand to what's believed to be their destination of preference, Muslim Malaysia. 

However, mystery so far surrounds the landing place of several Rohingya boats that have been confirmed interceptions at sea off Phuket and Phang Nga in the past few weeks. 

Silence is golden. The countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have agreed that Burma, so recently a pariah dictatorship, now deserves to chair the organisation in 2014 because of evidence of reform. 

Those reforms, however, do not include the Rohingya, who remain without citizenship and who are subjected to movement control and restrictions on marriage. 

So Asean, with the pea of real change somewhere under one of those thimbles, by default countenances Burma's appalling treatment of the Rohingya. 

The lack of concern is likely to rebound around the region if sunblackened and hungry boys and men begin to turn up once more in vast numbers on the shores of Thailand and Malaysia. 

Certain sailings occurred on October 16 (65 on board) October 24 (70) and October 25 (79). While one source says the two later sailings have landed in Malaysia, nothing more has been heard of the first boat. 

The boat that was intercepted and ''helped on'' off Prayam island yesterday is believed to be one of three boats reported to have sailed on November 5 and November 6. 

If eight more boats have set to sea since, and the average number of people on each boat is around 70, then the people smugglers must be rubbing their hands with glee at Asean's lack of interest, and at the prospect of thousands more Rohingya being pushed to sea by desperation between now and April.

Credit : here
Twenty-five year-old Abdul (not his real name) and other refugees who have been living in small sheds in Bangladesh for over 20 years had high hopes and dreams that the situation in Burma’s northern Arakan State, their homeland, would be changed after the 2010 elections. However, what they see is ongoing human rights abuses and discrimination against Rohingya people, so the situation is actually becoming worse day-by-day in Arakan State, Abdul said in a recent interview.


Rohingya refugees in Nayapara Official Refugee Camp

“Other refugees and I came to Bangladesh from Burma in 1991 and 1992 because of religious persecution and other human rights abuses such as forced labor, restrictions on our movement, marriage, and education, as well as land confiscation, arbitrary arrest and extortion, and because of denied rights of citizenship with ethnicity and equal rights in Arakan State.”

Abdul lives with his parents and elder brother in a small shed at Nayapara Official Refugee Camp under the supervision of UNHCR and the Bangladesh authorities.

“I live in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. I learnt up to class five in the camp, but I could not acquire higher education and could not go to high school or college because the Bangladesh authorities do not provide opportunities [for refugees] to get higher education.”

“The authorities only provide informal schools up to class five in the official Kutupalong and Nayapara camps.

“I hoped that it was a good chance for me and other refugees when the resettlement program was started by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 2006. I had also a dream and hope to go to abroad to another country through the UNHCR and learn more and more. But I couldn’t.”

According to a report titled Refugee Resettlement Statistics of IOM, the total figure of resettled Rohingya refugees from refugee camps in Bangladesh from 2006-2010 is 926. Most of them have been accepted by Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Norway, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, and the USA.

A Rohingya man who has arrived in a third country said, “We are enjoying our rights in a third country, and also can study here freely. But we are very sad because very few Rohingya refugees have been resettled in third countries.”

A schoolteacher from Nayapara Camp says, unfortunately, the resettlement program was halted by the Bangladeshi authorities in 2010 for unknown reasons.

The schoolteacher also says that those who continue living in Bangladeshi refugee camps are unable to see any future for the next generations.

However, the newly formed government of Burma has agreed to take back Rohingya refugees currently staying at two refugee camps in Cox's Bazar under the UNHCR, but no decision has been made concerning the large number of unregistered Rohingya living in Bangladesh, Foreign Secretary Mijarul Quayes told a news conference on October 15.

“Although the undocumented Burmese nationals do not have refugee status, we are not forcing them out of the country on humanitarian grounds,” Quayes said, adding that the Burmese authorities have agreed to discuss the undocumented Burmese refugees (mostly Rohingya) in the future.

Quayes also said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will visit Burma shortly, but the date for the visit has not been set. He expressed hope that during the visit, many bilateral issues, including border trade and coastal shipping, will be resolved.

Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister Dipo Moni yesterday told Assistant High Commissioner for Refugees Janet Lim that Bangladesh will not pursue a policy of forced Rohingya refugee repatriation.

Dipu Moni also said on November 20, that as a principled position, Bangladesh has never pursued ‘forced repatriation’ of refugees, according to a Foreign Ministry press release.

Bangladesh has been cooperating with the UNHCR to support the voluntary repatriation of the Rohingya refugees through diplomatic negotiations with Burma, Moni said.
All future repatriation of Rohingya to Burma should remain strictly voluntary, UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner Janet Lim stressed.
According to a group of refugees, “We will go back to our motherland if the Burmese authorities gives us citizenship with Rohingya ethnicity and equal rights as other ethnics groups.”

The refugees have the following demands:

(1) To be recognized as citizens of Burma with Rohingya ethnicity by the UN-recognized democratic government of Burma.

(2) To have equal rights like other ethnic groups in Burma

(3) To be provided compensations and returns of confiscated lands and other properties

(4) To see an end to human rights violations and racial discrimination, especially against Rohingya

(5) To have all political prisoners in Burma released, and for the government to give status to exiled Rohingya who live outside of Burma

(6) Not to be forcefully repatriated by Bangladeshi authorities.


A politician on condition of anonymity said that if the Burmese authorities do not grant full citizenship with ethnicity and equal rights to the Rohingya refugees, the refugees will never go back to Burma.

“More than 28,000 Rohingya are still living in two camps — Nayapara and Kutupalong — run by the UNHCR in Cox's Bazar. These are the remnants of some nearly 300,000 refugees who flocked into Bangladesh in 1991–92, alleging persecution by Burma’s military regime. Most of them were repatriated following the UNHCR's mediation.”

The politician also said, “We fled to Bangladesh from Burma because of persecution and human rights abuses by the military regime. We will not jump again into the same persecution and human rights abuses by the military regime. We would rather die in Bangladesh or elsewhere.”

Abdul and other refugees would like to urge the international community, the UNHCR, and Bangladeshi authorities to work to solve the Rohingya problem and to urge the Burmese authorities to recognize their citizenship with Rohingya ethnicity in Burma before any repatriation programs from Bangladesh are started.

Credit :Kaladan Press



Security guards at the Northern Immigration Detention Centre locked a man suffering from an electric shock in a room until he collapsed on November 15. The incident happened less than a week after the contract with the private firm that runs the centre was made public and revealed guards could be hired with no formal qualifications. 

The 700-page confidential contract between the federal government and private detention firm Serco to run Australia’s immigration detention network was published by independent news website New Matilda on November 9.

It revealed Serco has no obligation to be independently audited and must not allow the media any access to information or facilities.

New Matilda said the contract also allowed Serco to hire unqualified security staff, requiring that workers needed to gain only a Certificate II qualification within six months of starting work.

Kaye Bernard from the Christmas Island Workers Union told CorpWatch turnover of workers was high at most detention centres as workers burnt out quickly, so new underqualified staff came into the system frequently.

The Rohingya refugee in Darwin climbed an electrified fence to see friends in another part of the high-security compound.

Rohan Thwaites from the Darwin Asylum Seeker Advocacy and Support Network told Green Left Weekly that after the man received the shock, he was locked in an interview room with no medical attention or water for over an hour. He collapsed and was taken to hospital where he was treated for six hours.

Thwaites said the man was being “punished” by the guards. When he returned to NIDC, the guards again locked him in isolation.

At the same centre, a Kurdish refugee who was supposed to be under 24-hour suicide watch was able to lock himself in his room and severely hurt himself on the night on November 3.

Refugees had to cut down another Rohingya refugee when they found him hanging from a noose on November 13.

Ian Rintoul from the Sydney Refugee Action Coalition said the group believed four refugees were under “suicide watch” by Serco guards at NIDC.

But he said Serco’s suicide watch was “not about suicide prevention, it is about management damage control”.

He said refugees were put under “constant supervision and confinement”, which “is more likely to exacerbate their suicidal feelings”.

New Matilda also said the contract had a “performance and abatement” scheme, under which Serco would be rewarded or penalised for adherence to the contract.

But abatement, when Serco is found to have violated the contract, is minimal. The contract says that when Serco has indicated “significant failure” or “continuous failure”, the immigration department may fine Serco 5% of its monthly fee.

But CorpWatch said Serco had been fined for breaches “for every month that it has managed [detention centres] in Australia”. Serco was fined $4 million in first few months of this year, AAP reported on March 2.

An immigration department spokesperson told CorpWatch: “We cannot detail breaches, fines imposed or other issues related to Serco’s contract as they are considered commercial-in-confidence.”

However, an example of a “breach” may be the chronic understaffing at most detention centres.

The contract says Serco must ensure staff levels “are adequate”, but it gives no minimum ratio of staff to detainees. CorpWatch said the former manager of the Christmas Island detention centre, Ray Wiley, wrote to Serco that the centre was “typically 15 staff members short per day”.

Bernard said that during the huge Christmas Island protests by refugees earlier this year, staff were working 18-hour shifts for up to 21 days straight.

The contract also covers “duty of care” responsibilities of Serco and the immigration department, though they are vague. The contract requires “a complete view of each person in detention is maintained across multiple service providers” and that parties must “monitor the immigration and health and welfare outcomes for people in detention”.

Yet the latest events at NIDC, the recent suicide of Tamil refugee Shooty in Villawood detention centre, documented overmedication of many detainees and a prolonged mental health crises breaking out across the detention network show that “monitoring” is far from adequate.

The now publically available contract shows the continuous and serious failure of Serco to carry out any of its so-called responsibilities under the contract, so serious that refugees are trying to commit suicide daily in some centres.

However, the federal government refuses to sack Serco and take control of its detention centres. Rather, it has increased the value of the lucrative contract to almost $1 billion.

This is because the contract prevents Serco management and workers from revealing what really goes on inside detention centres, so the government does not have to answer to the crimes taking place.

All workers employed by Serco must sign a “confidentiality deed poll” and a “deed of non-disclosure”, and are prohibited from speaking to or sharing information with the media.

The contract also says Serco “must not provide access to the facilities for media visits” unless authorised. An unauthorised media visit is considered a “critical incident” in a detention centre, whereas clinical depression, childbirth and starvation for less than 24 hours are “minor”.

Under “duty of care” the contract explicitly says: “The department’s duty of care does not detract from the responsibilities of the Serco in the contract, and liability stays with the private company.”

But anonymous whistleblowers, pushed too far by Serco’s abuse of workers and refugees, have spoken out to media this year. The investigative work by New Matilda is a crucial step to challenging the transparency and accountability of the government and Serco.

And the brave, ongoing but often desperate protests by the detained refugees themselves — rooftop protests, hunger strikes, self-harm and even suicide — has brought much needed public attention to their plight
by refugeeactioncoalitionsydney


REFUGEE FAMILY MEMBERS KILLED IN ATTACK

Recent reports of an attack by the Burmese army on the small village of Serakparang in Ratheduang township, Western Myanmar has highlighted the plight of Rohingyan asylum seekers in limbo in Australian detention centres.

Serakparang is the home village of a Rohingyan refugee, Sayed Kasim, recently released from Villawood detention centre. Serakparang, which is inhabited by about 120 families, is a Muslim enclave surrounded by 24 Buddhist villages. It has been under military siege for the past week, according to reports from townspeople, received by Sayed.

Sayed Kasim managed to speak with his younger brother, who managed to escape. But women and children left behind are now un-contactable.

At 5pm on Tuesday 1 November, 3 members of the Burmese military (Nasaka) entered Serakparang with guns, and tried to rape women there. The villagers grabbed and beat them, killing two.

In the ensuing fights, Sayed’s niece’s husband was killed, while an aunt and elder cousin were among the 30 people critically injured. 40 villagers have been arrested and are being held in Rathedaung prison.

The military has surrounded the village, aiming to prevent anyone from getting in and or out.

“This kind of harassment by the military often happens in Rohingya villages, with soldiers trying to rape women, stealing people’s farmland and money,” Kasim told the Refugee Action Coalition.

The Rohingya are a repressed Muslim minority living in Western Myanmar. According to the most recent statistics, 34 Rohingyan refugees are currently in detention in Australia.

Three of those 34, presently in Darwin detention centre, have been in detention for two years or longer. One of the Darwin three, received his ASIO security clearance in October, eighteen months after being accepted as a refugee. The other two are still waiting.

“What is happening in Serakparang is typical of the situation of Ronhingyans in Burma,” said Ian Rintoul, from the Refugee Action Coalition. “No Rohingyan can live safely in Myanmar. It is completely unacceptable that Australia locks them up and considers them as some kind of security threat. They flee persecution only to suffer further persecution at the hands of Immigration and ASIO here.”

“The Immigration department should immediately release Rohingyans and all other asylum seekers from detention while ASIO conducts their security checks. ASIO itself told a parliamentary enquiry in October that it is not a requirement under the ASIO Act for boat arrivals to be detained during security processing.”

“There is no excuse for keeping people locked up. We urge the government to follow the advice of Paul Keating on Monday’s 7.30 program and welcome refugees.

“Chris Bowen has recently agreed to review the deportation to Egypt of a Christian family living in Melbourne. He should now also immediately review the situation of all Rohingya in detention, and release them into the community while their claims are processed, as would have happened if they had arrived by plane.’

Sayed Kasim is available for interview.

More information: contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713; Nick Riemer 0435 533 027

Protesters make their pleas behind detention centre fences in Darwin in July this year.

You've been detained for years and nobody can tell you when you'll get out. You are known by your number and you are a refugee, ALISON BEVEGE reports.
EVERY day you wake around 2pm.
Not because you're lazy but because it doesn't make a difference if your eyes are open or closed.
There's nothing to do and nowhere to go.
It was the same yesterday. Tomorrow and the day after will be the same.
You've been detained for years and nobody can tell you when you'll get out.

By Jay Fletcher


Rooftop protest by Rohingya refuges at Darwin detention centre in March. 

An eight-day protest on the rooftop at the Northern Immigration Detention Centre in Darwin ended shortly before five refugees “locked themselves in a room … where one man took an overdose of sleeping pills while the other four began cutting themselves,” the Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network (DASSAN) said on November 2.

Serco guards broke down the door and one man was taken to hospital. Two other refugee later tried to hang themselves.

Rohan Thwaites from DASSAN told Green Left Weekly the hospitalised man’s condition was unknown.

“It’s hard to know exactly what’s happening because the media is not allowed in. The department strictly controls what everyone sees,” he said.

The latest protests and incidents of self-harm followed months of similar actions, including hunger strikes and several cases of grave-digging. 

Thwaites said the situation in NIDC is now escalating. “As more reports of self-harm and suicide attempts come out, the situation is reaching boiling point. These incidents do feed on each other.

“It is very distressing for everyone when these kinds of things happen. Often other asylum seekers bear witness or are involved in trying to prevent it. Many suffer vicarious trauma and distress of having to be involved.”

Two refugees staged an eight-day protest on the roof of the Darwin detention centre. The Rohingya men were both found to be refugees in May last year, but have remained in detention for “security checks”. They have been in detention now for more than two years.

Thwaites said the protest showed their desperation. “It’s over 30°C everyday here [in Darwin]. It’s incredible that they were up there in these conditions.

“But getting up on a roof and holding a banner is really the last and only option they have to show how distressed they are.”

The men were pleading with the immigration department to have them moved into community accommodation while their security status is assessed by ASIO. But their calls appear to be going unheard.

“They ended their protest but they are still in detention. However this shows that their general release — the release of all asylum seekers — is something that needs to happen,” Thwaites said.

“The picture there is just one of regular, if not daily self-harm — it’s a humanitarian dictator and it’s getting worse.”

Despite frequent similar incidents taking place in the Darwin detention centre, the immigration department plans to soon open a second NT detention centre at Wickham Point, 35 kilometres from Darwin.

“DASSAN is very concerned about the opening of the Wickham detention centre. We’ve repeatedly called on the department to scrap its opening. It goes against all the evidence and even the statement by the department that they would hold more people in community detention,” Thwaites said.

The new planned centre is remotely located and too far from the services and support needed by refugees in detention.

DASSAN said the site was swamp-like with a high mosquito and midge infestation, and had previously been deemed too dangerous for human habitation.
Thwaites said: “If this centre does open — if it gets filled with 150 people — it will make NIDC look like a holiday camp. It’s going to be really horrendous out there.
“Unfortunately the government won’t yet listen to us and the multitude of parties out there saying that detention must end. We’ll keep advocating until the government starts to listen.”


Link: :http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/49320

WE, the undersigned, who work closely with refugees and asylum-seekers from Myanmar living in Malaysia, express our deep concern over two recent immigration-related developments that jeopardise the security of refugees and asylum-seekers in Malaysia.

Firstly, whilst we laud the government for considering the issue of over-crowding at detention centres, the detainee swap initiative between the Malaysian and Myanmar governments is not the appropriate solution. In fact, it could potentially put the lives of refugees and asylum-seekers at risk.

Ethnic and religious minorities in Myanmar have over the past 20 years been fleeing oppressive conditions of forced labour, confiscation of lands/homes, systematic rape, torture and other forms of religious and ethnic persecution, which has led to the exodus of hundreds of thousands of people. The majority of Myanmar nationals in Malaysia are persons fleeing such persecution.

Under the Malaysian Immigration Act 1959/1963, refugees and asylum-seekers too are detained in immigration detention centres. Unlike migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers have a well-founded fear of persecution in their homeland; hence they flee their country of origin “and cannot return home”. The principle of non-refoulement in Article 33 (1) of the 1951 Refugee Convention states that: “No contracting state shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” The deportation arising from the swap with Burma of immigration detainees contravenes this principle because of the presence of detainees in detention centres who are potentially refugees and asylum-seekers.

Secondly, during the 6P registration programme, it was highlighted that some refugee applicants received a “Slip Pendaftaran Pati” which contained a line that said “Tujuan: Pulang ke Negara Asal” (Intention: Return to Home Country). This is despite the fact that they are refugees recognised by the UNHCR. We call on the government to immediately rectify this error to prevent refugees from being refouled; and to recognise that any registration of refugees must be done in full collaboration with the UNHCR, within a framework that will recognise and protect their rights.

We therefore call on the government to:


-- Work in close collaboration with the UNHCR to ascertain and immediately release individuals who are refugees and especially asylum-seekers who have yet to lodge an asylum claim with the UNHCR;


-- Provide lawyers and NGOs access to detention centres to represent detainees who seek to lodge an asylum claim.


Health Equity Initiatives 
Lawyers for Liberty Women’s Aid OrganisationTenaganitaSuaramMalaysian Social Research Institute
Rohingya Exodus