Mohamed Farooq

RB Article

December 7, 2014 

The recent communal unrest to the Rohingya Muslims by majority Rakhine Buddhists in Rakhine (formerly Arakan) province of Burma has attracted global attention in the past few years, the latest action being the United Nations General Assembly’s human rights committee has approved a resolution urging Burma to allow its persecuted Rohingya minority "access to full citizenship on an equal basis" and to scrap its controversial identity plan. 

But Burma rejected the U.N. resolution urging it to grant citizenship to the Rohingya, a stateless minority group, and accused the United Nations of impinging on its sovereignty. 

There are more than one million Rohingya residing in Burma, mostly in the province of Rakhine. According to several UN reports, Rohingya is one of the most persecuted ethnic minorities in the world. 

The dictator military junta striped Rohingya off all the rights of citizens through a law called Citizenship Law in 1982, therefore making Rohingya one of the only stateless communities in the world. 

Who are the Rohingya people? 

The history of Rohingya community in Burma goes back to 8th century as they claim to be original settlers of Rakhine (Arakan) province in the country, while tracing their ancestry to Arab traders. Rohingya practice Sunni Islam. Because the government restricts educational opportunities for them, many pursue only basic Islamic studies. 

As of 2012, there are more than one million Rohingyas residing in Burma, most of them in the province of Rakhine. 

Rohingya persecution by Dictators Burmese Buddhist Regime 

This is not the first time that Rohingya Muslims were persecuted in Burma. In their history, such mass killings and exodus have happened several times. The annexation of the independent province of Rakhine in 1784 by the Burmese government came with discriminatory policies and persecution of Rohingya. They were marginalized and the Burmese government put several restrictions on their movement, their marriage, and constantly confiscated their land and drove them to annihilation. It is said as many as 35,000 Rohingya people fled to the neighboring Chittagong region of British Bengal in 1799 to avoid Burmese persecution and seek protection from British India. The Burmese rulers executed thousands of Arakanese men and deported a considerable portion of the Rohingya population to central Burma, leaving Arakan as a scarcely populated area by the time the British occupied it. 

During World War II, Japanese forces invaded Burma, then under British colonial rule. The British forces retreated and in the power vacuum left behind, considerable violence erupted. This included communal violence between Buddhist Rakhine people and Muslim Rohingya villagers. The period also witnessed violence between groups loyal to the British and Burmese nationalists. The Rohingya supported the Allies during the war and opposed the Japanese forces. The Japanese committed atrocities toward thousands of Rohingya, including rape, torture, and murder. In this period, some 22,000 Rohingya are believed to have crossed the border into Bengal, then part of British India, to escape the violence. Some 40,000 Rohingya eventually fled to Chittagong after repeated massacres by the Burmese and Japanese forces. 

The prominent one was “King Dragon Operation" which took place in 1978; as a result, many Muslims in the region fled to neighboring country Bangladesh as refugees. Over 200,000 Rohingya are said to have fled to Bangladesh following the ‘King Dragon’ operation of the Burma army. Officially this campaign aimed at “scrutinizing each individual living in the state, designating citizens and foreigners in accordance with the law and taking actions against foreigners who have filtered into the country illegally.” This military campaign, in effect, directly targeted civilians, and resulted in widespread killings, rape and destruction of mosques and further religious persecution. 

During 1991-92 a new wave of atrocities forced over a quarter of a million Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. They reported widespread forced labor, as well as summary executions, torture, and rape. They said they were forced to work without payment by the Burmese army on infrastructure and economic projects, often under harsh conditions. Many other human rights violations occurred in the context of forced labor of Rohingya civilians by the security forces.

The present situation of Rohingya 

Since June 2012 ethnic violence, thousands of vulnerable Rohingya were brutally killed, more than 1500 innocent Rohingya sentenced to long term imprisonments with no legal crime, many Rohingya women and girls were critically gang raped in several villages of different localities, about 140,000 people were displaced forcibly under open sky, vandalism and arson to the houses, religious schools and Mosques etc. Human strategy is continued by Thein Sein’s junta in Arakan and other areas of ethnics. 

The violence has since spread amidst a wave of hate speech targeting all of Burmese Muslims, led by extremist monk, Wirathu and his followers around the whole Burma. Racist Wirathu leads a 969 anti-Muslim campaign which is certified by government. 

The increasing human rights abuses and arbitrary detention of Rohingya in Rakhine state of Burma. 

It is the duty of security forces to defend the rights of everyone without exception or discrimination from abuses by others, while abiding by human rights standards themselves, said Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International's Burma Researcher. 

The group accused both security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists of increasing attacks on the Rohingya Muslims, killing, rape, arbitrary detention of Rohingya and destroying their properties, urging the Burmese authorities to put an end to the violent action. Amnesty International has also received credible reports of other human rights abuses against Rohingya and other Rakhine Muslims including physical abuse, rape, destruction of property, and unlawful killings carried out by both Rakhine Buddhists and security forces, said the group in its report. 

Right groups have called on Burmese Parliament to amend or repeal the 1982 Citizenship Law to ensure that Rohingya are no longer stateless. 

Under international human rights law and standards, no one may be left or rendered stateless. For too long Burma human rights record has been marred by the continued denial of citizenship for Rohingya and a host of discriminatory practices against them, concluded the report. 

Decades of discrimination have left the Rohingya Muslims stateless, with Burma implementing restrictions on their movement and withholding land rights, education and public services, according to another report released by Turkish charity group the Humanitarian Aid Foundation. 

Rohingya are seen as foreigners by nationalist Burma leaders and extremist Buddhists and are denied citizenship by the government because it considers them illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, do not have the freedom to travel. In order to travel from one village to another, they have to pay money to the government. 

There is a great number of Rohingya Muslims who are detained, subjected to torture and raped, adding that it was difficult to accurately determine their identities or numbers. 

Rohingya are not allowed to renovate their mosques or schools, adding that anyone caught renovating these buildings would be sent to jail. A new mosque or school has not been built in over 40 years. 

Rohingya cannot benefit from the social services provided by the state, including health services, adding that Rohingya do not have the right to work in government offices. Rohingya can be forced to work for Buddhists or the government without any payment. A human catastrophe is happening in Burma which needs immediate attention of the world community. The world community should intervene into this inhuman genocide that has been happening in Burma for a long time. 

Lee Yang-hee, a UN Special envoy to Burma said, “I thought there could be no other hell." She was describing her first visit to the Rohingya camps for IDP people in Rakhine state. In the wet season, the water floods up to knees in the camps. They don't have any freedom of movement. The children there don't have food rations, so the adults would starve and give their rations to the children. Despite having lived there for generations, Rohingya are denied citizenship. They face constant persecution and discrimination. 

"The problems facing the Rohingya are among the most desperate human crises in Asia today," said Murray Hiebert, deputy director of Southeast Asia Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "With thousands of Rohingya fleeing on boats for Thailand and Malaysia, this problem stretches far beyond the borders of Burma." 

The deteriorating situation in the camps along with increasing reports of arbitrary arrests and detainment in northern parts of Rakhine have led to a rapid increase in Rohingya fleeing the country, according to Chris Lewa, director of the advocacy group Arakan Project. Lewa said that hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled since Oct. 15. The exodus by boat is one of the largest in Asia since the end of the Vietnam War. The situation is getting worse and worse, degenerating all the time, Lewa said. 

Some Rohingya who flee Burma encounter situations worse than those back home. An extensive human-trafficking ring emerged to exploit the desperate migrants, and many who do arrive safely to Thailand or Malaysia report that finding steady work and fair pay is becoming harder. 

Mohamed Farooq is a Rohingya activist, lives in Norway. He can be reached at mfqmyint@gmail.com

By Ruhani Kaur

Live Mint

December 6, 2014

At a time when India-Myanmar relations are improving, Rohingya refugees in the Capital are struggling to rebuild their lives

By Todd Pitman 

Associated Press

December 5, 2014

Bangkok -- A leader of ethnic Kachin rebels fighting in Myanmar said Friday that trust in the country's military-dominated government was at an all-time low despite years of peace talks aimed at resolving the conflict in the country's jade-rich north.

But rebel Gen. Sumlut Gun Maw told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview that the insurgent group was still committed to dialogue because it is "the only way forward."

Fighting between the army and Kachin insurgents flared anew in 2011, ending a 17-year-ceasefire and forcing more than 120,000 people from their homes. Since then, Myanmar President Thein Sein's administration has agreed to tentative truces with 14 insurgent factions, but it has been unable to secure a deal with the Kachin or broker a broader, nationwide ceasefire with a rebel alliance that top government negotiators have met with regularly since last year.

"Our trust in the government and the army is lower now than when we started talking," Gun Maw said during a visit to Bangkok. "But the lack of trust is why talks are necessary."

Already strained negotiations were dealt a severe blow on Nov. 19 when the army fired a pair of 105mm artillery shells at a Kachin military academy just north of their headquarters in Laiza on the Chinese border, killing 23 people and injuring 20. Only four of the wounded were part of the Kachin rebel organization, however. The rest were members of other allied ethnic groups who had come for training, said Gun Maw, who serves as vice chief of staff of the Kachin Independence Army.

Both sides have accused each other of initiating firefights in recent months, and rebels say Myanmar's army is still firing shells sporadically at Kachin outposts from hills they seized during a weeks-long offensive that ended in January 2013.

Gun Maw said the rebels' main aim was to achieve equal rights and autonomy within a federalist system, an idea first enshrined in the so-called Panglong agreement of 1947 ? which was sealed with ethnic groups who make up about 40 percent of the population. The deal fell apart after national independence hero Gen. Aung San was assassinated the same year and has been generally ignored by the authoritarian military regimes that followed.

A major stumbling block to any deal, Gun Maw said, is the army's insistence that rebels accept the military-drafted 2008 constitution, which deprives ethnic minorities the right to self-determination. The charter also ensures military domination over the government, giving the armed forces chief more power than the president ? including the extraordinary "right to take over and exercise state sovereign power" if an emergency is deemed to threaten the union. It also ensures that 25 percent of lawmakers are military appointees who retain veto power over all constitutional amendments.

"Ultimately they don't want to change the 2008 constitution because doing so would reduce their power," Gun Maw said. "Their approach to negotiations has been, 'You have to listen to our demands.'"

Another sticking point is the future of the ethnic armies who control a vast patchwork of territories along Myanmar's northern and eastern borders. There has been no agreement on whether they would lay down their arms or join a federal army, and Gun Maw said that would only be discussed after a general political agreement is eventually reached.

RB News 

December 5, 2014 

Maungdaw, Arakan – A pregnant Rohingya woman died at Maungdaw hospital and her dead body was abused by Myanmar’s Border Guard Police (BGP) while on the way to her village for burial. The men accompanying her body were extorted and tortured. 

On December 3rd, a pregnant Rohingya woman named Hasina d/o Fazal Ahmed, age 35, from Kyauk Pando village of Maungdaw Township had difficulty delivering her baby at home. Her family sent her to Maungdaw Township hospital to assist with delivery and complications. But as the discrimination against Rohingyas is pervasive, she did not get proper treatment. She died at the hospital. 

On the next day, Abdur Raukeem s/o Fazal (Age 45) and Abu Halam s/o Sirazu (Age 38) took her dead body from the hospital to Kyauk Pando village which is in southern part of Maungdaw Township. Their car was stopped by BGP police at Oo-Daung village and the men who are accompanying her body were tortured without questioning. Later they were extorted Kyat 150,000. 

In an especially inhumane and cruel act the BGP police kicked the dead body of Hasina like a football three times, according to locals. 

Myanmar’s BGP police in Maungdaw district have been behaving as licensed robbers and thugs since the time it formed. Although the union government led by Thein Sein is well informed, recently Thein Sein said accusations against the BGP are media fabrication. As tortures and extortion are increasing day by day, it is clear that persecution against Rohingyas is state policy and the police and military in Maungdaw district were instructed to persecute the Rohingyas.

By Joshua Carroll

Anadolu Agency

December 5, 2014

President Thein Sein passes draft laws that stops Buddhist women marrying outside their religion

YANGON -- Myanmar is set to adopt marriage laws that rights groups fear will trample women’s rights and fuel religious discrimination.

A group of ultranationalist Buddhist monks, known as Mabatha, have spearheaded a campaign to require Buddhist women to seek permission to marry men of other religions.

The monks – who have been accused of inspiring sectarian violence against non-Buddhists, particularly Rohingya Muslims – claim interfaith marriage leads to forced conversions and is eroding Myanmar’s national identity, which many people consider deeply entwined with Buddhist faith.

The package of laws has been approved by President Thein Sein and is due to be debated by parliament next month.

The bill also proposes limiting the number of children people can have in certain regions and require anyone wishing to change religion to get government permission, a process that would take months.

In an interview with The Anadolu Agency on Thursday, Tun Tun Oo, a Christian campaigner, said: “No-one should be able to control another person’s faith. The Interfaith Marriage Law goes against international human rights law and our own constitution.”

Myanmar's 55 million population is 89 percent Buddhist with Muslims and Christians both making up around 4 percent of the population.

The draft law places no restrictions on Buddhist men who wish to marry outside their faith while women must seek permission from local authorities and post a public notice of their engagement.

The couple must cancel their marriage if there are any objections or face two years in prison.

“The proposed law is based on discriminatory beliefs that women are generally physically and mentally weaker than men and therefore need to be supervised and protected,” an alliance of civil society groups stated earlier this year.

Observers say Sein has submitted to religious nationalists in a bid to gain popular support before next year’s election.

The president won praise from foreign governments for introducing sweeping reforms in the former pariah state in 2011 but Monday’s decision to approve the draft laws is the latest apparent example of Sein courting extreme nationalist sentiment.

Hundreds have died and more than 140,000 have been displaced in sporadic outbursts of mostly Buddhist-led rioting since 2012. The majority of the victims have been Muslims.

Human Rights Watch called on Myanmar’s parliament earlier this year to scrap the law, which it said was “stoking communal tensions” and would “politicize religion.”

By UNHCR

December 5, 2014

GENEVA – A new UNHCR report released on Friday has found that more people are risking their lives on smugglers' boats in South-East Asia despite the prospect of violence en route.

The refugee agency estimates that 54,000 people have undertaken irregular maritime journeys in the region so far this year, based on reports by local sources, media and survivors. This includes some 53,000 people leaving from the Bay of Bengal towards Thailand and Malaysia, and hundreds of others moving further south in the Indian Ocean.

The outflow from the Bay of Bengal tends to peak in October, when calmer waters follow the end of the rainy season. Departures this October surged more than in previous years. Some 21,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshis have set sail since then, a 37-per cent increase over the same period last year. About 10 per cent are believed to be women. Roughly a third of arrivals interviewed by UNHCR in Thailand and Malaysia were minors under 18 years of age. Children as young as eight years old are known to have made the journey alone.

In total some 120,000 people are believed to have embarked on these voyages in the Bay of Bengal since the start of 2012. With payments ranging from US$1,600 to US$2,400 demanded for each passenger, smugglers plying this route are believed to have generated nearly US$250 million in revenue in the last three years. While the majority of people paid smugglers for the journey, there were isolated accounts of people who said they were forced onto boats, sometimes at gunpoint, in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Conditions on the smugglers' boats were dire. Survivors consistently described overcrowded conditions and daily rations of one sparse meal and one to two cups of water. People who asked for more or tried to use the toilet out of turn were beaten or kicked down ladders by the armed crew on the deck above. An estimated 540 people have reportedly died this year at sea from such beatings, starvation or dehydration, and their bodies thrown overboard.

In Thailand, survivors told UNHCR staff that they were ferried from the big boats on smaller boats to the mainland. There they were held in smugglers' camps and made to call relatives to pay for their release. When payment was not immediate, they were beaten or subjected to other acts of torture.

Since last year, hundreds of people are alleged to have died in the camps from illness, starvation, dehydration and killings by smugglers when they tried to escape or could not pay.

According to survivor accounts, raids by law enforcement agencies in Thailand since the beginning of the year seem to have led to a marked reduction in the number and size of smugglers' camps in the country. Some of the survivors UNHCR interviewed had gone through the camps more than once. They were rescued in government raids, placed in immigration detention, then opted for deportation or escaped and re-entered the smuggling cycle to escape the prospect of indefinite detention.

Rohingya and Bangladeshis who arrived in Thailand in recent months have been systematically screened by government teams to assess the potential for human trafficking. If found to be victims of trafficking, they are transferred to shelters to facilitate their rehabilitation and investigations of suspected smugglers. UNHCR hopes that this screening can be expanded to an assessment of all international protection needs.

Most arrivals in Malaysia crossed by land from Thailand and were kept in holding houses in northern Malaysia, usually for a few days. UNHCR staff met a teenage girl who married a Rohingya man after he paid for her and her brother's release from a holding house.

As a result of the abuse and deprivations they suffered on smugglers' boats and camps, this year nearly 200 people approached UNHCR in Malaysia with beri beri disease, a form of Vitamin B1 deficiency that left them unable to walk.

Several boats arrived directly in Malaysia from the Bay of Bengal this year. Nearly 300 people who arrived on three boats were arrested. UNHCR has been able to access people from the first two boats and is seeking access to the third group. Yet others arrived by boat undetected and are living in the community.

Two-way boat traffic continued between Indonesia and Malaysia, with some Rohingya moving to Indonesia after spending some time in Malaysia. More than 100 Rohingya were registered with UNHCR in Indonesia this year.

UNHCR staff spoke to some Rohingya who tried to sail onward to Australia but returned due to bad weather, engine failure or interception by Australian authorities.

This year to date, there were 10 known interceptions of boats carrying 441 people hoping to reach Australia. Seven boats with 205 people were returned to Indonesia. All but one of 79 passengers on two boats were returned to Sri Lanka. Separately 157 people on a boat from India were transferred from the Australian mainland to an offshore processing centre in Nauru, where they remain detained.

Of the more than 6,500 people of concern to UNHCR who travelled by sea and were put in detention in the region, more than 4,600 were held in Australia or the offshore processing centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

By Kyaw Phyo Tha

The Irrawaddy

December 4, 2014

RANGOON — The lack of a response by President Thein Sein and Burma Army chief Min Aung Hlaing following a recent Parliament-endorsed proposal to hold six-party talks with key political players in Burma indicates that the issue of constitutional reform could hit political deadlock, according to political analysts and opposition lawmakers.

They said it signals that the Thein Sein administration and the powerful Burma Army appear unified in their opposition to reforming the controversial and undemocratic charter, a position they warn that could ultimately lead to public unrest.

“It’s questionable whether they really want to make amendments to the Constitution,” said Min Thu, a lawmaker with the National League for Democracy (NLD). “If they cared about the people, these kinds of talks would happen.”

Ko Ni, a leading member of Burma Lawyers’ Network, said Parliament appeared to be at odds with the government and the army on the issue of constitutional reform.

“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Parliament foresee the deadlock so they proposed the [six-party] talks to overcome it. But the president and the commander-in-chief want to stick to what the Constitution says,” he said. “It seems that they want to govern the country with 2008 Constitution forever, if possible.”

He said, “The army should be under the government control and we want an army that has nothing to do with politics,” adding that a lack constitutional reform “might lead to a general strike, and we don’t want to see that.”

On Nov. 25, Myint Tun of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) put forth a proposal urging the president, the army chief, the speakers of the Upper and Lower Houses, Suu Kyi and a representative of the ethnic parties to convene soonest to discuss charter reform.

The proposal was passed in a joint session of both Houses of Parliament, and the bloc of military lawmakers did not object.

In the days that followed, however, it became clear that the government and military were reluctant to follow through with the proposal. Minister of Information Ye Htut told Radio Free Asia that a six-party meeting would be “impractical.” The army chief reportedly told members of the Karen National Union during a meeting that he would not accept six-party talks, as he would like to include more stakeholders.

Just days before President Obama’s visit on Nov. 13, a meeting was called with 14 stakeholders, including Suu Kyi, Thein Sein, the army chief and parliament speakers, but it was a purely symbolic meeting without substantive discussions.

Suu Kyi has been calling for charter reform for several years now. The Constitution is widely viewed as undemocratic and reviled by most of public as a mechanism for the army to retain power after decades of direct rule.

It contains clauses that grant the army significant political powers, such as control over a quarter of Parliament, an arrangement that give the military effective veto power over charter reform. Article 59(f) blocks anyone with foreign children or spouse from the presidency, a clause that would prevent Suu Kyi assuming the position following a NLD victory in next year’s general elections.

The USDP and its chairman and Parliament Speaker Shwe Mann, who has announced he plans to run for the presidency in 2015, have appeared willing to discuss some constitutional reforms.

Myint Tun, the USDP lawmaker who put forth the proposal, said, now is the time for all key players to come together and deal with the charter reform. “They seemed surprised that the Parliament approved my proposal,” he said of the president and the army chief’s reaction.

“The Parliament passed it, I think, as it’s timely,” Aung Cho Oo, a USDP lawmaker, said of the six-party talks proposal. He added that many lawmakers were discussing the issue of reform among themselves.

It is unclear what charter reforms the USDP has in mind. In October, USDP and military lawmakers voted down a NLD proposal suggesting that Article 436 be amended. The article states that changes to key parts of charter can only take place when more than 75 percent of Parliament votes in favor, a clause that gives the military bloc effective veto power over reforms.

Asked what charter reforms the USDP wants to see, Aung Cho Oo said, “Everyone in Parliament wants to change the Constitution, [but] which clauses they want to change differs.”

Regardless of the USDP’s intentions, the current situation raises questions about the relations between the NLD, the USDP, the speakers of the Houses of Parliament and the Thein Sein government and the army. The latter two institutions seem intent on clinging to their entrenched powers and reluctant to move reform discussions forward.

Yan Myo Thein, an independent political commentator, warned that the government and army are steering the country towards a political impasse and growing public anger over the lack of charter reforms.

“If they don’t come up with a proposal, both international and local community would regard the government and army as having no interest at all in national reconciliation, constitutional amendments and the peace process,” he said.

“If they keep rejecting, it would be bad for the country. Changes in the country would stall and probably lead to a political deadlock—and tensions between the army and the people will mount,” Yan Myo Thein said.

RB News 

December 4, 2014 

Maungdaw, Arakan – Eight Rohingyas from Kyauk Hlay Ghar village of Northern Maungdaw Township in Arakan State were sentenced to two years for refusing to participate in census conducted by Border Guard Police (BGP). 

On August 1st, 2014 the Border Guard Police conducted a census in the name to register Rohingya as illegal Bengali immigrants at Kyauk Hlay Ghar village in Northern Maungdaw Township. As the census referred to Rohingya as illegal Bengali immigrants the Rohingya villagers refused to participate. Although the whole village refused, nine Rohingyas were targeted and arrested. One of them was released on that day and eight were tried and sentenced to two years prison with hard labor. 

The court decision was made on December 2, 2014 at Maungdaw Township court, according to locals. They were tried under Burma panel code 353 which is assaulting a public servant during the time they are on duty. The arrestees didn’t convince anyone in the village to refuse participation in the census nor organized any event to deny the unofficial census conducted by BGP. They simply stayed at home not willing to participate if the term ‘Rohingya’ is forbidden. The authorities targeted against them for the term “Rohingya” and they were punished unjustly. 

During the hearing at the court, the families were not allowed to attend and the arrestees were not allowed to hire a lawyer. 

The eight innocent Rohingyas who were imprisonment for two years with hard labour are: 

(1) Zahir Ahmed s/o Abdu Subhan (Age 50) 

(2) Noor Alam s/o Sayedul Rawn (Age 42) 

(3) Mahmed Noor s/o Noor Alam (Age 25) 

(4) Idris s/o Zahir Ahmed (Age 18) 

(5) Mawzid s/o Mamed Alam (Age 17) 

(6) Zafar s/o Noor Alam (Age 25) 

(7) Hafiz Shawbu Alam s/o Mohammed Iqbal (Age 28) 

(8) Ameen s/o Ahmed Kabir (Age 18)

By RFA

December 4, 2014

Myanmar’s President Thein Sein approved a controversial religion and family planning draft law on Wednesday and submitted it to parliament amid renewed criticism from rights advocates who say it discriminates against Muslims and women in the conservative, predominantly Buddhist country.

Lawmakers will debate the legislation, which imposes restrictions on interfaith marriages, religious conversions and family size, in the next parliamentary session, according to reports.

It is part of a series of four laws on marriage, religion, polygamy and family planning proposed by a Buddhist organization called the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, which is connected to a nationalist Buddhist monk group.

The law, in part, would require Myanmar citizens who want to change their religion to seek various bureaucratic permissions, although penalties for violators are not stated, according to a report by Agence France-Presse.

It also set out rules governing marriages between Buddhist women and men of other faiths, requiring couples to apply to local authorities, who then would display a public notice of the engagements, reports said.

Couples can marry only if there are no objections, but if they violate the law, they could face two years of imprisonment.

“We assume that this draft law was released because the government wants to discriminate against a particular nationality and religion,” Khun Jar from the Kachin Peace Network, a Yangon-based humanitarian organization that assists civilians displaced by conflict in northern Myanmar, told RFA.

“This law is one that the government should reject if it wants people to live in peace as many ethnicities and religions live together in this country. It is a shame for all Myanmar citizens that this kind of issue is being discussed by parliament.”

Calls for laws aimed at protecting race and religion in Myanmar have gained momentum since violence broke out between Buddhists and Muslims in the Buddhist-majority nation in 2012 following decades under tightly controlled military rule.

The violence has left more than 200 people dead and about 140,000 displaced, mostly Muslims.

Although the draft law published does not mention any specific religion, it has prompted speculation that it could be aimed at preventing Muslims from trying to coerce Buddhist women into abandoning their faith for marriage or otherwise.

Targets certain regions

Ko Ni, a legal advisor for the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, told RFA that the bill was discriminatory.

“This kind of law should be for the entire country, but it is [targeting] certain regions of the country,” he said, implying that the policy was designed for ethnic Muslim Rohingya families who live in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state and are banned from having more than two children.

“According to this draft law, people from some regions can have as many children as they want, but it’s controlled for people from other regions.”

Representatives from civil society groups also said the bill discriminated against women.

“In this draft law, women in Myanmar can’t get divorced because of the rules on sharing property,” said Khun Jar. “But they can be abused by men if they want to divorce the women. I think this law doesn’t protect women, and it’s like women are being asked to enter into a marriage trap.”

Aung Myo Min, executive director of rights group Equality Myanmar, said of the legislation, “Controlling births should be a family decision, but this is like human beings be regarded as machines.”

A November 2014 report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom condemned the four race and religion bills, arguing that, if enacted, they would discriminate against non-Buddhists—especially Muslims—when it comes to religious conversions, marriages and births.

In May, New York-based Human Rights Watch urged Myanmar to ditch the proposed religion law, saying it would encourage further repression and violence against Muslims and other religious minorities.

But not everyone believes the legislation is totally negative.

“Generally, it is a good law, but it is important to know if it is needed in this country,” said Tha Nyan, general secretary of the Interfaith Friendship Organization. “People convert to other religions for many reasons, but it should be based upon belief, and in this law we saw wording to prevent conversions for other reasons.”

However, he said, if such a law unfairly favored men over women in such matters, it would constitute a violation of human rights.

Reported by Myo Zaw Ko and Khin Khin Ei for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

By AFP

December 3, 2014

YANGON: Myanmar’s president has approved a set of controversial draft religious laws inspired by radical Buddhist monks and sent them to parliament, officials said Wednesday, prompting rights groups to voice alarm over the divisive nature of the proposals.

The draft legislation — including curbs on interfaith marriage, religious conversion and birth rates — will be debated by MPs and voted on in the coming parliamentary session, according to president’s office director Zaw Htay.

“The president had to draft the bills, but it is (parliament’s) responsibility to enact them,” he told AFP.

Rising Buddhist chauvinism — and the government’s apparent willingness to acquiesce to it — has sparked fears that religion could becoming increasingly politicised as the former junta-run nation heads towards crunch 2015 elections.

The drafts were initially proposed by a group of nationalist monks known as “Mabatha”, or the Committee for the Protection of Nationality and Religion, who have been accused of fanning intolerance in Buddhist-majority Myanmar after several outbreaks of violence against minority Muslims.

Opponents of the bills say they are discriminatory.

“These bills claim to be to protect women, but they are drafted against women’s will,” Ma Khin Lay, founder of rights organisation Triangle Women’s Group Support, told AFP. “It is discrimination and control.”

The campaigner, who along with other women’s rights activists has faced threats for her opposition to the bills, said requirements for a host of official permissions would create further opportunities for misuse of power in a state system riddled with corruption.

A draft of the marriage bill was published in Myanmar language state media on Wednesday, laying out a web of rules governing marriage between Buddhist women and men of other faiths.

Couples would have to apply to local authorities — and the woman’s parents if she is under 20 — and a notice would be displayed publicly announcing the engagement. Only if there were no objections could the nuptials take place.

The penalty for non-compliance would be two years in prison.

The religious conversion draft, published earlier this year, would also require anyone wanting to change religion to seek a slew of bureaucratic permissions.

That bill “has no place in the 21st century”, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which warned that together the proposals risk stoking violence and discrimination.

A Mabatha leaflet claimed the ills of inter-faith marriage range from rape, murder and forced conversion to “not saluting the Myanmar national flag”.

By Paul Vrieze 

The Irrawaddy

December 3, 2014

By Aye Nai

Democratic Voice of Burma

December 3, 2014

By Naing Kun Een

Voice of America

December 3, 2014

SANGKLABURI, THAILAND — Twelve of Myanmar's ethnic rebel groups have announced the establishment of a Federal Army, a move likely to anger the national government.

The new force, called the Federal Union Army (FUA), will be under the supervision of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), an umbrella group that has been trying to negotiate a nationwide cease-fire between ethnic minorities and the national military.

Major Khun Okkar, co-secretary of the UNFC, tells VOA the new force will be vital in national peace efforts.

“FUA is the military force of UNFC and will follow the political trend of UNFC. Therefore, in accordance with UNFC policy, FUA must support the peace process and efforts to get the nationwide cease-fire agreement. It must also monitor the ground situation getting after the nationwide cease-fire agreement," said Okkar.

But it is not clear if the new force will help or hinder the prospects for peace. The government has not yet reacted to the announcement, but officials have previously expressed strong opposition to the formation of the Federal Army.

In an exclusive interview with VOA last week, Army Chief General Min Aung Hlaing said Myanmar, like any other country, can only have one national military force. However, he did not say how the government or the army would react to the formation of the FUA.

"There are differences in defining federalism in the constitution written by UNFC and [Myanmar's] constitution. They form FUA according to their definition. In fact, we already have Tatmadaw [Union of Myanmar Army] like all nation states have their own national army. But there is not two or three national armies in any nation. Not in the United States, not in neighboring India, China, Thailand nor in Bangladesh," said Hlaing.

The new force has the support of most of the ethnic minority groups in Myanmar, also known as Burma. Among the country's major ethnic rebel groups, only the Wa have refused to participate in the FUA.

This report was produced in collaboration with the VOA Burmese service.

By Matthew Pennington

Associated Press

December 3, 2014

By The Irrawaddy

December 2, 2014

RANGOON — A controversial legislative package commonly known as the “protection of race and religion laws” has been submitted to Burma’s legislature and will be up for debate during the next parliamentary session in January 2015.

President’s Office Director Zaw Htay, also known as Hmuu Zaw, wrote on social media on Monday that the four bills—which include new regulations on religious conversion, interfaith marriage, population control and monogamy—were tabled late last week and drafts are now viewable on the Ministry of Information website.

The bills, first proposed by the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion (known in Burmese as Ma Ba Tha), have been controversial from the outset, fielding criticism from women’s rights advocates and several of Burma’s ethnic and religious minorities.

Critics argue that enacting the bills would create unnecessary obstacles to religious freedom, and that the laws would undermine women’s ability to make independent choices about their faith, partner and family.

A proposed Marriage Bill would require Buddhist women to seek permission from local authorities before marrying a man of another faith, while the Religious Conversion Bill creates new legal criteria for changing faiths. The conversion policy has received particular scorn from some of Burma’s minority faiths, including Christians and Muslims, who have historically been subject to religious persecution by the former military regime.

But the legislation has also drawn supporters, most recently in late October, when Buddhist monk U Wirathu helped to organize a demonstration of thousands who marched through the streets of Mandalay demanding that the bills be swiftly implemented. U Wirathu is a key backer of the legislation and a central figure in the Ma Ba Tha. He is also associated with a Buddhist nationalist movement in Burma that is widely perceived anti-Muslim.

Buddhist-majority Burma has grappled with ethnic and religious tension for decades, but in recent years the issue has become a fixture of political discourse as inter-communal violence between Buddhists and Muslims broke out in several parts of the country. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and more than 200 have died in a rash of riots beginning in mid-2012 that has overwhelmingly uprooted Muslim communities.

The Ma Ba Tha came to prominence after the conflict, premised on preserving Burma’s dominant Buddhist identity. The legislation was first proposed in mid-2013.

According to Zaw Htay’s statement, the Religious Conversion Bill and the Population Bill were submitted to Parliament by the Union Government on Nov. 24th, while the Interfaith Marriage Bill and the Monogamy Bill were submitted by the Union Attorney General on Nov. 26th.

While new legislation is typically published in state media for public review before parliamentary debate, only one of the proposed laws, the Religious Conversion Bill, has been published in state newspapers. The remaining three were published on the Ministry of Information website in Burmese language on Dec. 1, 2014.

This article was updated on Dec. 4 to clarify that the current version of a proposed Marriage Bill does not require non-Buddhist men to convert to Buddhism before marrying a Buddhist. The provision was part of an earlier version of the bill, proposed by the Ma Ba Tha, which has since been revised.

Thousands of Myanmar's displaced Rohingya Muslims, who are camping across several states in India, are grappling with a dire situation there, Press TV reports. 

We have crossed borders to “reach India to save our lives. Thank God, we have life. But, we are facing acute shortage of food, medicine and clothing,” a Rohingya Muslim told Press TV at a camp on the outskirts of New Delhi. 

“We don’t even have toilet, which is most disgraceful,” he added.

The United Nations says the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. The Muslims have been displaced by violence, which has forced them to flee to neighboring countries.

“We belong to nowhere. Our children are not at schools,” another refugee said, adding, “If someone gets sick, hospitals are not willing to admit.”

Myanmar denies citizenship to most of the 1.3 million Rohingyas, placing restrictions on their movement, marriages and economic opportunities.

Thailand and Malaysia have come under fire by human rights groups for mistreating the Rohingya refugees.

The UN recently approved a resolution calling on the government in Myanmar to grant full citizenship to the persecuted Muslim minority, piling up pressure on the country to cancel a controversial identity plan.

Thousands of Muslims from Rohingya minority group have been forced to leave Myanmar after being persecuted by the government of the country. 

Myanmar denies citizenship to most of the 1.3 million Rohingyas, placing restrictions on their movement, marriages, and economic opportunities. According to the United Nations, Rohingya Muslims are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

Meanwhile, many of these Muslims, who have to leave their country, either go missing during their mass exodus in the perilous seas or face mistreatment of destination countries such as Thailand or Malaysia in case of reaching these countries.

In this edition of The Debate, Press TV has conducted an interview with Ibrahim Moussawi, political commentator from Beirut, and Lawrence J. Korb, foreign policy and national security analyst from Washington, to see what kind of fate is awaiting these stateless people.

By Zin Linn

Asian Tribune

December 1, 2014

The people of Burma have been wishing for a peaceful and flourishing country since the 1948 independence achievement. But unfortunately, the nation’s independence hero General Aung San was assassinated a year ahead of independence. As a result, civil wars throughout the country occurred in the midst of the self-government offered by the British colonial rule.

In fact, General Aung San and the leaders of Chin, Kachin and Shan ethnic groups had guaranteed a genuine federal union of Burma by signing the Panglong Agreement on 12 February, 1947. The historic agreement accepted the representatives of ethnic states to administer their own affairs in areas of economy, judiciary, education, and customs and so on.

However, ten years after independence, Burma was fallen into the hands of military dictators and became a least developed country (LDC) in line with the United Nations’ indicators of the lowest socioeconomic development and the lowest Human Development Index ratings of all countries in the world. In 1988, instability over economic mismanagement and political oppression by the military-backed socialist government led to widespread pro-democracy uprising all over the country known as the 8888 Uprising.

Security forces shot down thousands of protesters, and General Saw Maung launched a coup under the name of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). In 1989, SLORC declared martial law after widespread protests. SLORC changed the country's official name from the "Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma" to the "Union of Myanmar" in 1989.

In May 1990, the junta held free elections for the first time since 1962 and Aung San Suu Kyi’s the National League for Democracy (NLD) won 392 out of a total 489 seats or above 80 percent of the seats. However, the military junta refused to transfer of power and continued to rule the country as SLORC until 1997, and then ruled as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) before its dissolution in March 2011.

Burma’s existing junta-made Constitution, approved in a May 2008 referendum, is conflict-ridden since it was set by way of one-sided endorsed principles. It says the military commander-in-chief can take sovereign power if the country is in a risky situation.

Ethnic-based political parties in Burma (Myanmar) and ethnic rebel groups negotiating nationwide ceasefire agreements with the government after decades of military conflict have called for amendments that allow self-determination for ethnic citizens.

People do not forget that the new charter itself emerged in the course of a charade referendum (May 2008) mockingly held after a week of the Nargis cyclone that caused more than 138,000 deaths and left millions homeless. The bill was ratified by the parliament in January 2011. The biggest flaw in the constitution is the privileged 25 percent of the seats in the parliament are set aside for soldiers who are basically appointed to the legislative body by the commander-in-chief. Unless this is amended, it is difficult to see true democratic reform in the country.

An ethnic outcry said that a nationwide ceasefire agreement without adequate guarantees of political dialogue and monitoring mechanisms is unacceptable. There is a constant demand from the country’s ethnic groups to enjoy equal political, social and economic rights. The Constitution must guarantee the rights of self-determination and of equal representation for every ethnic group in the Parliament.

Recently on 18 November, Lower house Speaker Shwe Mann said the country’s constitution cannot be amended ahead of 2015 elections. It means a clause in the charter barring opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president may not review until 2015 general election is over. But, House Speaker’s announcement was challenge by Aung San Suu Kyi’s party saying he had no power to make such judgment. Shwe Mann is also head of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) and who declared to contest for the presidency in 2015 polls.

Coincidently, the United States has pressed for more changes in Burma, where political and economic reforms initiated two years ago seem to have stalled. In addition, during his second Burma-trip in mid-November, Obama has told President Thein Sein that the next 2015 election needs to be fair, inclusive and transparent.

But, Burma’s political scenario in last quarter of 2014 seems more complicated than ever because there will be do-or-die struggles between the ‘pro-2008 Constitution faction’ and ‘anti-2008 Constitution parties’ that is basically connected with the presidential selection in 2015. In addition, there are many more challengers for the presidency office; with rumours putting sitting President U Thein Sein, Lower House Speaker U Thura Shwe Mann, and the military chief Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing as the front-runners.

In such a tough time, government army’s artillery shell killed 23 cadets at a training centre on the outer reaches of Laiza, the Kachin Independence Army capital on China –Burma border on 19 November 2014. It was the deadliest hit since a ceasefire agreement in 2011, General Gun Maw, the KIA's second-in-command said. Gun Maw said government's artillery attacks were warning of pressure towards the KIA to sign a ceasefire agreement without promise of political talks and to put off the elections.

Speaking while on a trip to Australia in last year November, Burmese opposition leader and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi told an audience at the Sydney Opera House that the country had still not “successfully taken the path to reform” because the military-written 2008 constitution bars the country from becoming a democracy.

Burma’s main opposition NLD party led by Aung San Suu Kyi has called, during recent nationwide campaign, for public support for her party’s proposal to ratify constitutional reform particularly for Article 436. Aung San Suu Kyi has called again and again that Article 436 barred to amend every article of the 2008 Constitution. It says every amendment proposal must be approved by 75 percent of representatives in both houses of parliament. As the military holds 25 percent of all seats, it effectively holds veto power over the Constitution, she says.

Aung San Suu Kyi has affirmed her readiness to run for president if the Constitution is amended to allow her to do so. Suu Kyi said it is her duty as leader of her National League for Democracy to be willing to take the executive office if that is what the people want. She said a clause in the constitution effectively barring her from the job is one of several clauses her party seeks to change.

Burma’s seemingly civilian government headed by President Thein Sein has declared itself as a reformist administration since it took power in March 2011. Finally, it has to meet head-on major challenge in order to show its true mind-set concerning constitutional revision which has been calling by various oppositions.