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Two Rohingya women walk down an alley in Nayapara camp, one of two camps around Cox's Bazar where officially registered refugees are permitted to live (Photo by Stephan Uttom)

By Stephan Uttom & Rock Ronald Rozario
March 24, 2015

For Dil Mohammad and his family, a cramped refugee camp on the edge of southeastern Bangladesh has become a reluctant home for almost a quarter-century.

The 61-year-old Muslim Rohingya refugee brought his family here 23 years ago from neighboring Myanmar, fleeing persecution and discrimination at the hands of the majority Buddhist population of Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Conditions in the two camps at Nayapara and Kutupalong, in Cox’s Bazar district, are often squalid, packed with more than 30,000 registered Rohingya. Their lives have become largely dependent on aid from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Bangladesh government.

Compared to the strife in his homeland, however, life has been relatively peaceful. Back in Myanmar, Mohammad says the government exploited members of the Rohingya community, forcing many like him to work in the fields or carry stones from quarrying sites without pay. He says he was physically beaten two or three times. When Rakhine mobs burned down homes in his village for a third time, he decided it was time to leave.

Now, Mohammad and other refugees are wondering if their lives will again be thrown into chaos. Fears have been spreading since November last year, when Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced that the government was planning to relocate Rohingya refugees to a “better place” — though details of any relocation plan have been scant.

“We have left everything in Rakhine and have gathered life here bit by bit over the years,” Mohammad told ucanews.com during a recent visit to the camp. “We fear that we might lose what we have if we are relocated and start everything all over again.”

With no official announcement of the relocation plans, refugees can only resort to rumors to predict their futures. One has it that the refugees will be relocated to separate districts in southern and central Bangladesh that are said to be prone to disasters.

Mohammad worries that life will become even more difficult for him and his family than it is now. However, he knows he is in no position to make demands.

“Being in a foreign land, we must accept what is in our fate,” he said.

Life is even more uncertain for non-registered Rohingya living in Bangladesh; they are, in the eyes of the government, illegal.

The UNHCR estimates that there are at least 10 times more unregistered Rohingya in Bangladesh — more than 300,000 people.

Some 15,000 of the undocumented Rohingya live in an informal settlement just beside Nayapara camp, including Harez Mohammad Tayub, who left Rakhine state eight years ago.

For Tayub, 32, it is the registered refugees who are the lucky ones.

“Registered refugees have good housing, food, security, and are able to fulfill basic human needs,” he said. “We have heard they will be moved to an even better place. They are lucky people. We are not.”

Bangladesh government officials declined to talk about the relocation plan when approached by ucanews.com. Farid Ahmed Bhuiyan, commissioner of the Rohingya Refugee Repatriation Committee under the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, said the relocation plan includes registered refugees only and is still at a preliminary stage.

The country office of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) also declined to comment on the issue.

Undocumented Rohingya refugees construct houses with material provided by a non-governmental organization in an informal refugee settlement in Nayapara, which stands near an official refugee camp. At least 300,000 undocumented Rohingya live in Bangladesh (Photo by Stephan Uttom)

Persecution

Often described by human rights groups as one of the most persecuted peoples in the world, Rohingya refugees have effectively been rendered stateless. Though many have lived for generations in Myanmar, they are commonly viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The government frequently refuses to recognize Rohingya citizenship or even use the term when referring to Rohingya.

Rohingya have felt the brunt of a recent uptick in clashes between Buddhist and Muslim civilians, which has sent a new wave of refugees fleeing, by boat to other countries in Southeast Asia, or across the border to Bangladesh.

In the past, Bangladesh has been relatively accommodating, but in recent years has taken a harder line.

In 2012, Bangladesh closed its borders to Rohingya refugees, and the ruling Awami League government has remained defiant in the face of heavy international criticism on the issue.

Professor Imtiaz Ahmed of Dhaka University’s International Relations Department said the government must do more to protect persecuted Rohingya — particularly given Bangladesh’s own history as a source country for refugees during its own war for independence in 1971.

“We have always been positive when it comes to sheltering persecuted people. So, it was a blunder by the government because our image really went down,” he said, calling the Rohingya situation a “humanitarian issue”.

In 2012, the government also ordered three international aid groups — Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Action Against Hunger and Muslim Aid UK — to halt operations in Cox’s Bazar and stop providing aid to undocumented Rohingyas. Authorities said the presence of NGOs in Bangladesh effectively encouraged refugees to pour in over the border. The NGOs have maintained a low profile since the government order, but still continue aiding refugees quietly.

Local media reported at the time that Bangladesh had begun drafting a plan to address the issue of undocumented Rohingya refugees. That scheme, which has not been made public, reportedly contained 25 proposals, including forming a dedicated taskforce to stop illegal entries and installing an embankment as a barrier along 50 kilometers of the Naf River, which divides Bangladesh from Myanmar.

It also reportedly proposed a specific law that would make it illegal to offer shelter to undocumented Rohingya refugees.

Recent events suggest Bangladesh authorities are continuing their tougher policies against Rohingya.

On February 4 this year, officials in Cox’s Bazar district forcibly evicted about 35,000 undocumented Rohingya refugees from makeshift refugee camps near Shamlapur, a fishing village about 50 kilometers from Cox’s Bazar town, leaving them homeless.

Officials said the eviction was an attempt to reclaim the area from illegal encroachers along Marine Drive Road, which runs through the country’s most popular tourist destination.

A woman walks around inside Nayapara refugee camp, one of two official camps for registered Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar (Photo by Stephan Uttom)

Going home

Rights groups say that any government relocation plan that excludes unregistered refugees will fail.

“Over the years, it’s become abundantly clear in Bangladesh’s interactions with this group that Dhaka wants to get rid of them but doesn’t know how to make that happen,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at New York-based Human Rights Watch.

“Many of these unregistered Rohingya live in the so-called ‘makeshift’ camp right next door to the official camps that the Bangladesh government wants to move. So then what happens to that still unrecognized group? Without a solution also for the unrecognized group, none of this will work.”

Robertson stressed that any attempt to relocate Rohingya, registered or not, must be done voluntarily.

For Tayub, the 32-year-old living in the unregistered camp, any future in Bangladesh remains precarious, with or without a relocation. He says he’s thankful that Bangladesh has given him shelter, willingly or not. But all things being equal, he knows his home lies not in Bangladesh, but in Myanmar.

“We don’t want to remain as refugees here forever,” he said. “If the Myanmar government provides us with rights, security and citizenship, we would like to go back to our country.”

Angry mourners follow the casket of Tun Tun, the Buddhist victim of the 2014 Mandalay riots. The group would later go and destroy the Muslim part of a cemetery near the city. (Photo: Steve Tickner/The Irrawaddy)

By Paul Vrieze
March 24, 2015

RANGOON — A new report released on Monday said it found evidence to suggest that the 2014 outbreak of inter-communal violence in Mandalay was caused by a group of outside thugs who operated with tacit support from authorities.

Based on more than a dozen interviews with eye witnesses, Mandalay community leaders and family members of victims, the report by the Justice Trust paints a picture of the events in early July 2014 when clashes erupted between the city’s Buddhist residents and its Muslim minority.

At the time, a Buddhist man named Tun Tun was killed, as was a Muslim man named Soe Min Htwe. Tensions between the communities remained high for days and authorities responded with heavy police deployment. During a funeral for the Buddhist victim, the Muslim part of a cemetery on the outskirts of Mandalay was destroyed by angry mourners.

The Justice Trust, an international rights organization supporting local lawyers and activists, worked closely with the multi-faith alliance of the Mandalay Peace Committee to reconstruct the events through a six-month investigation. It concluded that the violence was orchestrated by elements from outside of Mandalay.

Several eye witnesses told the Justice Trust they noticed a group of around two dozen men on motorbikes enter Mandalay and make their way through the city while exhibiting rowdy behavior. “I saw a group of around 25 people, on motorbikes, yelling, singing the national anthem, throwing stones and damaging parked cars,” Mindin, Editor-in-Chief of the Mandalay Khit Journal, was quoted as telling investigators.

“By then there were 200 or so riot police within view down the street, they could not have been more than 10 meters away, doing nothing as these rioters went on a rampage,” he added. A youth community worker named Harry told investigators that he observed the group for a while and noticed they were trying to read road signs and maps to find their way.

“Almost everyone interviewed described the roving mob responsible for the death and destruction in Mandalay as comprised of men from outside Mandalay,” the report said. “Many witnesses reported that they actively tried to recruit monks and community members from Mandalay employing a variety of appeals and misinformation tactics.”

It remains unclear who killed the two victims, but the report suggests that both were killed in separate crimes by a group of several dozen men in the early hours of July 2.

A Mandalay District Court in October sentenced four men to 10 years’ imprisonment for being accomplices to the murder of the Muslim man. In December, it sentenced 11 Muslim men to 10 to 13 years in prison for aiding and abetting the killing of the Buddhist victim. The convicted men and their lawyers in both cases have insisted they were innocent.

No one has been charged with murder over the two deaths.

Mandalay Division Police Chief Col. Han Tun declined to comment when asked about the report’s findings, saying the violence occurred before he took the post. Mandalay Chief Minister Ye Myint said he was too busy to talk a reporter. Senior officials at the national police headquarters in Naypyidaw could not be reached. Attempts to contact Information Minister Ye Htut by email and phone on Tuesday were unsuccessful.

U Dama, a senior abbot at Moe Khaung, one of two Mandalay monasteries visited by the gang of supposed outsiders, told investigators that he turned them away when they tried to agitate and recruit his monks. “A crowd of about 30 men came to our monastery around 12:30 am on the first night of the riots,” he said. “I went down with 10-15 senior monks to meet with the mob. I noticed the men were quite drunk and out of control. I told them that they needed to leave as they were disrupting our peace.”

The report said the fact that Mandalay community leaders acted promptly to discourage residents from joining the outside agitators had helped prevent a larger outbreak of communal violence. It advised Burmese civil society groups to study the success of Mandalay community organizations in foiling attempts at inciting unrest.

Latent religious divisions have historically been present in Burmese society and attempts at fomenting inter-communal violence were long used during the former military regime to distract from calls for democratic reform, Justice Trust said. Now, the group alleged,the tactic is being used by former regime “hardliners” to control and slow down the pace of Burma’s democratic transition.

In 2012, inter-communal violence erupted between Rohingya Muslims and Arakanese Buddhists in western Burma; 2013 saw eruptions of inter-communal unrest in more than a dozen towns in central Burma. The Mandalay violence is the most recent occurrence of such violence.

“This report shows what most Burmese have known for a long time—that religious hatred between Buddhists and Muslims is being stoked by hidden hands and manipulated as a pretext for maintaining their grip on power,” Thein Than Oo, a Mandalay lawyer who serves on Justice Trust’s steering committee, said in a press release. “We have seen this script many times before.”

Justice Trust stopped short of making specific accusations as to which actors with ties to the former regime would stand to benefit from organizing the unrest.

Senior Union Solidarity and Development Party lawmaker Aung Than, who has his power base in Mandalay Division’s Taung Tha Township, has been accused by some of involvement in the unrest and of supporting nationalist Buddhist monk U Wirathu’s 969 movement.

The Justice Trust said it identified a five-step pattern in attempts to orchestrate unrest: claims by nationalist groups on social media alleging that Muslim men raped Buddhist women, riots carried by outside violent gangs, failure of law enforcement to stem unrest in a timely manner, failure of the legal system to properly investigate perpetrators, and timing ofriots to divert attention away from calls for democratic reforms.

Justice Trust noted that the riots occurred days before opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was due to address a National League for Democracy rally in Mandalay calling for constitutional reform.

Since the violence occurred, Mandalay authorities have arrested at least two dozen men on accusations of participating in the violence and violating a curfew. Many of them were handed long prison terms in recent months.

The Justice Trust alleged that authorities were going after young men who had been incited by outsiders, while police failed to properly investigate who had tried to orchestrate the unrest.

“They acted on false, wrong information and they damaged the Muslim cemetery; they broke the law,” Thein Than Oo said of those detained following the violence. “But the authorities did not arrest the real perpetrators, those who incited the violence.”

Additional reporting from Mandalay by Zarni Mann.

By Stuart Alan Becker
March 24, 2015

On July 3, 2014, U Soe Min was walking to morning prayers at a nearby mosque when a man with a machete struck him dead with a deep blow to his skull. The 51-year-old Mandalay resident, who ran a bicycle shop, was one of two innocent victims that day of communal violence sparked by reports – later proven to be false – that a Buddhist woman had been raped by two Muslim brothers.

Daw Phyu Win at her home in Mandalay. (Stuart Alan Becker/The Myanmar Times)

Hours after U Soe Min’s killing, his mother Daw Phyu Win, widow Daw Tin Tin Kyaw and two young daughters spoke to The Myanmar Times at their home, grief etched into their faces along with disbelief that a man who had such friendly relations with all his neighbours, regardless of their religion, could have met such a fate.

In late February, eight months after the riots, Daw Phyu Win spoke again – about the family’s long history in Mandalay, how they were coping with the loss of her youngest son, and their fears for the future of the city’s Muslim community.

Speaking in excellent English – as a young woman she taught English at the city’s Catholic Don Bosco School – 79-year-old Daw Phyu Win described how she was born in Mandalay of a family that traces its history back 400 years to Amarapura, a former royal capital just south of where Mandalay sits today. Her ancestors had been servants to the last line of Burmese kings and accompanied the royal family when the court moved to Mandalay.

Reflecting on the communal violence last July – in which a Buddhist volunteer ambulance worker was also killed – she said it was the worst time of her whole life, even worse than the Japanese wartime occupation.

She thinks Muslim people in Myanmar are going to be safe and secure during the run-up to national elections in November, but she worries what will happen afterward.

“For the time being, there is no problem, but I think in the future they may do bad things again. After the election we don’t know what will happen to Muslim people – but right now because of the coming election we are staying nicely,” she said.

“I love the Myanmar land and the Myanmar people,” she said. “But political people change and there are very good Buddhists, but there are also cruel people who have power.

“Good Buddhists have no power; some bad ones have power. All Muslims are afraid of what may happen after the elections – that we may get trouble again.”

Daw Phyu Win said all of her Buddhist neighbours in Mandalay had treated her and her family with great kindness during her whole life – as an undergraduate at Mandalay University, running a middle school with her late husband until it was nationalised under the military rule of Ne Win, and sending her own children to the Don Bosco school even though it was Catholic.

She has vivid memories as a girl living under Japanese occupation, when her family evacuated with others to villages beyond Mandalay Hill, scared of the cruelty of the advancing army.

“When the Japanese came they were very rude and violent. [They] kicked the children. We hated them,” she said. She remembers at the age of seven smoking her first cigarette, offered to her by a black American soldier as allied forces retook Burma.

Above all she remembers that everyone took care of each other, regardless of their religion.

She now lives in a property bought by her grandfather in 1916 – an old brick Burmese-style structure that was destroyed in the war and rebuilt by U Soe Min. She has leased out the space her late son used for his bicycle shop, using the income to support herself and U Soe Min’s widow and daughters.

Contacted again yesterday by The Myanmar Times, Daw Phyu Win declined to comment on last week’s sentencing of the woman who filed the fake rape report and four others to 21 years in prison.

“What happened to my son is fate given by God,” she said. “We can’t change our fate.”

Police stand guard on a street in Mandalay, July 2, 2014. (Photo: AFP)

By Joshua Lipes
March 24, 2015

Hard-liners in Myanmar’s government are deliberately instigating communal violence in the country in a bid to derail democracy and maintain their grip on power, according to a report released Monday by a U.S.-based rights group.

In its report entitled “Hidden Hands Behind Communal Violence in Myanmar: Case Study of the Mandalay Riots,” Justice Trust documents what it said was the use of organized gangs of armed men to commit anti-Muslim riots under the guise of spontaneous mob violence.

“This report shows what most Burmese have known for a long time—that religious hatred between Buddhists and Muslims is being stoked by hidden hands and manipulated as a pretext for maintaining their grip on power,” Thein Than Oo, a Mandalay lawyer who serves on Justice Trust’s steering committee, said in a statement.

“We have seen this script many times before—the deployment of plainclothes forces … rather than uniformed soldiers to commit national-scale political violence, and the scapegoating of minorities to divert public attention away from the country’s real needs.”

Based on six months of research by local and international lawyers, Justice Trust’s report analyzes the July 2014 riots in Mandalay and compares them to previous waves of communal violence.

The anti-Muslim violence over two nights in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar’s second largest city left two people dead and about a dozen wounded, as well as motor vehicles and shops ablaze, following online rumors that a Muslim man had raped a Buddhist woman.

The riots followed a common pattern found in previous instances of communal violence, the report said, including allegations of honor crimes, violence incited by gangs believed to be outsiders, the failure of law enforcement to prevent violence and the legal system to punish perpetrators, and suspicious timing of the incident to divert attention from popular demands for justice and democracy.

Agitators exposed

But unlike previous riots, where large mobs developed and violence spun out of control, Justice Trust said residents in Mandalay refused to participate, while local monks, activists and journalists tried to contain the situation.

“Without the protective cover of a sympathetic crowd, the outside agitators were exposed, the stage-managed nature of their violence was made visible to the public, and the overall damage was limited,” the group said.

“The case of Mandalay therefore provides the clearest evidence yet of a deliberate political strategy to foment anti-Muslim violence, as well as the best example of countering this strategy through a local early warning system to mobilize an immediate on-the-ground response,” the report said.

Justice Trust cited eyewitnesses to the riots who said they were carried out by “a small group of men on motorcycles” who “rampaged through Muslim neighborhoods.” The violence took place “in plain view” of armed riot police who watched the mayhem unfold “without taking action.”

It said the failure of police to act against the rioters was mirrored by the government’s failure to address the hostile environment created by the ultra-nationalist Buddhist 969 movement, which claims Myanmar’s minority Muslims are threatening the Buddhist majority.

Deadly violence between Buddhists and Muslims throughout Myanmar has left at least 280 dead and tens of thousands homeless since 2012, and rights groups say Muslims have borne the brunt of the violence—many of them ethnic Rohingyas in Rakhine state.

Muslims account for about 4 percent of Myanmar's roughly 60 million people.

Religious extremism

Justice Trust said 969 leader Wirathu played “a direct role” in inciting the violence by personally engaging in anti-Muslim preaching events or social media campaigns just prior to major outbreaks of rioting against Muslim communities in Rakhine, Meiktila, Lashio, and Mandalay.

“The close nexus between his speech and ensuing criminal violence in these specific events is prima facie evidence of incitement,” it said.

“Failure by the Government to conduct an impartial investigation and take appropriate legal action will further encourage extremists to break the law.”

But the group also cautioned against suggestions from the international community which places blame for the violence on Buddhist chauvinism.

“Latent religious divisions certainly exist and are being exploited and exacerbated by hate-mongering nationalists and opportunistic politicians,” it said.

“But to make the leap from hate speech to wanton murder and destruction requires an additional factor—armed groups funded and trained to commit criminal violence for political ends.”

Influence of hardliners

Those political ends involve undermining progress towards democratic reform and maintaining the behind-the-scenes influence of hardliners linked to the country’s former military junta, which handed power to President Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government in 2011, the report said.

So far, these “hidden hands” have been successful in widening communal divisions, fostering insecurity that threatens elections set for later this year, and shifting the narrative of Myanmar’s political opening from reform to reaction, it said.

“The incitement of religious violence, from Rakhine state in 2012 to Mandalay in 2014, has revealed the power of former junta hardliners to control the script of Myanmar’s political transition,” said Roger Normand, executive director of Justice Trust.

“The Government must fulfill its public promises to protect all people and hold accountable those forces who are instigating communal conflict for political ends.”

In its report, Justice Trust called on civil society to develop local responses to counter the strategy of instigating communal conflict, and for the government to fulfill its duties to uphold the rule of law and protect all people equally, regardless of race or religion.

RB News
March 23, 2015

UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Provides Compelling Report on Human Right Violations in Arakan State

Arakan Rohingya Union Director General Dr. Wakar Uddin and OIC-Geneva Mission Head Amb Slimane Chick at the main session of the UN Human Rights Council

Geneva, Switzerland -- The 28th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) was held in Geneva March 2-27, 2015, and the Rohingya Human Rights session was programmed for the afternoon session on March 16, 2015. At the main session, UN Special Rapporteur, Yanghee Lee, provided an astounding report on the human right violations committed by the Government of Myanmar against Rohingya ethnic minority in Arakan state in Myanmar. Director General of Arakan Rohingya Union, Dr. Wakar Uddin, along with the members of The European Rohingya Council and the ARU’s Global Rohingya Center attended the conference.

ARU-DG Dr. Wakar Uddin with UN Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee at the 28th Session

The UN Special Rapporteur, Yanghee Lee, provided all the aspects of the plights of Rohingya people in Myanmar based on her personal experiences where she witnessed the daily suffering of the Rohingya people during her visits to Arakan state. Ms. Lee described the situation in Rohingya IDP camps as ‘abysmal ’. She provided the details of the violations of human rights committed by the Government officials and armed forces in Arakan state fueled by the policy of the Government of Myanmar. She also spoke about ‘White Card’ and voting rights of the Rohingya. The Special Rapporteur stressed the continuous instability in the country caused the hate speech by the radical Buddhist monks instigating the violence against Rohingya by Buddhist Rakhine. She has also highlighted the abusive and insulting language against international dignitaries used by the leader of the radical Buddhist ‘969’ movement. The Special Rapporteur has called on the international community and the Government of Myanmar to find a solution to the Rohingya issue in an expedient manner.

ARU-DG with Ambassadors of Algeria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain at the 28th Session
ARU-DG with Head of the Political Section of European Union and Latvia Rep to EU at the 28th Session

Over 40 countries and several NGOs made statements on the Rohingya issue where almost all of them shared the view of the UN Special Rapporteur. Amongst them, the Government of United States, several European countries, Saudi Arabia, OIC, and Human Rights Watch expressed the strongest support for the cause of Rohingya. The Myanmar representative refuted most of the testimony by the Special Rapportuer and often used ‘transition to democracy’ as a pre-text for all the violations by the Government of Myanmar. The Myanmar representative bluntly rejected the ethnic identity of Rohingya and disregarded the indigeneity of the Rohingya people in Arakan. 

In the side event, Dr. Wakar Uddin, DG of ARU, and GRC Representative Dr. Mohammed Taher Siraj spoke on ethnic cleansing of Rohingya in Myanmar. Their presentations covered the situation on the ground in Arakan, the Government’s hostile policy towards Rohingya that is triggering the violence by Buddhist Rakhine, verification process as a tool for second-class citizenship or internment in camps, and several other issues. Their speech vastly reflected the reports of the Special Rapporteur. The Arab League meeting at the session also discussed the Rohingya issue, and ARU-DG stressed the need for the Arab League and all the OIC member states to increase their efforts and speak out through all multi-lateral and bilateral relations with Myanmar. The resolution on Rohingya human rights at the 28th HRC is due to be released shortly.

Myanmar's President Thein Sein speaks during the opening ceremony of the 5th Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Summit at a hotel in Bangkok December 20, 2014. (Photo: Reuters/Chaiwat Subprasom)

March 22, 2015

Yangon -- Myanmar's military will maintain its role in politics in order to support a transition to democracy but will eventually submit to civilian rule, President Thein Sein said in an interview broadcast on Friday.

Myanmar was ruled by the military for 49 years before a semi-civilian government took power in 2011 and initiated widespread political and economic reforms.

But under a 2008 constitution drafted under military rule, a quarter of parliamentary seats are reserved for unelected serving officers, along with some key cabinet posts, giving the military an effective veto on any constitutional reform.

The opposition National League for Democracy party, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has called for the military to step away from politics.

Thein Sein, a former general, said the military initiated the reform process and still needed to play a political role in order to support the transition to democracy.

"In fact, the military is the one who is assisting in the flourishing of democracy in our country," he told the BBC.

"As the political parties mature in their political norms and practice, the role of the military gradually changes."

Thein Sein did not say when the military would transition out of politics, but said it would be done according to the "will of the people".

Parliamentary elections are scheduled for early November, and the parliament that emerges from the vote will choose the next president.

Suu Kyi's party swept a 1990 vote that the ruling generals ignored, and she remains hugely popular but the military-drafted constitution bars her from the presidency because she has two sons with British citizenship. Her late husband was a British academic.

Thein Sein denied that the clause was written in order to exclude Suu Kyi from the presidency, and said the requirement was actually drafted in 1947 when the country, also known as Burma, was preparing for independence from Britain.

Thien Sein said he was not opposed to changing the constitution, but said it would be up to parliament to support an amendment, which would then require a referendum.

Such an amendment would require more than 75 percent approval in a parliament dominated by military representatives and their allies in the ruling United Solidarity and Development Party, which is made up mainly of former officers.

Monks carry posters of 'take action immediately against Jihad fundamentalists' while holding a prayer campaign at the fame Shwe Dagon Pagoda in Yangon on July 4, 2014. (Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images)

By Antonia Blumberg
March 22, 2015

Buddhist and Muslim leaders in South and Southeast Asia are working to spread a message of peace and dialogue as interreligious conflict continues to threaten stability in Myanmar, Sri Lanka and other nations in the region.

Religious leaders from 15 countries released the "Yogyakarta Statement," named for the city where it was written, on March 5, reaffirming that Islam and Buddhism "are religions of mercy and compassion committed to justice for all humankind." Now the group is working to translate their message into as many languages as possible and give it to Buddhist and Muslim leaders and believers around the world.

The Yogyakarta Statement came out of a summit called "Overcoming Extremism and Advancing Peace with Justice.” The gathering was organized by the Indonesian Ulema Council and the Council of Buddhist Communities, and was sponsored by the International Forum of Buddhist-Muslim Relations.

Both Islam and Buddhism "respect the sacredness of life and inherent dignity of human existence, which is the foundation of all human rights without any distinction as to race, color, language, or religion," the statement says. It also covers topics ranging from hate speech and religious diversity to living in harmony with the environment.

At the end of the document, the signatories committed to having their communities and congregations serve "as a platform for intra-religious and inter-religious initiatives in education and advocacy."

"The statement is currently being translated into local languages and will be disseminated to senior, mid- and grassroots-level Buddhist and Muslim leaders and believers, women and youth groups," said Rev. Kyoichi Sugino, the deputy secretary general of Religions for Peace International, an interfaith NGO.

Much of the ongoing conflict in the region centers around the treatment of the Muslim Rohingya people in Myanmar, who have been denied citizenship and otherbasic human rights. Some of the worst fighting occurred in 2012, when clashes between Buddhists and stateless Rohingya Muslims left at least 192 people dead and displaced 140,000, according to Reuters.

Some fear that the conflict in Myanmar could spill into neighboring countries like Indonesia, fanning the flames of tension and inspiring Islamic militant groups. A 2013 bombing at the Ekayana Buddhist Centre in western Jakarta left people with only minor injuries, but was cause for concern because a note left by the anonymous attackers read: "We respond to the screams of the Rohingya.”

Bellanwila Wimalaratana Anunayake Thera, the president of the Sri Lanka Religions for Peace council, spoke at the summit as a representative of the country's Buddhist community, affirming that violence should not be perpetrated in the name of religion.

“We reject such abuse and pledge to counter extremist religious interpretations and action with our authentic primary narratives of peace,” Thera said, according to the Jakarta Post. "We also recognize the need to strengthen governmental measures against religiously motivated discrimination and violence."

Chandra Muzaffar, a Malaysian academic and social activist, also spoke at the summit as a representative of the Muslim community. Muzaffar said the religious leaders at the summit want to make "effective use of media for positive messaging," the Jakarta Post reported.

“If we want peace and justice, it is very important for Buddhists and Muslims to come together because these are two major world religions," Muzaffar said.

Dan Slater, a political science professor who studies Southeast Asia at the University of Chicago, said the Yogyakarta Statement is a "welcome and encouraging" sign of progress, particularly in its "internationalist spirit." But he said that intra-religious relations should play as much a role in stabilizing the region as interfaith efforts.

Slater's concern is not unfounded. Indonesian stand-up comic Sakdiyah Maruf told HuffPost by email that she recently saw a sign outside of a mosque in Java, where she lives, which read: "Shi'a Bukan Bagian dari Islam." ("Shia is not part of Islam.")

"This is in my opinion, the current daily reality of both inter-religious conflict and conflict within Islam in Indonesia," Maruf said.

Sugino said the religious leaders behind the Yogyakarta Statement worked to avoid "intra-religious difference of interpretations" by highlighting common values drawn directly from Quranic verses and Buddhist canonical texts.

"Among some of the key drivers of religious violent extremism, religious leaders are most equipped and well-positioned to address ideological, religious, cultural and phycological drivers," Sugino said. "Through trainings and workshops for grassroots believers and local religious leaders around the Yogyakarta Statement, we can provide moderate sections of society and ordinary believers with a means to ... question and challenge their leaders about their interpretations and narratives of exclusivity and intolerance."

Tin Tin Kyaw mourns her husband Soe Min, one of two men killed in violent Buddhist-Muslim riots in Mandalay, Myanmar, July 3, 2014 (Photo: Reuters/Soe Zeya Tun)


By AFP
March 22, 2015

Five people have each been jailed for 21 years for spreading false allegations that a Buddhist woman was raped by a Muslim man, which sparked a deadly religious riot in the Myanmar city of Mandalay last year.

The south-east Asian nation's second biggest city was plunged into deadly sectarian unrest in July 2014 when the rumour brought mobs out onto the streets.

At least one Muslim and one Buddhist man were killed in two days of violence which exposed deep religious tensions in the Buddhist-majority nation as it emerges from decades of military rule.

A court in Pyinmama town, central Myanmar, sentenced five people for spreading rumours and creating panic, a lawyer who represents two of those convicted said.

"They each have 21-year prison sentences. I'm going to appeal for my two clients within a month," lawyer Aung Thurein Tun said.

One of those convicted was a woman who the authorities said was paid to make up the rape allegation against a Muslim tea shop owner.

Sectarian violence in Myanmar has overshadowed widely praised political reforms since erupting in 2012.

The unrest has largely targeted Muslims, leaving at least 250 people dead and tens of thousands homeless.

Sectarian clashes have been particularly acute in western Rakhine state, with communal fighting that has displaced about 140,000 people, mainly stateless Rohingya Muslims.

Radical monks have been accused of stoking religious tensions with fiery warnings that Buddhism is under threat from Islam.

"Displaced Rohingya people in Rakhine State (8280610831)" by Foreign and Commonwealth Office - Flickr. Licensed under OGL via Wikimedia Commons.

By Mark Hay
March 22, 2015

Ever since Burma’s military elite began a slow and piecemeal, but highly publicized, march back towards civilian rule in 2010, the former pariah state has received a fair amount of praise from around the world. Diplomats, world leaders, and intellectual luminaries have applauded what they see as efforts to correct old lies, build stronger state institutions, and even put the brakes on their most egregiously violent and enduring local ethnic conflicts.

One of the most recent ostensible triumphs was Burma’s 2014 census—the nation’s first since 1983 and the first truly comprehensive headcount since 1931, which revealed that the nation’s population tallied 51 million, instead of the 60 million the state had touted for years. Many observers saw this monumental undertaking and the honesty of its results (understandably marred by their inability to reach regions of ongoing ethnic conflict) as a sign of the government’s newfound capability, professionalism, and willingness to seek out the truth.

But the unfortunate reality is that, while the census was an orderly affair, it was also a subtly weaponized bureaucratic tool. Sure, the count set right a good many statistical wrongs, paving the way for better management and services in the future, but it also allowed the government to perpetuate their relentless campaign to cleanse the nation of an ethnic Muslim minority, the Rohingya, without publicly lifting a gun. All they had to do was write their identity out of the census, erasing their legitimate existence from state records and forcing them, legally, into a tenuous, liminal space.

As subtle as this move against the Rohingya may seem, it’s outright aggressive at its core, not to mention a sign that the government may not be as fully dedicated to reform as many would like to believe, and may even be explicitly backsliding. This fear has surfaced periodically over the past year, most recently when police cracked down this month on student protestors venting their discontent over the government’s choice to reduce the autonomy of universities. The backlash saw violence and arrests reminiscent of the pre-reform days of the military dictatorship. Yet in the case of these protests, supporters have still managed to cobble together a legal case against the government to openly test the limits of their changing country’s justice system. The Rohingya lack even that recourse.

Rohingya Muslims number around 1.33 million worldwide (their numbers in Burma are estimated to have dropped to 800,000 these days), most of whom are clustered near the towns of Buthidaung and Maungdaw in Burma's Rakhine State, near the border with Bangladesh. And they have the dubious honor of being named one of the world’s most persecuted minorities by the United Nations.

Their persecution isn’t a simple result of their minority status. The majority ethnic Burmese compose only about two-thirds of the population, with the remaining third composed of 135 minorities. Some of these groups (especially the Chin, Karen, Karenni, Kachin, Mon, Rakhine, Shan, and Wa) have been in armed conflict with the state, but many ethnicities still fly under the radar.

The Rohingya, who don’t have much in the way of resources to fight a war, get short shrift largely because they’re Muslims of uncertain origin. In Burma, a violently Buddhist country, home to Ashin Wirathu, the self-professed Osama bin Laden of Buddhism, and his 969 Movement which promotes the removal of the nations 5 to 10 percent Muslim population (which he views as subhuman) to preserve national purity and morality, the Rohingya’s religion alone is tough. But although many claim their ancestors have been in the nation for centuries, the government maintains they were a parasitic extension of the British Empire, arriving in the mid-19th century with their colonial masters. And Burma has for years used killings, concentration camps, denial of services, and blind eyes and hands towards communal violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine to encourage these supposed colonial vestiges to clear out as fast as they can.

It’s rare these days to see soldiers directly threatening genocide against Rohingya (at least publicly or en masse), but the locals in Rakhine have done their fair share to perpetuate hostilities. The past three years have seen a number of communal riots and raids, the worst of which in 2012 killed dozens and pushed up to 140,000 into displacement-cum-concentration camps. The most recent such anti-Rohingya riot occurred just this past January, but the government, although not directly involved, refuses to intervene and censors reporters who write about such events.

Although the Rohingya were recognized when Burma first gained its independence, as of 1982 the military’s Citizenship Laws fail to officially list them amongst the nation’s ethnic groups (although they recognize other Muslim minorities like the Kaman), classifying them externally as Bangladeshi immigrants. The government denies the very existence of the Rohingya so violently that they’ve even slung abuse at United Nations representatives who use the term “Rohingya”.

“There are no Rohingya under the law,” Burma’s Ministry of Interior Assistant Director U Win Myaing told reporters in 2014. “They are illegal immigrants. If they need labor in the United Arab Emirates, why don’t they ask people to go there [so they can get out of Burma]?”

There was some hope leading up to the 2014 census that, since Burma was cooperating with the United Nations to make sure they complied with international census standards and receiving support from countries like Australia, Germany, and Norway, they would count and thus legitimize self-identifying Rohingya, forcing the state to confront its problems. But days before the census began in March, the state announced that Rohingya would explicitly not be an identifiable category on the census. Then they turned around and announced that they would attempt to conduct a census of their illegal Bengali population (read: use census tools to exhaustively label and segregate Rohingya as interlopers ready for deportation) by March 2015.

Over the past few months, Burmese officials have tracked down Rohingya, especially those trapped in “displacement camps,” and cajoled them into accepting government-issued cards that mark them as illegal aliens in their own country—cards that come laden with threats of imprisonment and deprivation. The government supposedly wants to create an amnesty path to citizenship for these native-foreigners, but many suspect the restrictions on this path, and the slow erosion of rights of cardholders (this February they lost the right to vote), is really preparation for the deportation of non-illegal-illegals by semi-legal means via a deep bureaucratic paper cut.

“We tried our utmost not to apply [for citizenship] with the Bengali identity,” Ha Shwe, a 44-year-old woman living in the Rohingya camps, told reporters in late 2014. “But we were fearful, so in September we applied. I feel as if I was a tree that was uprooted. For so many days I was unable to take a regular meal.”

These suspicions seem to be borne out by military leader-slash-president Thein Sein’s official suggestion in late 2014 that the best way to end ethnic violence in Rakhine would be to ship all the Rohingya off to another country. It’s a plan that Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, deemed a “blueprint for permanent segregation and statelessness that appears designed to strip the Rohingya of hope and force them to flee the country.” And it appears to be working, as tens of thousands of Rohingya are currently fleeing the nation, much like they did after the military and local civilians directly attacked them during flare-ups in 1978.

This plot in Burma, to avoid direct extermination but to carry out an ethnic cleansing simply by using the accepted tools of good statecraft—census, survey, and supposed rule of law—is not new. It’s highly reminiscent of the way Joseph Stalin used the Soviet censuses of the 1930s to write entire groups of Central Asians out of existence (although, like Burma’s state, Stalin wasn’t above throwing force into the mix as well). Forcing the Rohingya to abandon their identity on paper, before forcing them to leave the nation, is a supreme form of hostility. It’s the destruction of an identity wholesale, not solely within one’s borders. But it’s so genteel that few people get up in arms about it in the same way as other forms of ethnic cleansing. Yet the pain and dislocation is doubly poignant thanks to this bureaucratic slight, as becomes apparent when one hears the words of those stripped of their identities and still facing the uncertain specter of deportation, and who knows what other indignities:

“I have been Rohingya for 66 years,” a camp resident named Albella told reporters last fall. “It’s more than a betrayal [to officially become a Bengali migrant]. I no longer trust my own identity.”



By Sarah Judith Hofmann
Deutsche Welle
March 21, 2015

Myanmar's constitution guarantees religious freedom. But some radical Buddhists have been railing against Muslims – a tendency which has reached the lawmakers by now.

Everything seems normal as children in red clothes play football on a dusty patch. However, this patch is the courtyard of a monastery and the young players with their rolled-up shirts and bare arms are Buddhist novices. Their teacher, U Nayaka, laughs at the notion that a monastery is supposed to be a place of meditation. "It is never quiet here, my students always make noise," said Phaung Daw Oo, director of the monastery school, who is a cheerful person and ends each of his utterances with a laugh.

Since 1993, Nayaka is providing education to children whose families would otherwise not be able to afford to send them to school. The school started with 400 students, who number around 8,000 today, with 450 of them living on the premises. Boys and girls, farm boys and street children, some are monks while others are not – even some Christians and Muslims are being taught in this school, says Nayaka with pride.

The Rohingyas have been taking the brunt of the hate campaign

"The Buddhist way of thinking is to think critically” – Nayaka is very clear about that and wants to implant it in his students. His school receives aid and support mainly from countries like Japan, Australia, England and Germany. The girls' dormitory was built a few years ago by the the Friends of Myanmar association of Germany, with financial help from the German government.

Several international volunteers are working at the school. Their objective is to teach critical thinking to the students, of which the peaceful coexistence of religions forms an integral part, Nayaka is convinced.

For the protection of race and religion

The monk U Maung Maung is not in favor of the coexistence of religions. His association, Ma Ba Tha, advocates "the protection of race and religion" with the objective of saving Buddhism from the perceived potential threat of Islam. The hatred is primarily directed against the Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority who live in Rakhine State along the borders with Bangladesh, and who do not possess the Myanmar citizenship.

According to Ma Ba Tha "the Bengalis" have no place in Myanmar. "They commit severe crimes," Maung thunders in his monastery on the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar's economic hub. "They rape and try to marry as many of our women as possible," he rails.

Ma Ba Tha and their followers fear that the Muslims want to Islamize Myanmar. About 90 percent of the 51 million inhabitants of Myanmar are Buddhists; only about five million are Muslims.

Special law to marry Buddhist women

Ma Ba Tha's phobia is shared by radical monk Ashin Virathu, the brain behind the so-called "969" movement. Virathu has been described as "the face of Buddhist terror" by international media. For years, his followers have been running a campaign for the boycott of Muslim shops. They put stickers with their logo on buildings which should remain in Buddhist hands, in their opinion. And now their propaganda is about to find its way into legislation.

President Thein Sein had submitted a package of proposed legislation by December, with the aim of turning them into law before the presidential elections scheduled to take place in autumn.

These laws are supposed to serve "the protection of race and religion," but Amnesty International has criticized them as being "discriminatory" and "contrary to fundamental human rights."

One bill stipulates that a change of religion will only be possible after the application has been approved by the appropriate authorities. This will also apply to Buddhist women desirous of marrying a spouse from another religion.

Whether permission will be granted or not will be decided by a local body consisting of government officials and community leaders. Amnesty also criticized the proposed monogamy law as malicious propaganda, since polygamy is already forbidden in Myanmar.

'A handful of monks'

The Mogul Shiite Mosque, the biggest in Yangon, is located on the 30th Street of the Padeban township. The mosque was built towards the end of the 19th century by wealthy Persian merchants who had settled in Myanmar. Up to 300 Muslims gather here for their Friday prayers.

Buddhists and Muslims have lived in peace for centuries in Myanmar

Buddhists and Muslims have lived in peace for centuries in Myanmar, but attacks against the Muslim community have been increasing of late, a situation which makes Imam Bakr Mohammedi of the Mogul Mosque feel less upbeat.

"It's just a handful of (Buddhist) monks who preach hate and violence in their sermons," Mohammedi says, "but that is enough to cause riots in certain parts of the country." The situation is not so acute in Yangon, "but the violence in Rakhine State has caused concern among the Muslims here as well." Muslims are fleeing in greater numbers from other parts of the country to Yangon, according to the Imam.

Liberal monk Nayaka is not prepared to talk about the firebrand monk Virathu. Nayaka's own monastery is not very far from Virathu's Maseyein monastery. Nayaka is well acquainted with Virathu and his ideas; nevertheless, Nayaka would prefer not to comment upon them, despite the fact that he does not seem to lack courage.

By Brian Pellot
March 19, 2015

I’ve spent more than a few nights sipping cocktails at Buddha-Bar Dubai surrounded by statues of the eponymous sage. The popular franchise has locations in Moscow, Manila, Monte Carloand more. None in Myanmar.

On Tuesday, a Myanmar court sentenced New Zealand bar manager Phillip Blackwood and locals Htut Ko Ko Lwin and Tun Thurein to two and a half years imprisonment with hard labor for insulting religion.

Their offense? Promoting their swanky new tapas bar and restaurant on Facebook with an image of the Buddha wearing headphones:

Screenshot of the original Facebook post showing the Buddha with headphones. Photo via Facebook screenshot in December 2014

Compare that to the Buddha-Bar franchise’s homepage, which features the Buddha flanked by speakers:

Buddha Bar flanked by speakers on Buddha-Bar’s international website. Screenshot of Buddhabar.com taken March 18, 2015.




Blackwood’s Facebook post was hardly original. In different contexts it may not have even raised eyebrows. But in Myanmar, with Buddhist nationalism on an epic upswing ahead of this year’s general election, it was deemed criminal.

The world has watched Myanmar’s recent political reforms with hope — hope that freedom of expression, democratic processes and religious tolerance would improve. Undeniable progress on some of these fronts has been tempered by crippling backslides.

Websites have been unblocked and newspapers can now print opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s face on the front page, but journalists are still being imprisoned for “upsetting the government” and killed in military custody.

Students are no longer dying by the thousands while protesting, as happened in 1988, but theyare protesting and being forcibly dispersed and arrested in the process, feeling increasingly disillusioned and disenfranchised.

It’s hard to cite slight silver linings on the religious tolerance front when clashes, primarily between Buddhists and Muslims, have left at least 240 people dead since 2012.

Myanmar law prohibits exploiting religion for political gain. This hasn’t stopped politicians from appealing to politically expedient and widely held fears that Buddhism is under serious threat, primarily from the country’s Muslim minority, which represents just 5 percent of the total population.

Such fears have bolstered support for controversial “protection of race and religion laws,” which would restrict religious conversion, interfaith marriage and other common rights if enacted.

They’ve also contributed to the dire situation of predominantly Muslim Rohingyas in western Rakhine State, the plight of which I wrote about most recently in December after having spent much of October and November traveling across Myanmar and training journalists.

With Myanmar’s general election scheduled for this fall, politicians are veering hard to the right (à la “King BiBi” ahead of yesterday’s election in Israel) to shore up support among a frightened, overwhelmingly Buddhist constituency.

In this context, I suspect that the “Buddha headphones” arrest and imprisonment—significant and chilling in its own right—will be just one in a series of more ridiculous and egregious human rights violations to come.

I return to Myanmar on Monday for the International Press Institute’s World Congress. Journalist Hannah Beech, who wrote the controversial “Face of Buddhist Terror” TIME Magazine cover article in 2013, was denied a visa to join us at last year’s International Media Conference in Yangon, allegedly for her own safety and so as not to disrupt the proceedings.

Amid Myanmar’s escalating crackdown on free speech, I sincerely hope that this article and previously expressed thoughts don’t get me blacklisted from a country I’ve come to love. More importantly, I hope that real democratic reforms bring real freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief to Myanmar in the coming year.


    • Rohingya Exodus