By Preeti Jha

AFP
July 14, 2015

Two journalists, including an Australian editor, went on trial in Thailand Tuesday over a report they published implicating the navy in human trafficking, as the United Nations urged the junta-ruled nation to drop the case.

The trial comes after the region's grim people-smuggling trade was dramatically highlighted in May when thousands of migrants were abandoned at sea and in foetid jungle camps by traffickers following a Thai crackdown, a crisis that eventually forced Southeast Asian governments to respond.

The charges against Alan Morison and his Thai colleague Chutima Sidasathian, of the Phuketwan news website, relate to a July 2013 article quoting an investigation by the Reuters news agency which said some Thai navy members were involved in trafficking Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar.

The pair could face up to two years in jail for criminal defamation and five years for breaching the Computer Crimes Act if they are found guilty.

The trial at Phuket Provincial Court began with a testimony from R.N. Pallop Komlotok, a navy captain, who confirmed he filed the defamation case on behalf of the navy, Siriwan Vongkietpaisan, a lawyer for the accused, told AFP.

"He also confirmed that the Phuketwan quotes were lifted from Reuters article," she said.

Reuters has not been charged over its reporting -- part of a series honoured with a Pulitzer Prize last year -- and rights groups have accused the navy of trying to muzzle the smaller Phuket-based English-language media outlet.

Speaking to AFP ahead of the trial, Morison said: "We do not understand why the military government has not withdrawn the case.

"The initial pursuits against Reuters were dropped. We quote exactly the same paragraph... (They are pursuing us) for only one paragraph reproduced word-to-word from Reuters."

After the hearing closed for the day Chutima said she felt "confident" the pair would be cleared and that she and Morison were due to give their testimonies when the trial resumes Wednesday. A verdict is expected within 30 days.

- 'Body blow' to Thailand's reputation -

On Tuesday the United Nations Human Rights Office urged Thailand to drop the charges against the two journalists.

"Freedom of the press, including freedom for journalists to operate without fear of reprisals, is essential in promoting transparency and accountability on issues of public interest," it said in a statement.

Phil Robertson, from Human Rights Watch, called the trial a "scathing indictment of the Thai government's unwillingness to respect media freedom".

"Prime Minister General Prayut should have ordered the Navy to stand down and withdraw the charges -- but instead he effectively endorsed their effort to gag media critics, and in doing so, administered another body blow to what little remains of Thailand's international rights reputation," he said in a statement.

Tens of thousands of the stateless Rohingya, one of the world's most persecuted minorities, have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar's western Rakhine state since 2012, when deadly unrest erupted.

In recent years they have increasingly been joined on dangerous sea crossings by economic migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh with their rickety wooden boats mainly headed for Malaysia.

In May a Thai crackdown on the lucrative smuggling industry saw traffickers abandon their human cargo at sea, sparking a regional migrant crisis.

Around 4,500 Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants were stranded in Southeast Asian waters and ping-ponged between countries reluctant to accept them until they eventually landed ashore on Malaysian, Indonesian, Bangladeshi, Myanmar and Thai soil.

Thailand has seen a rapid erosion of civil liberties -- including a ban on political protests and any criticism of the ruling regime -- since the military seized power from an elected government in May 2014.

Its southern provinces have long been known as a nexus for people-trafficking and rights groups have accused Thai officials of both turning a blind eye to the trade -- and even complicity in it.

Dozens of people have been detained in the recent crackdown including some local officials and a senior military officer accused of being a major smuggling kingpin.

By C R Abrar

The Daily Star

July 13, 2015

Over the last several months there have been sporadic media reports that the government was mulling the idea of relocating the Rohingyas from the Teknaf-Cox's Bazar region. The reports inform that 500 acres of state land have been identified in island sites of Hatia and Subarnachar of Noakhali district. The District Commissioner (DC) of Noakhali who has been assigned the responsibility for selecting the site has told the media that “a plan to relocate them (the Rohingyas) to an isolated area is under process” and that the project is being implemented under the supervision of the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief. He added “law and order” and “social harmony” would be important considerations in choosing the camp site/s. The DC claimed that relocating the Rohingyas would lead to a reduction of crime rate in Cox's Bazar by 80 percent.

In May 2015, the Head of the Government's Rohingya Refugee Cell confirmed such media reports by emphatically stating, “The relocation of the Rohingya camps will definitely take place”. He stated that the government wants tourism to flourish and this move was prompted by concerns that the camps were holding back tourism in Cox's Bazar. “It is being done for the sake of the refugees' betterment and for the benefit of the country's economy”, he asserted.

The decision to relocate the Rohingyas did not receive favourable response from any quarter. One may say at best the move elicited skepticism to negative response from different stakeholders.

The Rohingya refugees reacted sharply to the proposed plan. They claimed that it would only make life worse for them; as it is, they have been languishing in the camps for decades. They urged the Bangladesh government and the international community to focus on the root causes of their plight so that they could return home in Myanmar.

The UNHCR, the mandated agency for the protection of refugees, has been cautious in its response. It insisted that such a scheme has to be voluntary if it were to succeed. “The success of the plan would depend on what will be on offer in the new location (for the refugees) and if the refugees would like to be there”, observed a spokesperson of the refugee agency. The UNHCR representative in Bangladesh has firmly stated that her agency would not want to be associated with any forced relocation. “We have no idea about the plans, whether there will be camps or not, whether it will be voluntary or forced, or whether the refugees will be given work activities or not”, she noted. She observed that if the refugees gave informed consent to the idea and were happy to move then she saw no problem in the execution of the project. However, “If the refugees do not want to go, it would be very contentious”, she stated.

The UNHCR acknowledged that the unregistered Rohingyas have “a valid claim to international protection” and were also “persons of concern” to the agency. The government has thus far declined to grant the agency's request for “unrestricted access to the unregistered Rohingyas”. The UN agency head in Dhaka stated that she had recently made a verbal request to the government seeking permission to provide assistance to the “most vulnerable of the undocumented Rohinyga population”.

The Rohingya relocation plan has come under fire from the inhabitants of the proposed sites. In June, an alliance of Noakhali residents including Children of Hatiya and Hatiya Students Welfare Association held a demonstration and human chain at the Hatiya Press Club premises. They opposed the plan to relocate the Rohingyas and instead demanded the rehabilitation of the local landless people. It was reported that they chanted xenophobic debasing slogans such as 'Riot monger Rohingyas have no place in peaceful Hatiya' and 'We do not want transfer of the carbuncle called Rohingyas to Hatiya'.

The decision to relocate the Rohingyas raises an important question. It has been premised on the perception that the Rohingyas are at the core of criminal activities and their presence in Cox's Bazar–Teknaf region is undermining the development of tourism. So far, little evidence has been furnished in support of such allegation. No independent study has validated this much-circulated impression. The claim is very much in tune with the general propensity to blame migrants and refugees for all ills that may exist in a host community and the Rohingyas are no exception.

Like that in mainstream local Bangladeshi community, criminal elements may be present among the Rohingyas. However, if one takes into consideration the conditions the undocumented Rohingyas are made to endure, one would be aware why some members of the community may take recourse to wrong doing. The absence of identity documents and inability to access education, healthcare, livelihood and legal procedure, have created a situation of extreme vulnerability to exploitation and ill-treatment. The RMMRU-RPC 2014 study on the unregistered Rohingyas has documented cases highlighting how protection needs of this community get severely compromised. In one instance, the fear of a 5-year sentence for violating the Passport Act and possible deportation had deterred parents to file a complaint against a group of locals who had raped their teenaged daughter.

One would argue that Bangladesh authorities' failure to appreciate the protection needs and its unwillingness to conduct status determination of the unregistered Rohingyas have created a condition in which a section of the Rohingyas might have gotten drawn into undesirable activities. That does not in any way justify branding the whole community as criminally oriented and consequently their transfer to “an isolated island”.

Over the years, investigative reporting of Bangladeshi media has amply demonstrated that kingpins of drug and human trafficking and smuggling syndicates operating in the region are the Arakan-based Rohingyas, locally powerful Bangladeshis and their international patrons. Most enjoy political patronage of powerful quarters and thrive on the support of errant law enforcers. If the administration is genuinely committed to improving the law and order situation of Cox's Bazar–Teknaf region to develop tourism, then time has come to decisively act against these syndicates. Relocating the Rohingyas would amount to nothing more than whipping the wrong horse. Such a move will also send a wrong message to the international community at a time when focus is on Myanmar for committing "crimes against humanity" on the Rohingyas.

The writer teaches International Relations at the University of Dhaka. He researches and writes on migration and rights issues.

By Neil Elkes 

July 13, 2015

Councillor Mariam Khan speaking at Birmingham protest for Rohingya minority

Rohingya migrants sit inside a temporary shelter at Kuala Langsa Port in Langsa, Aceh

Birmingham protest in support of the persecuted Rohingya minority in Burma

By Zaidul Haque

TwoCircles.net

July 12, 2015

Kolkata: A protest rally was organised in Kolkata on July 10, under the banner of United Muslim Council demanding from the Myanmar government to stop atrocities on the Rohingya Muslims. The Social Democratic Party of India also organised a separate demonstration in the city.

The demonstration was held at Park Street-AJC Bose Road Junction (Mallickbazar).

The Rohingya people are Indo-Aryan peoples from the Rakhine State, Burma whose citizenship rights have been revoked by military Junta.

Shia cleric Maulana Athar Abbas Rizwi alleged that while the Buddhist radicals have been continuing massacres, the Myanmar government has tacitly looked the other way. He urged the United Nations to intervene immediately.

General Secretary of All India Minority Youth Federation Muhammad Kamruzzaman said that the Myanmar government cannot shy away from the responsibilty as the world focus is now on them.

Several other Muslim leaders participated in the demonstration.

On the same day, after prayer, state unit of the Social democratic Party of India also organised a protest convention. State president Taidul islam and Vice president Shaktipada Badyakar alleged that the Myanmar government has violated all international charters on human rights.

Muslim leaders urged the state government to raise the issue in the parliament and put pressure on the Myanmar government. SDPI leaders Dr Satish Mahato, Aftab Alam, Sarur Alam, Dr Mainuddin Chisty led the protest.

They also marched to the Mayanmer Embassy in South Kolkata after separately meeting the Secretary of Deputy Consul General of Myanmar in Kolkata and submitted memorandums.

By Aubrey Belford

Reuters

July 12, 2015

NYAUNG CHAUNG, Myanmar - The bamboo-and-thatch village of Nyaung Chaung in Myanmar's Rakhine State is typical of the places from which Rohingya Muslims flee. The fields don't provide a living, locals say. Jobs are scarce. Daily life is a series of humiliations from Myanmar's government, which officially considers them intruders and denies them citizenship.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Rakhine since the start of the year, joining perilous journeys on the boats of human traffickers through the Bay of Bengal.

But local officials say no one has been arrested for trafficking in the Myanmar state that supplies the vast majority of victims to this brutal trade.

"There have been no trafficking cases in Rakhine State so far (this year). There is a police unit to track down human traffickers, so it's very rare in this area," Hla Thein, the Rakhine State Attorney General, told Reuters.

LOCAL MIDDLEMEN

Villagers give a very different account, linking local middlemen to a regional network that has been the subject of arrests abroad.

They say the link is a local man, Soe Naing - widely known as Anwar. His arrest in southern Thailand on April 28 led to the discovery of dozens of migrant graves along the Thailand-Malaysia border.

For years, Rohingya have fled poverty and persecution in Rakhine, boarding boats to Thailand, Malaysia and beyond to seek work and asylum. But clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in 2012 saw an explosion in the exodus, amid violence that killed hundreds and displaced more than 140,000.

As more than 100,000 fled, traffickers began holding migrants for ransom in jungle camps in Thailand and Malaysia. Untold numbers died on the journey.

In early May, Thailand began a sweeping crackdown on the trade after discovering scores of graves in abandoned trafficking camps along the Thailand-Malaysia border.

"BACK AND FORTH"

Since the crackdown, Anwar's family home – a rambling structure of bamboo and corrugated iron, slathered in sky blue paint – has stood empty behind a metal fence.

Local police have not yet paid a visit.

Police Lieutenant San Min, the head of the anti-human trafficking unit in Maungdaw township, whose office is a 10-minute drive away. "As far as I know, there hasn't been action against any human traffickers here."

The reason for that may be that police have not regarded Rohingya fleeing the country as being trafficked, said Police Lt. Col. Thet Naung, the national head of the police Anti-Human Trafficking Team. They "were just going back and forth between regional countries, including Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and Myanmar," he told Reuters.

He said Thai police had requested assistance in taking DNA samples from Rohingya in Rakhine state, as part of their efforts to investigate alleged murders inside Thai camps, including those linked to Anwar. Myanmar authorities are ready to cooperate with the request, Thet Naung said.

(Additional Reporting by Hnin Yadana Zaw in Yangon; Editing by John and Bill Tarrant)

– Exhibition in Istanbul – previously in Washington, Bangkok, and Geneva – promises better understanding of plight of Southeast Asia’s stateless Muslim group

By Handan Kazinci 

News Fulton County

July 12, 2015

ISTANBUL – An award-winning photographer who has an exhibition on Rohingya Muslims currently running in Istanbul says Turkey has a particular relevance to his work.

“Istanbul is very strategic because Turkey is one of the few countries in the region that has actually shown a considerable amount of concern for what is happening to the Rohingya community,” Greg Constantine told Anadolu Agency this week.

“Inside Burma [Myanmar], the conditions the Rohingya live in are quite like apartheid… They are confined to one geographic area; they can’t come, they can’t go… They receive very little medical assistance or education for their children,” he adds.

Exiled to Nowhere: Burma’s Rohingya is a collection of photographs from Constantine’s 12 visits to Myanmar.

It focuses on persecution and human rights violation against the Rohingya community, and was previously held in Washington, Bangkok, and Geneva.

Constantine says he made his first visit to Rohingya communities in Myanmar’s volatile Rakhine state in 2006, and has made eight subsequent trips.

Rakhine is the home to most of Rohingya community. Since June 2012, the predominantly Buddhist country has been grappling with sectarian violence, outbreaks of which have left hundreds dead and more than 140,000 Rohingya confined to internal displacement camps in Rakhine.

In recent years, around 130,000 Rohingya have also fled the country by sea, according to the United Nations.

“I was so shocked by the situation that the Rohingya were living in there,” says Constantine, accusing the international community of paying little attention to the community.

“I knew it was a story I want to dedicate a lot of time to.”

Constantine’s haunting images show families confined to bamboo shacks, malnourished potbellied children walking among slums, and Rohingya gathered in impoverished conditions, trying to eke out an existence from the land.

One image shows three covered Rohingya women staring out of the darkness. It’s as if the suffering those eyes have seen reaches out to you.

As a freelance photographer, Constantine – who says he covered most of his costs through grants – had the freedom to spend long periods of time with the Rohingya.

“I like to talk to people quite a lot. And I always ask people if they are compatible with me taking pictures [so as not to invade their privacy],” he says.

He says getting people to talk with the aid of a translator, however, was not hard. 

“The Rohingya community has been so oppressed for so long they want their stories to be told,” he says.

Constantine says that his visits took mainly 2 to 3 weeks, although his last trip – in Nov. 2014 – took just three days.

“There was a big demonstration by the local Rakhine Buddhist community,” he recalls. “There were several thousands of people demonstrating through the streets of Sittwe [the capital of Rakhine State], all protesting the existing of the Rohingya.”

My trips chronicle “the starting point of that hatred,” he adds

No matter how stark and thought provoking the images – some, it has to be said, hauntingly beautiful in their capture of suffering – Constantine says he is not in Turkey to sell his images.

“The purpose of this exhibition is not to celebrate the photography, it is the last objective of all of this. It is actually to use photography as a way to engage people and promote better understanding [about the Rohingya.]

“I focus on the root cause of the problem and that is the oppression that they face in their homeland – which is Burma,” Constantine says.

“Unless things change there, you are continually going to have this flow of Rohingya out of Burma to other countries.”

Exiled to Nowhere: Burma’s Rohingya, runs until July 30 at Galata Fotografhanesi in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district.

By AFP

July 12, 2015

In a nation where religion and ethnicity are incendiary issues, a selfie campaign by Myanmar students promoting cross-cultural friendships has become a rare counterpoint to bilious anti-Muslim rhetoric from hardline Buddhist monks.

At first glance there is nothing unusual about the group of grinning teenagers jostling for space in front of a mobile phone camera.

But their selfie -- taken with Yangon's gleaming Shwedagon Pagoda in the background -- is an act of unity in a nation hit by deadly recent outbreaks of communal violence and increasingly inflammatory hate speech in a crucial election year.

A bespectacled boy from the country's Buddhist majority shares the screen with a group of fellow students who are Muslim, part of the 'My Friend' campaign which encourages people from different religions and ethnic groups to snap selfies together and post them online.

"Everyone loves to take selfies in their own way, so why don't we use it in a proper way, for the betterment of society?" explains campaign co-founder Wai Wai Nu, who hails from Myanmar's heavily persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority.

She was spurred into action by a rising tide of hate speech, which often targets the country's various Muslim communities, who make up an estimated four percent of the population.

Hardline Buddhist monks have led the anti-Muslim rhetoric through public demonstrations and online, sentiments matched by policy proposals many say target the minority.

The most recent spate of protests in Yangon and western Rakhine state have railed against help being offered to desperate Rohingya Muslim migrants found adrift on boats in the Bay of Bengal.

Tens of thousands of the minority ethnic group have fled Rakhine in recent years to escape persecution after deadly communal unrest erupted there in 2012, leaving more than 200 dead and 140,000 displaced in sprawling camps -- mostly Muslims.

On the Facebook page of the country's most notorious hardline monk Wirathu, a recent post warns against lifting a constitutional clause that would allow those who have married foreigners to become president, with a sketch of a future leader next to his hijab-wearing wife.

"If the law is changed, the country will look like this," it warns.

- Web fuelling hate -

Cheap mobile technology has ignited an Internet revolution in the former junta-run nation as it emerges from decades of isolation since the end of outright military rule in 2011.

But the exponential growth in web access has also seen hate speech flourish on social media with many well-visited accounts operating anonymously.

Blogger Nay Phone Latt is behind the Panzagar -- or "Flower Speech" -- movement which monitors and reports hate speech on sites like Facebook.

He says the government is doing little to stop inflammatory content from spreading.

"There are some groups who are intentionally trying to spread hate speech, and trying to ignite violence," he said, describing systematic online hate campaigns that are deeply intertwined with the country's politics.

The "My Friend" selfie group, which operates on Facebook and Twitter, decided it would use the same technology to reduce those divisions.

They were determined to launch the campaign before polls expected in November fearful that campaigning will deepen communal divisions.

Myanmar is a collage of ethnicities. But decades of neglect under military rule and conflict still raging in parts of the country's remote north and east have left many of its officially recognised 135 minority groups on the fringes.

Extremist clergy members are at the vanguard of moves to marginalise these minorities, especially Muslims.

Well-organised Buddhist nationalist movements such as Ma Ba Tha -- which is closely allied to Wirathu's 969 movement -- prints regular journals that reach tens of thousands of readers.

- Silent politicians -

Such groups say they are fighting to protect the interests of the country's Bamar majority.

The tend to portray Islam as external invasion that will wipe out Myanmar's Buddhist heritage despite the fact that Muslims have existed in the country for centuries.

Pamaukha, a monk and spokesman for Ma Ba Tha, denied the group caused anti-Muslim violence, saying it was only "working hard" to ensure Myanmar "does not become an Islamic country".

Few mainstream politicians -- including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi -- dare speak out in defence of Muslims for fear of alienating Buddhist voters ahead of crucial elections.

Her reticence, especially on the Rohingya issue, has earned her international opprobrium.

But Buddhist nationalists are actively campaigning against Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party because it has spoken out against the Buddhist "protection laws" put forward to parliament by Ma Ba Tha.

"We will campaign not to vote (for the NLD or others opposing the laws) through speeches and pamphlets," said Pamaukha.

The smiling subjects of the "My Friend" campaign on Facebook know they have a long way to go. Their campaign has garnered only around 1,700 likes on Facebook, a figure dwarfed by the more than 74,000 subscribers on Wirathu's page.

But they still hope their message of friendship gains traction as the country prepares to head to the polls.

As Han Seth Lu, a recent contributor to the campaign's Facebook page, put it in a post showing him standing alongside a woman in hijab: "I'm Buddhist and my friend is a Muslim."

"We are different but we accept each other," he added. "Because friendship has no boundaries".

RB News 

July 12, 2015 

New York – Rohingya Blogger has received an award from nine American organizations in New York for raising awareness on the persecution of Rohingya minority in Myanmar. 

Mr Nay San Oo speaking at the event

Rohingya Blogger was founded by U Ba Sein, lives in the United Kingdom. RB isn’t influenced by any organization and is independent without any financial assistance from any organization or individual. RB team members are purely volunteers and all are covering the several issues on their own expenses. The volunteers inside Myanmar are putting their safety and lives at risk to report news of the plight of the Rohingya from inside the country by Rohingya people is considered to be as illegal by Myanmar government. The informants could even face a life sentence in prison if caught by authorities.

July 11, 2015

By Yasmin Qureshi

New Statesman

July 11, 2015

After Srebrenica, the world said "never again". But yet another cleansing is happening in Myanmar, while the world watches. 

On July 11, 1995, Europe was revisited by the horrors it promised would “never again” occur on its soil. In the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, the very heart of Europe, eight thousand Bosnian Muslim boys and men were systematically slaughtered just five decades after the Holocaust.

This week, 20 years on, the world will commemorate that genocide. But even as we do so, ethnic cleansing will be taking place again. Again, it is directed against the Muslim population of a country that has lived there for generations. Again, it is the religious identity of the persecuted that justifies their persecution. And again, the world is doing little to address that persecution or the pervasive hate that gives rise to it.

It is Myanmar’s Rohingya, the “world’s most persecuted minority”, who today draw disturbing parallels to the plight of the Bosnian Muslims two decades earlier.

Like in Bosnia, realpolitik considerations of political and economic expediency have muted the responses of the international community to the Rohingya crisis.

After Myanmar’s recent liberalised economic reforms, it seems taking decisive action against a country with one of the world’s fastest growing economies does not fit the domestic agendas of many in the international community.

Similarly, two decades earlier, concern for how the domestic political agendas of Nato nations might be adversely affected by taking action against Serb aggression also led to inertia, even as hundreds of thousands perished.

Today, when the situation of the Rohingya is, in the words of Desmond Tutu, “nothing less than genocide”, the international community must learn from the lessons of the recent past. It must recalibrate its priorities in favor of averting genocide, even if that means a slight compromise in a government’s ‘domestic political agenda’.

But Srebrenica raises another fundamental question, one that informs any long-term response to the problem of mass persecution. How do we address the roots of hate that the Rohingya crises’ and Srebrenica massacres’ of the world all depend upon?

What creates the deep divisiveness that sets communities against each other in the first place? And that fosters a world-view where the destruction of the ‘other’ becomes synonymous with one’s own survival?

Hate speech happens to be a common cause across all cases of large-scale persecution. Without widespread messages of hate that dehumanize the ‘other’ and seep into the collective consciousness of the masses, the normalization of mass persecution and (in extreme cases) the total elimination of an ‘outside group’ cannot take place.

Before Bosnians were herded into concentration camps, they were depicted as “Turks” - foreigners plotting to impose an expansionist Muslim state upon Serbs, despite their overwhelmingly secular make-up. In 2010, theInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia recognized the role of media propaganda in the Srebrenica genocide.

Today uncannily similar hate speech is employed against the Rohingya who arelabelled “Bengalis” - foreigners attempting to force Muslim hegemony over Myanmar. Like the Bosnians before them, populist extremist characterizations of the Rohingya are dehumanizing, comparing them to mad dogs incapable of reasoning with.

Such perceptions are important because they create the mood music for controversial laws like Myanmar’s birth control legislation or the decision towithhold citizenship from the Rohingya.

But hate messages also afflict us closer to home. The precipitous rise in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate crime in Europe over the past year, is partly fueled by social media narratives and populist right-wing rhetoric about a demographic takeover of Europe, one that supposedly poses an existential threat to our way of life and civilization. Indeed, such rhetoric was replete across Anders Breivik’s 1000-page manifesto as justification for his murderous rampage in Norway in 2012.

The world around us, too, is suffering from increased religious sectarian hatred, fueling violence against the Yazidis, minority Christians in Iraq and Syria and internecine Sunni/ Shia violence in the Middle East.

It is a global problem and warrants a global solution. The world must do more to form a coordinated response to powerful narratives of hate that influence so many across the globe, like they did in Bosnia and like they are doing now in Myanmar.

This is why the Istanbul Process is so important. Supported by the European Union, the United States and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Process is designed to find a global solution to the problem of religious hate crimes and hate speech by implementing Human Rights Resolution 16/18.

This does not mean curtailing each nation’s freedom of speech laws so as to block hate speech, a point the most recent Istanbul Process meeting reiterated. Instead it means focusing on positive speech, tackling the online battleground where extremist propaganda abounds and framing powerful counter-narratives against the twisted logic and misinformation so often characterizing anti-religious rhetoric.

Realizing that so many major crimes against humanity stem from such hate, the Istanbul Process is a rare example of collaboration between three of the world’s major regional representatives on an issue that desperately needs it.

And while the international community must do much more, under the current dire circumstances, the Istanbul Process is not just helpful, but necessary.

But that does not mean it’s enough. With ethnic cleansing taking place before our eyes, grassroots social action must galvanize public opinion into pressuring the international community into firmer action to avert a potential repeat of Srebrenica.

In addition, we must also focus on the battle for hearts and minds, without which there can be no true victory over the bigotry, stereotypes and prejudice that precede violence. While the Rohingya have stepped into the shoes of the Bosnians of yesterday, combatting the drivers of hate will determine how many communities can be saved from stepping into the shoes of the Rohingya tomorrow.

Yasmin Qureshi is chair of the Chair of the APPG on Srebrenica, and member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

By Julio S. Amador III and Joycee A. Teodoro

Rappler.com

July 9, 2015

Can ASEAN protect the rights of the Rohingyas, considered as stateless by some, through a regional initiative?

The number of Rohingyas believed to be stranded off the coast of Southeast Asia has reached alarming proportions– UN estimate is around 2500– and this surge in number has caught the attention of the international community. The initial policy of destination countries Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, to turn away the Rohingyas back to the sea has led to the worsening of what humanitarian groups tag as a looming humanitarian crisis.

With growing international pressure, Indonesia and Malaysia reversed their stance following a trilateral meeting in Kuala Lumpur in May 2015 and have agreed to grant the Rohingyas temporary shelter for up to one year. Thailand, for its part, has offered to extend medical aid at sea. ASEAN, meanwhile, has been feeling the pressure to arrive at a collective regional course of action. Can ASEAN protect the rights of the Rohingyas, considered as stateless by some, through a regional initiative?

Understanding statelessness

The 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons defined a stateless person as someone “who is not considered as a national by any State under operation of its law.” Martin Stiller, in his work Statelessness in International Law: A Historic Overview, explained that international legal custom allows a state to determine who its nationals are. States come up with the norms and agreements to regulate persons traversing their national boundaries. Statelessness is arguably a product of the state-centric international system that privileges states rather than individuals.

Moreover, individual persons generally have no standing under international law without the mediation of the state since persons are granted this standing to the extent that they are subject to the rights and privileges imposed by international legislation. The benefits afforded to individual persons as a result of nationality can be considered as products of the social contract between individuals and their states.

While stateless persons may not enjoy state recognition as well as benefits and rights afforded to those with citizenship, there are international legal instruments put in place to serve as safeguards. The 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons identifies minimum standards of treatment that must be observed by contracting states. Moreover, the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness provides guidelines on how contracting states could grant nationality to stateless persons or regulate processes in granting citizenship. The 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol that amended it can also be used to protect the rights of stateless persons who have become refugees. The Refugee Convention is vital since it does not distinguish between those who are stateless and those who have defined nationalities. However, gaps in the protection of stateless persons remain.

Challenges for ASEAN: A collective regional course of action?

The pressure on ASEAN to take a collective regional course of action is growing. The transnational and inter-state nature of the Rohingya issue, on the one hand, and the different positions of the ASEAN Member States, on the other, constrain the prospect of an effective regional response, and in some cases even lead to tensions among the ASEAN Member States themselves. Also, ASEAN has to carefully tread this issue so as not to put too much pressure on Myanmar given its fragile political and social system. However, ASEAN also needs to ensure that it upholds the protection of the fundamental rights of persons.

The principle of non-intervention is a strong factor in the ASEAN Member States’ inability to act on the issue. As former ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan admitted, ASEAN cannot press Myanmar on the citizenship issue, although it can and should do so regarding the humanitarian aspect of the situation. He further explained that if an ASEAN Member State says these people are not its citizens, the regional organization effectively bars itself from responding to the Rohingya issue.

There is also the economic and social cost of refugee recognition as an argument for non-recognition. This is used to ensure that the Rohingyas, considered by some as “illegal economic migrants,” do not compete with the local labor supply nor freely avail of public services that are primarily meant for the consumption of citizens. An offshoot of this argument is the perception that refugees are threats to social cohesion. The lack of understanding of the nature of statelessness and refugees may be true both for governments and their nationals alike.

Member states have also been lagging in committing themselves to international legal instruments regarding the stateless and refugees. ASEAN Member States have not found interest in being part of the global process to protect the rights of the stateless and refugees. As scholar, Sara Davies, explains, this non-interest can be rooted in the belief that such legal concept is imposed by the West, thereby prompting resistance from AMS. This explains their non-signing of existing legal international instruments on statelessness and refugees. The non-signatories, therefore, are free from the burden of implementing the provisions stated in these conventions.

The way forward

On May 29, Thailand convened in Bangkok a special meeting attended by 17 countries to address the issue. The one-day meeting resulted in the agreement to protect the people at sea, to find a comprehensive solution to prevent irregular migration, smuggling of migrants, and trafficking in persons, and more importantly, to address root causes and improve the livelihood of those in at-risk communities. The statement was carefully worded to avoid putting the blame on just one country, nevertheless it was seen as an important step forward.

With these recent developments on crafting a shared and cooperative regional approach, ASEAN still needs to develop a mechanism to address this kind of problem. ASEAN may find it difficult to push for the Rohingyas’ political rights but it does not mean that their human rights should go unprotected. Under the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Blueprint, it is the aspiration and the goal of the region to respect fundamental freedoms and to promote and protect human rights, including those of foreigners living in the region. In addition, the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration recognizes that all persons are entitled to rights and freedoms without discrimination.

ASEAN could also provide humanitarian aid for internally displaced persons and refugees. In the case of the Rohingyas, ASEAN Member States should intensify their diplomatic efforts with Myanmar to allow the entry and coordination of humanitarian assistance. ASEAN should take charge in pooling humanitarian aid for the Rohingyas. Some arrangements could be made with external partners including the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and other parties with regard to providing international humanitarian assistance to the Rohingyas. This highlights that there is space for international humanitarian assistance.

ASEAN has the tools of diplomacy, experience in coordinating other international efforts, and influence over Myanmar to forge a regional response. ASEAN must still try to reconcile regional norms with international ones. If it does not accept these concepts, it must at least try to come up with regionally contextualized ones that take into consideration the rights of the stateless. ASEAN has already enunciated its adherence to human rights in several of its important documents. But until special meetings and statements are not supported by concrete actions and tangible outcomes, they will remain as mere rhetoric.

Julio S. Amador III is the Acting Director-General of the Foreign Service Institute.Mr. Amador can be reached at jsamador@fsi.gov.ph.

Joycee A. Teodoro is a Foreign Affairs Research Specialist with the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies of the Foreign Service Institute. Ms. Teodoro can be reached at jateodoro@fsi.gov.ph.

By Justine Drennan

Foreign Policy

July 9, 2015

It won’t be the truly open democratic process some had hoped for, but the election once hailed as Myanmar’s potential return to full-fledged democracy now has an exact date: Nov. 8.

The country, also known as Burma, has long said it would hold a vote this fall, in the first real, multiparty general election to be — hopefully — honored by the government in more than half a century. But before Wednesday’s official announcement of a date, political uncertainties over flagging reforms and ethnic conflict had caused some doubts — especially after a statement last fall by President Thein Sein about the need to solidify a cease-fire with ethnic minority rebel groups before citizens could vote.

Hillary Clinton still cites Myanmar’s transition from military dictatorship, a transition that started in 2011, as one of her greatest diplomatic achievements as U.S. secretary of state. Since 2012, though, Myanmar’s reforms have stalled. The parliament voted in June to keep the military’s effective veto power over constitutional amendments, along with a provision that bars iconic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from running for president because of the foreign citizenship of her late British husband and their sons.

Meanwhile, Buddhist mob violence against the Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority group has exploded since 2012, and the government has stripped Rohingyas of voting rights in the upcoming election. Opposition leaders like Aung San Suu Kyi have remained largely silent about the group’s plight. Just on Tuesday, the parliament passed a bill fueled by anti-Muslim sentiment that requires any Buddhist woman to submit plans to marry outside her religion for review — and possible cancellation — by local government officials.

Myanmar last staged open, multiparty general elections in 1990. Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party won a majority, but the military refused to honor the outcome. The opposition is expected to do quite well in the new elections too, making gains against the military-dominated ruling party and maybe even winning a majority. But whoever wins this vote, it’s going to be something less than a big win for democracy.

Photo credit: Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images

By Associated Press

July 9, 2015

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar's parliament is "playing with fire" by passing a bill regulating the right of women from the country's Buddhist majority to marry men from outside their religion, an international human rights group said Wednesday.

Phil Robertson of New York-based Human Rights Watch linked the bill to a campaign by extremist Buddhist groups that have incited anti-Muslim hatred. Religious tensions have led to deadly violence since 2012, especially against Rohingya Muslims in western Myanmar, who have felt compelled to flee abroad, leading to a regional refugee crisis.

The Buddhist Women's Special Marriage Bill passed Tuesday is one of four known as the Protection of Race and Religion Laws, which have been criticized as discriminatory by rights groups. It mandates that Buddhist women register their intent to marry outside their faith, and allows them to be stopped if there are objections.

President Thein Sein has 14 days from when the bill was passed to sign it or return it with suggested changes.

"It's shocking that Burma's parliament has passed yet another incredibly dangerous law, this time legislating clearly discriminatory provisions targeting the rights of religious minority men and Buddhist women to marry who they wish without interference," said Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division. Burma is the old name for Myanmar, sometimes used by critics of its military-backed government.

He suggested that the leaders of the Buddhist nationalist groups that pushed for the laws "be investigated and prosecuted for hate speech rather than feted in the halls of parliament."

Robertson said in an email that by initiating and passing such laws, "the government and ruling party lawmakers are playing with fire." He said that if sectarian violence flares again like it did in 2012, "then these legislators will have blood on their hands."

Also among the laws is the Population Control Health Care Bill, which became law in May and calls for a 36-month interval for women between child births, ostensibly to keep poor families from becoming overstretched financially. It is vague about penalties, raising fears that they could include coerced contraception, forced sterilization or abortion.

The two bills still pending are the Religious Conversion Bill, which forces people seeking to convert to another religion to get the approval of an official local "Registration Board," and the Monogamy Bill, whose articles include criminalizing extramarital relations.

The Rohingya Muslims already face many official restrictions because most have not been granted Myanmar citizenship, the U.S. State Department has noted.

"Muslims, including the Rohingya in Rakhine State, faced severe discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity, and increasingly, their religion," said the department's annual report on human rights, issued last month. "Most Rohingya faced severe restrictions on their ability to travel, avail themselves of health-care services, engage in economic activity, obtain an education, and register births, deaths, and marriages."

By Panu Wongcha-um

Channel NewsAsia

July 7, 2015

Humanitarian groups said more illegal boats and new tactics by people smugglers could reignite the Rohingya crisis in southern Thailand once the monsoon season ends.

PHANG NGA, Thailand: Thai authorities have arrested 65 suspects out of 119 wanted for human trafficking of Rohingya migrants since May, but experts warned that more needs to be done to stamp out the trafficking network responsible for the "death camps" discovered in southern Thailand and Malaysia.

A Thai police officer who works in southern Thailand and wanted to remain anonymous said he feared the traffickers may change tactics from transporting migrants in large numbers, to trafficking them in small groups or even one-by-one.

"Once the rain stops then we may see more arrivals of the Rohingya and this time the traffickers may change their tactics," the officer said.

The monsoon has halted the traffic carrying Rohingya and Bangladeshi migrants through southern Thailand but once the stormy season is over there could be more migrant boats arriving, according to the Deputy Director of the Human Rights Watch's Asia division, Phil Robertson.

"Unless these trafficking networks are eradicated we will see more suffering," Mr Robertson said, adding that the humanitarian situation in Rakhine state in western Myanmar has worsened since the sectarian violence in 2012.

He said this could lead to a greater exodus once the monsoon ends.

In 2012, sectarian violence erupted between Buddhists and Muslims resulting in the mass displacement of the Rohingya population within Rakhine state. Many Rohingya were driven out of city centres into isolated camps and makeshift villages, living under fear of fresh outbreaks of violence.

Almost all of those affected lacked access to medical care, education, and economic opportunities, causing many to flee on boats to Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

The president of the Burmese Rohingya Association of Thailand, Maung Kyaw Nu, said ASEAN and world governments need to listen to the suffering of the Rohingya to properly address the issue.

"If they listen to our voice then there would be no more graves," he said.

Meanwhile those who have already arrived in Thailand are still in limbo.

Officially not recognised as refugees, most are considered illegal migrants and are stuck in Thai government detention centres or shelters in southern Thailand.

"In local societies they are often seen as a burden, as a drain on society", said Vivian Tan, Senior Regional Public Information Officer of the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

"This doesn't need to be the case because of these refugees are allowed to work legally for the time they are here; at least they can become self-reliant and can contribute to society," she said.

By Fiona Macgregor

Myanmar Times

July 7, 2015