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August 27, 2015

Army claims to have nabbed an accomplice of Myanmar separatist outfit ‘Arakan Army’ from hills tract district of Rangamati.

Army’s Rangamati-based brigade said that one Ong Owong Rakhain, 20, was detained from Rajsthali Upazila’s Taitong Parha during a raid between Wednesday night and the wee hours of Thursday.

The arrest takes place a day after the Myanmarese rebels engaged in a gun-battle with a Border Guard Bangladesh patrol team near international border in Bandarban.

The raid was conducted jointly by the army and police in the area along the border in Bandarban and Rangamati districts, Major Taslim of 305th Infantry Brigade said in an email.

Uniforms of Arakan Army, laptops, digital cameras, motorcycles and two horses were found in his possession.

Major Taslim in the email said Rakhain was nabbed from the house of Dr Ran Nin Soe Marma in Taitong Parha after a raid there following an intelligence input.

A picture of the detained man, sent with the email, shows both his hands amputated and splinter injuries on the body.

Local police said the house of Dr Marma, who lives in the Netherlands, was raided based on a tip-off.

“The owner of the house fled,” Rajsthali police OC Wahidul Islam told bdnews24.com.

During initial interrogations, the detainee admitted he was an accomplice of separatist outfit Arakan Army and that he was a resident of Arakan State in Myanmar, added the police officer.

A joint forces’ raid kicked-off in the hill tracts area of Bangladesh after an exchange of fire between Bangladesh Border Guard (BGB) troopers and the separatists on Wednesday.

By Ye Mon
August 27, 2015

With the Union Election Commission slated to wind up its scrutiny of candidates today, Muslim political parties fear their nominees – like some of their voters – will be struck from electoral rolls.

The National Democratic Party for Development plans electoral victory. (Kaung Htet/The Myanmar Times)

At least half-a-dozen independent and opposition party candidates have so far been disqualified, mainly after the citizenship of their parents was called into question. The ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party, meanwhile, said as of yesterday evening it had not dropped a single contestant.

In the 2010 election, the government was accused by election monitors of skewing the scrutinising process in favour of eliminating opposition candidates in areas anticipated to be hotly contested.

Muslim parties in restive Rakhine State are especially worried about this year’s process, after a sitting Muslim MP was cut from the candidate list last week. U Shwe Maung was rejected from the ruling party after serving as a Pyithu Hluttaw representative for Buthidaung for five years.

His bid to re-contest the seat as an independent was blocked after his opponent from the Rakhine National Party – which aims to protect ethnic Rakhine interests – filed a complaint about the MP.

On August 22, the election commission office in Maungdaw sent a letter to U Shwe Maung – who self-identifies as a Rohingya – notifying him that he is ineligible to run as his parents were not citizens when he was born, a claim he denies.

Also known as Abdul Rezak, the MP said a Muslim candidate for the Amyotha Hluttaw, Daw Khin Khin Lwin, had also been disqualified.

Four Muslim parties are contesting seats in Rakhine State and Yangon. But even if the candidates pass through the UEC unscathed, they may still face an uphill battle in November’s poll: As many as 500,000 Muslim voters in Rakhine State were removed from voter lists, according to The New York Times.

U Kyaw Soe Aung, general secretary for the Democracy and Human Rights Party, said yesterday that the sub-commission was still checking the candidates, but so far his party had received no indication its candidates would be disqualified.

“I hope that the laws will protect the Muslim parties,” he said. “But we are worried that the Rakhine parties will [push for our candidates to be] rejected for citizenship reasons.”

The party has entered nominees for 18 constituencies, including 11 regional hluttaw and Pyidaungsu Hluttaw seats in Rakhine State.

Another Muslim party, the Kaman National Development Party, is also worried that its five candidates will be barred from the polls under contentious citizenship issues.

The KNDP’s chair, U Zaw Win, said he fears Muslim representatives will not be allowed to represent Muslim-dominated constituencies.

“The citizenship issue is a big issue currently … I think other candidates will be subjected to disqualification for this reason,” U Zaw Win said yesterday.

The largest opposition party, the National League for Democracy, has been alerted that at least four of its candidates have been disqualified.

U Nyan Win, a spokesperson of the NLD, told The Myanmar Times that the party will appeal the rejections at the sub-commission level.

“Three MPs were told they are ineligible to run as their parents were not citizens at the time of their birth and another one is younger than qualification age, 30, which is prescribed by Amyotha Hluttaw Election Law,” he said.

U Phyo Wai Aung, from Kayah State, was rejected for being under-age – he is currently 29. Two candidates from Shan State and a candidate for Mandalay Region, U Win Myint, were all rejected on the grounds that one or more of their parents were Chinese and not citizens at the time of their birth.

On August 25, the Mandalay Region sub-commission rejected physician U Win Myint’s appeal, but his lawyer said he will appeal to the Union level.

The candidates were not able to comment yesterday on their disqualification, as the NLD has issued a gag order of indeterminate length that bars its candidates from speaking to the media or participating in public debates.

Political commentator U Sithu Aung Myint said the election commission should not misuse the rules and regulations to create biased dismissals of opposition and ethnic minority candidates.

“The election commission has intentionally focused on [scrutinising] the NLD and other opposition parties. But it is not included the ruling party USDP in its disqualifications,” he said.

Union Election Commission deputy director U Hla Maung Cho declined to comment on the issue until the final list of approved candidates is made public.

By Nyan Lynn Aung
August 27, 2015

On August 22, police in Yangon’s Hmawbi township arrested 10 Muslim internally displaced people from Rakhine State camps, including nine children. They are being detained for entering Yangon illegally.

Police in Yangon conduct an evening inspection as part of a plan to ramp up security before the election. (Zarni Phyo/The Myanmar Times)

According to immigration officials, the police stopped a drunk driver during one of the evening inspections meant to step-up security ahead of the election. The 10 passengers crammed into the back of the Probox turned out to be unable to speak Myanmar and were pulled aside.

All but one of those arrested are children. The police remain unsure of what to do with the minors who range in age from 16 years old to just seven.

“We were planning to send them to the juvenile detention centre, but it is not safe for them. And they could escape if we sent them there,” U Than Naing, an officer from the Hmawbi township immigration department told The Myanmar Times.

“So far, we are keeping them at the police station while we wait for the suggestion of a lawyer.”

Police have opened an illegal entry case against Daw Khin Saw Win, 42, who is the mother of one of the detained 15-year-olds, and the grandmother of the 7-year-old, according to the immigration office.

All 10 had agreed to pay K1 million (US$780) each to a broker who promised to arrange them jobs in Yangon so they could work off the debt, according to investigating police. They left IDP camps in Sittwe township, which were erected after sectarian riots displaced over 140,000 Muslim residents. The IDPs face extreme restrictions on their movements, while food, jobs and healthcare are in scarce supply at the camps. According to the United Nations, the Rohingya camp residents – whom the government calls Bengalis – face a policy of institutionalised discrimination.

According to the driver’s account, in addition to the 10 “Bengalis” arrested in Hmawbi township, another 19 were also part of the group that initially left Sittwe with the broker. At a stop along Highway 4 between Sittwe and Yangon, 11 passengers stayed behind, while eight other people got into two separate sedans that also made their way to Yangon.

“The driver said the other cars passed his car before he reached the checkpoint,” said U Naing Naing Nyein, police captain of Hmawbi police station. ”However, we did not see the car licence plate numbers which he reported coming either in or out of the toll gate. We checked the CCTV record.”

U Naing Naing Nyein added that police are trying to locate the broker as well as the other 19 passengers.

By VOA Urdu
August 26, 2015

Dr. Wakar Uddin discusses the work of the ARU to support the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.






A Rohingya child in Rakhine State, Myanmar.
Image Credit: Flickr/European Commission DC ECHO

By Michael Caster
August 26, 2015

The euphemistically-termed “Protection of Race and Religion” bills raise serious questions about the country’s future.

Last Thursday, Myanmar’s parliament approved the remaining two of four “Protection of Race and Religion” bills. ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights Chairperson Charles Santiago prefers to call them the “Race and Religion Discrimination bills.” Their passage—which would allow local governments to impose a host of repressive measures—comes at a time of ongoing racial and religious discrimination and violence, part of a concerning trend in systematic Rohingya persecution. It is only more alarming as it coincides with the widespread disenfranchisement of previously registered Rohingya voters, including former parliamentarian U Shwe Maung. 

These bills are inconsistent with international norms and standards and represent a clear violation of Myanmar’s obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Myanmar is a party to both conventions. The bills are likely to not only legitimize anti-Muslim sentiment but also provide a legal framework for increasing discrimination of Rohingya. 

The package of laws has been a long time coming. They were first proposed following the establishment of the nationalist Buddhist organization known as Ma Ba Tha, which presented them as a draft to President Thein Sein in mid-2013. In December 2014, the laws were tabled for parliamentary debate beginning in January. Civil society and the international human rights community campaigned against their adoption and encouraged the Government of Myanmar to observe its human rights obligations rather than succumbing to nationalist hysteria. 

Despite such concerns, in May the Population Control Healthcare Bill was the first to be approved. UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar,Yanghee Lee cautioned that the “Protection of Race and Religion” bills “risk deepening discrimination against minorities and setting back women’s rights in Myanmar.” 

The bill grants regional officials the ability to establish 36-month birth spacing for target groups. The bill lacks human rights safeguards and raises serious concerns for abuse against Rohingya Muslims, who have already been subjected to decades of similarly abusive local orders. 

Muslim couples that wish to marry must obtain official approval, which can sometimes take years to secure and require bribes. The Two Child Policy requires them to sign an agreement that they will not have more than two children, under threat of fine or imprisonment. The policy has led to amateur abortions that threaten women’s lives, influenced the number of women refugees, and led to the birth of blacklisted children who may never be registered, explains Engy Abdelkader, an expert on freedom of religion with the OSCE. The CRC requires birth registration and establishes the right to a nationality and identity, noting that the state is obligated to ensure these rights “in particular where the child would otherwise be stateless.” 

The desire to control Muslim populations in Myanmar comes from the widespread belief in the Buddhist-majority country that Muslim communities have exceedingly high birthrates and are planning a population takeover. However, as Abdelkader points out, based on official government data, researchers at Harvard University have revealed that Rohingya actually have one of the country’s lowest population growth rates. Unconvinced by such data, Ma Ba Tha founder and ultra-nationalist monk U Wirathu continues to infuse his Buddhist millenarian sermons with narratives of Muslim population growth, and the forced conversion or widespread rape of Buddhist women. 

In July, parliament passed the Buddhist Women’s Special Marriage Bill, which requires Buddhist women and men from other religions who wish to marry to register their intention publicly. They may only get married if there are no objections. It will apply retroactively to existing unions who must register as interfaith marriages. This violates the universally recognized rights to marriage and privacy, as well as equal protection of the law by applying only to Buddhist women and non-Buddhist men. It is a blatant attempt to curb interfaith marriages says Phil Robertson, deputy Asia Director for Human Rights Watch. 

The justification for protecting Buddhist women in marriage appears to arise from a gender discriminatory narrative that equates women with purity and assigns a patriarchal society with the task of protecting a Buddhist women’s purity at the expense of her agency. 

In August, parliament approved the final two bills, the Religious Conversion Bill and the Monogamy Bill. The conversion bill requires anyone who chooses to change their religion to apply with a district level “Registration Board,” submit to an interview and a 90-day waiting period. Such restrictions violate the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion and the right to freely have or adopt religion. It is an assault on privacy, also found in the monogamy bill, which targets religious minorities who are often seen as sexual deviants. 

According to Human Rights Watch, at least the most recent bills are still awaiting final signature by President Thein Sein. As the November election approaches he will likely come under increasing pressure, along with the rest of his USDP Party, from Ma Ba Tha to enact them into law. 

Throughout the drafting period and especially once the package of bills was introduced to parliament, Ma Ba Tha was active in campaigning for their enactment. In October, U Wirathu organized thousands in Mandalay to demand the passage of the bills. May Sabai Phyu, a human rights defender and member of the Kachin ethnic minority, revealed that Ma Ba Tha challenged parliamentarians who did not approve the bills. Senior monks told their congregations not to vote for those who did not support the bills. Some critics were labeled “traitors” and at least four civil society leaders reported receiving death threats. 

Article 364 of Myanmar’s Constitution forbids the abuse of religion for political purposes, and several sections of the Penal Code criminalize deliberate assaults on religious feelings and the incitement of hatred or violence against racial or religious groups. However, there has been no investigation into these activities. 

One problem that remains seemingly unanswered, as pointed out by Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists, is whether and how the bills would apply to non-citizens. This is a particular concern for the Rohingya, who have been denied citizenship and subjected to unofficial discriminatory local orders for decades. 

When asked whether non-citizens living in the country would be burdened with the requirements under the religious conversion or the marriage bill, U Win Mra, Chairman of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission, merely stated “that it is a very complicated thing, which the state must consider carefully.” The inability of the national human rights commission to conclusively dissuade concerns that the law would disproportionately target non-citizens raises serious concerns about implementation. 

For Wai Wai Nu, a Rohingya rights defender and founder of Women Peace Network Arakan, there is little uncertainty. For her, the central government’s intent with the adoption of the “Protection of Race and Religion” bills is precisely to legalize discrimination. 

Michael Caster is a graduate student at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Previously he worked as a human rights advocate and civil society consultant based in East Asia.

BGB troops near the border at Bandarban’s Naikkhangchharhi in May 2014, when a firefight with Myanmar border forces left a BGB trooper killed.

August 26, 2015

Bangladesh border guards have exchanged fire with a ‘separatist outfit’ of Myanmar near the international border in Bandarban.

Additional troops of army and the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) have been flown in to Thanchi Upazila’s Barha Modak area after Wednesday morning’s incident.

A BGB trooper ‘Zakir’ was injured in the shooting.

“The injured BGB member has been rescued from the spot. Additional BGB and army troops are being sent by helicopter in the area to conduct a coordinated operation against the terrorists,” BGB Director General Maj Gen Aziz Ahmed told bdnews24.com.

The firing ensued when activists of the separatists outfit attacked a BGB patrol.

Thanchi’s Remacri Union Council Chairman Maliram Tripura said the shootout with Myanmar separatists ‘Arakan Army’ took place near the BGB camp in Barha Modak area.

Locals said the BGB detained 13 horses on Tuesday, which were used to transport goods meant for the Arakan rebels.

The army’s Bandarban Region Commander Brig Gen Nakib Ahmed Chowdhury, however, refused to provide any further details.

Protesters march against the UN in Rakhine State in August 2012. (Staff/The Myanmar Times)

By Aung Kyaw Min 
August 26, 2015

After a sitting Muslim parliamentarian’s bid to contest the November polls was blocked based on the veracity of his citizenship, the leader of a Buddhist hyper-nationalist group slammed the ruling party for ever letting him into parliament.

U Wirathu also suggested further restricting seats to “national ethnic” candidates to prevent clever foreigners from tricking “dim-witted” voters and overrunning the government.

“In our country, non-national citizens who are descendents of foreigners are allowed to be elected whenever they become citizens of Myanmar. That fact is dangerous,” said U Wirathu, of the Committee for the Protection of Nationality and Religion, which is better known by its Myanmar-language acronym Ma Ba Tha.

“Our national people are dim-witted. When the descendants of foreigners who are sharp-witted enter the hluttaw they will push through laws that benefit the interests of their people. That’s why I want to urge voters to elect only national ethnic candidates,” he said, adding that the law should be amended to allow only “national ethnics” into public office.

Under the current Pyithu Hluttaw Election Law, candidates must be at least 25 years old, have lived in Myanmar continuously for 10 years, and be a citizen born to parents who are also both citizens.

At least three candidates registered for the November 8 election have so far been disqualified by the Union Election Commission on the grounds that their parents were not citizens at the time of their birth.

Sitting Pyithu Hluttaw MP U Shwe Maung, also known as Abdul Razek, was informed on August 22 that he was cut from the candidate list after state immigration police verified a citizenship complaint filed by his ethnic Rakhine political rival.

U Shwe Maung, who maintains that both his parents were full citizens at the time of his birth, was confirmed by the UEC and elected to represent Buthidaung in Rakhine State as a member of the Union Solidarity and Development Party in 2010.

In a bid to defeat its ethnic Rakhine opponents, the USDP adopted the controversial strategy of courting the Rohingya community in 2010.

U Wirathu said in its effort to win seats the USDP had “allowed everything outside law and were not in accordance with election rules”.

“At that time, Rakhine people objected and complained, but the party didn’t care,” he said.

The USDP’s overture to the Rohingya appeared to backfire, however, as the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party – which later became the Rakhine National Party – swept the state.

Sectarian tensions between the Rakhine and Rohingya communities came to a head during deadly riots in 2012. During a subsequent outbreak of violence, U Shwe Muang was accused of defamation for suggesting police were involved in arson.

As the USDP lined up its candidates for the November 8 vote, none of the party’s three Muslim Pyidaungsu Hluttaw MPs, who all represent voters in northern Rakhine State, were accepted to re-contest their seats. Only U Shwe Maung filed to run, as an independent. Both he and another independent Muslim candidate contesting Rakhine State have been disqualified by the commission.

“In the past, the government and political parties were weak on nationalism which allowed Bengalis to reach the hluttaw,” said U Wirathu, referring to the Rohingya by their state-appointed name. “Now, political parties do not allow the Bengali candidates to destroy their party, and also take action on them.”

In 2010, many Rohingya who voted held temporary ID documents known as white cards. This was deeply controversial, as white cards are issued to those whose citizenship status is unclear, while the constitution states that only citizens can vote.

In February of this year, parliament enacted a referendum law that would enable those holding white cards to vote, a decision that prompted public protests.


As a result, hundreds of thousands of those who voted in 2010 have now been stripped of the right to do so. The New York Times reported on August 23 that up to 500,000 had been taken off the rolls as of June.

Now their representatives have also been barred, prompting some rights groups to question how much of a democratic milestone the looming elections will be.

“It could mean that Rohingya-majority consituencies in northern Rakhine State are won by candidates who want to see them expelled from the country, permanently interred or worse,” said Hanna Hindstrom from the Minority Rights Group.

“It is a major indictment of Burma’s commitment to holding a free and fair election in November.”

The Carter Center, a US-based not-for-profit that has been invited to monitor the election, warned that the exclusion of Rohingya voters and the growing anti-Muslim rhetoric threatens the integrity of the coming poll.

But Rakhine State’s Muslim minority is not the only group targeted by the election commission for alleged foreign roots.

A physician and opposition National League for Democracy candidate in Mandalay’s Chan Aye Thar San township, Dr Win Myint, has also been told he is ineligible to run for election.

The sub-commission office refused the NLD candidate allegedly because his father is ethnically Chinese and not a full citizen, a claim he refutes.

Both U Shwe Maung and Dr Win Myint say they and their parents were citizens long before the electoral law was enacted, and before the 1982 Citizenship Law created categories of citizenship. Both plan to contest their disqualification.

As the election commission continues scrutinising the 6000 candidates through the end of this month, Ma Ba Tha has encouraged stringent checks and the disqualification of “non-nationals”.

“Ma Ba Tha welcomes the current activity of the election commission,” U Wirathu said. “We, Ma Ba Tha and some political parties, plan to help by amending the candidate selection requirements in the constitution. We will demand to substitute ‘national ethnics’ instead of ‘citizens’.”

(Photo: Reuters)

By Joshua Carroll
August 26, 2015

An influential Myanmar Buddhist monk famous for his firebrand anti-Muslim speeches has said he will push to get “descendants of foreigners” banned from standing in elections ahead of a Nov. 8 poll that has been billed as a key test of the country’s reforms.

Ashin Wirathu, who has been accused of stoking anti-Muslim tensions that have erupted into deadly riots in recent years, told the Myanmar Times Wednesday that allowing “non-national citizens who are descendants of foreigners” into parliament is “dangerous”.

His comments come after Muslim MPs were blocked from running in the upcoming poll on the grounds that their parents were not citizens, a claim they deny. Earlier this year hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims were also barred from voting, sparking an outcry from rights groups.

Wirathu warned that the people of Myanmar were too “dim-witted” to prevent foreign interests from taking control of parliament, the report said.

November’s election is set to be the first to be contested by the pro-democracy opposition in the country for 25 years, but critics say it is unlikely to be fully free and fair.

Myanmar officially regards its roughly one million Rohingya Muslims as “Bengalis” -- interlopers from neighboring Bangladesh -- and the government has acquiesced to demands from hardliners to exclude them from a nationwide census and withdraw the documents that granted them voting rights.

In 2010, the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party actively courted the Rohingya vote and allowed Rohingya candidates to run under its banner.

Since then hate speech against Muslims, including non-Rohingya with full citizenship, has escalated as restrictions on freedom of expression have eased.

Ashin Wirathu has spearheaded the anti-Muslim movement, preaching that Buddhism, the majority religion, is under threat from foreign Muslims.

He is a prominent leader in Ma Ba Tha, an ultra-nationalist group that recently succeeded in pushing a series of controversial laws through parliament aimed at “protecting” Buddhism.

“Our national people are dim-witted. When the descendants of foreigners who are sharp-witted enter parliament they will push through laws that benefit the interests of their people,” he told the Myanmar Times.

He added: “We, Ma Ba Tha and some political parties, plan to help by amending the candidate selection requirements in the constitution.”

He said he wanted to replace the word “citizen” in the charter with the phrase “national ethnics” -- Myanmar officially recognizes 135 ethnic groups, but the list does not include the Rohingya.

Tens of thousands from the group have fled persecution by boat since being targeted in mob violence in 2012.

The exodus recently erupted into a regional crisis when human traffickers abandoned thousands of people at sea following a crackdown by Thai authorities.

The Rohingya have faced violence and isolation - and now devastating floods [Mark Fenn/Al Jazeera]

By Mark Fenn
August 26, 2015

Monsoon storms have wreaked havoc on Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya Muslims.

Sittwe, Myanmar - Amid the mud and drizzle, Khin Maung Myint surveyed the scene from his single-room bamboo hut. With floodwaters reaching knee height in places, he worried about the damage inflicted on his ramshackle home by monsoonal storms. 

The father-of-six, who also goes by the religious name Elias, lives in the Dar Paing camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) in western Myanmar with his wife and children. He is 36, but his dire circumstances have aged him beyond his years. 

"With young children living in this one room, it's not a good situation," he said through an interpreter. "Sleeping is very difficult as there is not enough room for eight family members." 

Severe weather across Myanmar has affected more than 1.6 million people and killed at least 117 in the past two months, according to the United Nations. 

Storms, floods and landslides have displaced nearly 400,000 households in many parts of the country. 

Among those affected are members of the Rohingya minority in western Myanmar's Rakhine state, who were forced from their homes by anti-Muslim violence in 2012. 

About 140,000 Rohingya currently live in IDP camps around the state capital, Sittwe.

Many Rohingya have been left homeless by the heavy storms [Mark Fenn/Al Jazeera]

'Not safe for kids' 

Residents live in tents or, like Elias, in cramped bamboo huts with tin or tarpaulin roofs. In recent weeks, they have been battling torrential rainstorms that have left about 40 families homeless. 

Five large shelters were destroyed by the storms, residents said last week, forcing people to move to other camps or take shelter in temporary school buildings. 

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has provided blankets, mats, tarpaulins and other items to affected camp residents, while the Myanmar government and the World Food Programme (WFP) have provided food aid to flood victims. 

Residents receive regular rations of rice, beans, salt and oil from the WFP, which are supplemented with fruit, vegetables and fish from the Bay of Bengal just a few kilometres away. 

"Water, sanitation and hygiene needs were provided, and mobile health clinics visited the camps distributing oral rehydration," Orla Fagan, spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said on Tuesday. 

"Shelters in camps for displaced people are deteriorating after three years and need to be repaired or reconstructed after the floods," said Fagan. 

No trained doctors work at the Dar Paing camp, which is home to some 7,000 people. Pharmacist Mohammed Tayub, 36, does his best to treat illnesses with his meagre supply of medicines. 

He usually sees about 50 patients a week, but he said this number has increased substantially in recent weeks. Most are children, many of whom suffer from diarrhoea, vomiting, coughs and fevers. 

"Living in this situation is not safe for the kids," he said. "There are too many people living together so diseases spread easily."

Aid organisations have provided assistance to the community, but more needs to be done, they say [Mark Fenn/Al Jazeera]

Stateless people 

The Rohingya, who practice a form of Sunni Islam, have been described by human rights groups as one of the world's most persecuted minorities. 

About one million Rohingya live in Myanmar, but the government refuses to recognise them as citizens, saying they are illegal migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. 

Since 1982, they have been classified as non-nationals, effectively rendering them stateless, and are denied basic human rights. 

Simmering historical tensions with Rakhine's Buddhist majority boiled over in 2012, when Sittwe and other parts of the state saw deadly communal violence and rioting.

Homes and businesses were set alight and about 200 Rohingya were burned, shot, beaten, or hacked to death by rampaging Buddhist mobs. 

Most of Sittwe's Rohingya residents fled the city, although some 4,000 remain in the Aung Mingalar neighbourhood, which has become a sealed ghetto. 

The authorities say they are not allowed to leave for their own safety, but Rohingya activists allege the government is trying to force them out of the country. 

Many Rohingya have fled by sea, aiming to reach Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia. The UNHCR said about 25,000 left in the first three months of this year alone, when the "boat people" humanitarian crisis made headlines around the world.

Hundreds died at sea, and others fell prey to human-trafficking gangs and were kept in camps along the Thai-Malaysia border, where mass graves were discovered earlier this year.

Other Rohingya live in villages in northern Arakan state, where they make a living as rice farmers, fishermen, or small tradesmen. 

Chris Lewa from The Arakan Project, an NGO that supports the Rohingya, said little or no assistance has been given to villagers from either the government or international agencies. 

"Relief assistance should urgently be provided to the most needy and affected in a non-discriminatory manner," said Lewa, who is based in Bangkok. 

"Longer term recovery assistance is also needed as paddy fields have been flooded and the harvest will be poor. With an already restricted access to means of livelihood, the recent floods will worsen the already dire humanitarian situation of the Rohingya."

Image Credit: European Commission DG Echo

By Senator Raynell Andreychuk
August 26, 2015

Responding to the plight of the Rohingya is an international human rights imperative.

Burma is at a very particular stage in its development. In recent years, it has shown a new willingness to engage with the international community. It has also begun to open new space for freedom of expression and civil liberties.

After many years of political isolation and sanctions on Burma, the international community has welcomed these developments. But there is also a recognition that the country still needs to overcome many obstacles.

A main concern is that the military still maintains a great deal of control in the country and in its parliament. Earlier this summer, Burma’s parliament voted to maintain the military’s veto over constitutional change. This is a setback for Burmese democracy, amid ongoing constitutional reform negotiations and with elections approaching on November 8, 2015.

Peace talks are also underway, though conflict continues between the central government and a number of armed ethnic groups. Ethnic minorities in Burma, of which there are nine main groups and a number of smaller ones, have many legitimate grievances. Sustainable, political and economic reconciliation relies heavily on leaders’ abilities to redress these grievances and to chart a more inclusive future for the Burmese society.

Among the most marginalized ethnic groups in Burma are the Rohingya Muslims.

According to the organization Refugees International, the Rohingya are also one of the largest stateless groups in the world. Persecuted since the 1940s, an estimated 1 million Rohingya today live in exile. Another 1.3 million Rohingya still live in Burma, all but 40,000 of them officially stateless.

Mostly, they live in Rakhine state, close to Burma’s border with Bangladesh, where they are perceived to be economic migrants. This, however, is a false perception. “For hundreds of years, they have been migrating from the Middle East as Arab traders, shall we say, a Muslim‑faith visible minority,” says Peter MacArthur, Director General of South and Southeast Asia and Oceania with Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development.

“Only since 1948, when independence occurred from the British, has there been this kind of tension. The current government in Burma is trying to discriminate between those who have been there since 1948 and those who were already there before 1948, when the country gained independence.”

Despite their long history in Burma, Rohingya statelessness is embedded in government policy.

The 1982 Burma citizenship law stripped the Rohingya of citizenship, making them resident foreigners instead. This caused the Rohingya ethnicity to be omitted from a recent national census. Moreover, Burmese law prevents non-citizens from obtaining citizenship. As such, Rohingya children born in Burma are prevented from obtaining citizenship even though their families may have been there for generations. This is despite Burma’s ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which guarantees every child’s right to have her birth registered, to have a nationality, and to have these rights protected under national law.

The Rohingyas’ lack of citizenship also means that they have been restricted from travelling within Burma and abroad – in direct violation of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The United Nations Refugee Agency has urged Burma to review its citizenship law, offering financial, technical and legal support, but to no effect.

Other restrictions on the Rohingya have been less widely reported. In July 2012, Myanmar’s Minister of Home Affairs, Lieutenant-General Ko Ko, told parliament that the authorities were, “tightening the regulations [against Rohingya] in order to handle travelling, birth, death, immigration, migration, marriage, construction of new religious buildings, repairing and landownership and [the] right to construct building[s].” The Rohingya also face restrictions in accessing education and employment.

Adding to these problems, in recent years the Rohingya have been targeted by Buddhist ultra-nationalists. Violence against the Rohingya has been frequently fueled by extremist monks, many of whom are important community leaders. Authorities have all too often stood and watched as Rohingya homes and mosques have been burned, and shops looted.

Today there is unprecedented international awareness of the plight of the Rohingya.

Rohingya communities were amongst those hardest hit by deadly flooding in Early August. This was accompanied by reports that security forces violently turned Rohingya away from flood shelters, which, they allegedly said, had been set up for ‘those who belong to this country’.

In early May, media reported on the discovery of mass graves of migrants in southern Thailand. Shortly thereafter, the BBC broadcast shocking images of Rohingya boat people stranded and left adrift by their traffickers.

The same month, the former Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Burma, Tomás Ojea Quintana, said: ‘‘The Rohingya are in a process of genocide.’’

Under international pressure, the foreign ministers of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia held a meeting on May 20. This resulted in Malaysia and Indonesia agreeing to host the migrants for a year, on the condition that the international community would provide support for their care and repatriation.

This is clearly only a temporary solution to help those who have risked their lives to escape persecution in Burma, though other initiatives are underway. The government of Bangladesh, for example, has put aside $59 million for its Coast Guard. There have also been a number of arrests of human traffickers.

For the Rohingya, however, the only sustainable solution to decades of persecution and neglect is for them to be fully recognized as a unique ethnic group, and citizens in Burma.

People, governments and NGOs around the world have long stood with the people of Burma, pushing for greater freedom, democracy and respect for human rights. Today, as we welcome and encourage Burma’s greater engagement with the international community, it is important that we continue to sustain pressure on Burma’s leaders to build a democracy that is open and free, inclusive of all ethnic groups in Burma, accepting of Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus alike, and home to the Rohingya.

The Honourable Raynell Andreychuk is a senator from Saskatchewan, Canada. A lawyer, former judge, chancellor of the University of Regina, Canadian ambassador and representative of Canada to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Senator Andreychuk was instrumental in setting up the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights, which she chaired from 2001 to 2009, undertaking major studies on International Human Rights machinery, laws and treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Since 2009, Senator Andreychuk has also served as chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs.



By TIMOTHY MCLAUGHLIN
August 24, 2015

A Rohingya member of Myanmar's parliament barred from contesting Nov. 8 elections on the basis that his parents were not Myanmar citizens at the time of his birth said on Monday he would appeal the decision and hoped to stand in the vote.

The move to deny Shwe Maung, an MP from the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), a chance to run despite being a serving member of government raises concerns about the disenfranchisement of the Rohingya Muslim minority.

Most of Myanmar's 1.1 million Rohingya, an ethnic minority living in the country's western Rakhine State, are stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions. Almost 140,000 were displaced in deadly clashes in Rakhine in 2012.

Shwe Maung, who planned to run as an independent after not being nominated by the USDP, said that he was informed by state officials on Saturday that his application had been turned down.

"It's ridiculous for me," Shwe Maung said. "I was elected in 2010. Now I'm working."

According to Shwe Maung, both of his parents were citizens prior to his birth in 1965 and his father served as a member of the Myanmar Police Force.

Rakhine State election officials could not be reached for comment on Monday.

Shwe Maung has represented the majority-Muslim Buthidaung constituency located in Northern Rakhine State near the country's border with Bangladesh since being elected as an MP in 2010.

Since 2012, when violence swept across Rakhine, he has been an outspoken advocate for the Rohingya and called for greater citizenship rights for the group.

Even if he is able to stand in November's election - seen as a test of the country's reforms process - he faces an uphill battle for re-election.

Many of the people who voted for Shwe Maung in 2010 held temporary citizenship documents, more commonly known as white cards. But the white cards were nullified by President Thein Sein under pressure from hardline Buddhists in February. The majority of white card holders were Rohingya. Some former white card holders have been offered new citizenship documents.

But earlier this month, Yanghee Lee, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said that she was informed by the country's election commission chair that those who received these new documents would be banned from the vote.

Lee said that the decision was of "serious concern".



By Wa Lone and Laignee Barron
August 24, 2015

The Union Election Commission has blocked a serving MP – a self-described Rohingya from Rakhine State – from standing as a candidate in the November 8 election.

U Shwe Maung’s bid to re-contest his Pyithu Hluttaw seat with the Union Solidarity and Development Party was rejected, so he decided to register instead as an independent candidate.

“I am running to continue my politics. I have been working for people who are badly in need of citizenship rights,” he said.

But like the largely stateless Muslim minority group he represents, U Shwe Maung is up against junta-era citizenship laws slammed by the UN for being despotic and discriminatory. The election commission office in Maungdaw sent a letter to the MP on August 22 notifying him that he is ineligible to run as his parents were not citizens when he was born, a claim he denies. A political rival from the Rakhine National Party, U Aung Thaung Shwe, filed the complaint that precipitated the commission’s decision.

The Maungdaw commission office yesterday confirmed the sitting MP had been disqualified based on his parents’ lack of citizenship. The decision raises questions about the vetting process in 2010, when U Shwe Maung was cleared to run under the same law.

U Khin Soe, director of the Rakhine State immigration office, said the election commission and the district immigration officials were cooperating to decide who should be eligible to contest the elections.

“How he became an MP [in 2010] depends on the scrutiny by the previous election commission – but it is not good to talk about it,” he said.

Maungdaw district immigration officer U Saw Naing said he was involved in investigating U Shwe Maung’s citizenship. He refused however to go into the details yesterday.

U Shwe Maung said the decision is incorrect as he, his parents and his grandparents are all Myanmar citizens. He plans to appeal the decision with the Rakhine State election commission in Sittwe.

“The accusation is not true. Both my parents received National Registration Cards in 1957 when that was the only ID that existed,” he said. “It is very clear we’re citizens.”

U Shwe Maung, who was born in 1965, said his father, Abdul Hadi, was born in 1918 and served as a police officer in Rakhine State until retiring in 1978.

“Most current MPs were born before 1982 [when the citizenship law came into force] so they would likely also hold the same National Registration Cards,” he said.

He suspects deadly sectarian clashes between Rakhine and Rohingya that erupted across the state in 2012 spurred the ruling party and commission to undermine his candidacy.

According to U Shwe Maung one other Rakhine State candidate has been facing the same problem: Daw Khin Khin Lwin, an independent running for an Amyotha Hluttaw seat in Buthidaung. “The one distinct thing about us is that we are Muslims,” he said.

Even if U Shwe Maung successfully appeals his disqualification, his Rohingya electoral base has been stripped of their identity cards and most have been left off updated voter lists.

“It is all very concerning,” he said. “I will have to take one issue at a time.”

Monks shout during a march to denounce foreign criticism of the country's treatment of stateless Rohingya Muslims, in Burma on May 27, 2015. © 2015 Reuters

August 24, 2015

New Laws Target Muslims, Other Religious Minorities

(Bangkok) – President Thein Sein of Burma should refuse to sign into law two pieces of legislation that violate fundamental rights, Human Rights Watch said today. On August 21, 2015, the joint parliament approved the Religious Conversion Bill and the Monogamy Bill, two of four contentious so-called “race and religion” laws that will entrench discrimination based on religion, and also violate internationally protected rights to privacy and religious belief.

“By passing these two draft laws, Parliament has ignored basic human rights and risks inflaming Burma’s tense intercommunal relations, threatening an already fragile transition ahead of landmark elections,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. “These discriminatory laws could fuel anti-Muslim sentiment, so Thein Sein should demonstrate solid leadership, stand up for rights, and refuse to sign them."

The four laws – including the Population Control Law, which became law in May, and the Interfaith Marriage Law, passed by parliament in July but as far as the government has revealed, not yet signed into law – have all been heavily promoted by the Association for Protection of Race and Religion (known by its Burmese acronym Ma Ba Tha). This nationwide organization of Buddhist monks promotes an often anti-Muslim and ultra-nationalist agenda. It was the Ma Ba Tha that first urged the government of Thein Sein to adopt the laws in late 2013.

The religious conversion bill will enable the state to regulate religious profession and conversion, a wholly unjustified state interference in the right to freedom of conscience and religion. The law will create Religious Conversion Scrutinization and Registration Boards at the township (district) level consisting of five local officials and two local elders chosen by the township administrator.

Anyone wishing to change their religion will have to be over 18 and will be required to file an application with a local board, including the reasons for the conversion. The applicant would be interviewed by at least five board members, followed by a 90-day study period for the applicant to examine the “essence of the religion, marriage, divorce, and division of property practices in that religion, and inheritance and parenting practices in that religion.” If the board approves the conversion, the applicant would then get a certificate of conversion.

There are concerns that the make-up of many local boards will be predominantly ethnic Burman Buddhist officials, who may be biased against conversions from Buddhism to other religions. The conversion would only be valid when the certificate is issued – allowing the rights to marry, inheritance, and division of property to be regulated according to the rules and practices of the new religion. The local board would forward all information it collects about the person to national religion, immigration, and identification agencies, interfering with their right to privacy.

The law also prohibits converting with the intent to “insult, disrespect, destroy, or abuse a religion” and bars anyone from bullying or enticing another person to convert or deterring them from doing so. Punishments for breaching the law would range from six months to two years in prison, depending on the violation.

The law is directly incompatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ article 18, which states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion” and goes against Burma’s own 2008 Constitution, which also guarantees freedom of religion.

“Allowing local officials to regulate private faith so closely is a pathway to repression of religious freedom,” Robertson said. “In their zeal to protect Buddhism, the authors of these laws are imperiling other religious minorities, including Christians, Hindus, and especially Burma’s persecuted Muslim minority.”

The Monogamy Bill, taken together with the other three ‘race and religion’ laws, is also problematic. The law states that it applies to everyone living in Burma and Burmese citizens living abroad, but also foreign nationals married to Burmese citizens while living in Burma. The law prohibits a married person from entering a second marriage or “unofficially” living with another person while still married. It sets out punishments for violations, including loss of property rights upon divorce for the spouse who is guilty of breaking the monogamy law. The law also includes criminal penalties of up to seven years in prison and a fine under Section 494 of Burma’s Penal Code.

The Monogamy Bill is intended to target religious minorities where polygamy and extra-marital affairs are perceived to occur more frequently. While outlawing polygamy is compatible with the right to marry protected under international law, legal sanctions against polygamy already exist in the Penal Code, making those sections of the Monogamy Bill redundant. On the other hand, legal provisions that criminalize consensual sexual relations between adults, regardless of marital status, violate the right to privacy as outlined in article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Furthermore, laws criminalizing consensual sex disproportionately impact women. For example, a rape victim may be deterred from filing a criminal complaint if the failure to win a conviction puts her at risk of prosecution for adultery.

The United Nations Working Group on Discrimination against Women in Law and in Practice, which is tasked with identifying good practice on the elimination of laws that discriminate against women, stated in 2012 that adultery should not be a criminal offence and noted its often disproportionate impact on women.

Many of Burma’s independent organizations have roundly condemned the four bills. Groups have issued public statements warning that enforcing the laws could exacerbate religious tensions and threaten the rights of women and religious minorities.

The international community, including the European Union in a statement in January and another in July criticizing the marriage law, and United Nations Special Rapporteurs, including the present rapporteur on situation of human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, have warned that the bills breach Burma’s commitments to international human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRD). Critics of the bills have been attacked by senior members of the Ma Ba Tha, with some Burmese civil society leaders subject to violent threats and being branded “traitors.”

“Heading into the November elections, Burma’s parliament is passing laws that fail human rights tests, in an opaque fashion, bringing into question lawmakers’ commitment to democracy and respect for rights,” Robertson said. “Burma’s main donors – Japan, the European Union, the UK, and the US – should publically condemn these laws and call for their immediate repeal.”

At class at the Rohingya Community School in Kuala Lumpur (Photo: Simon Roughneen)

By Simon Roughneen
August 24, 2015

KUALA LUMPUR — Gulajan Binti Nur Hamad was only 9 years old when she saw her house set ablaze by rampaging Buddhist mobs. “There was fire and fighting,” she said, running her right hand across her throat in a hint that she had seen worse than the flames that left her family’s home in ashes.

Gulajan was one of more than 140,000 Muslim Rohingya driven from their homes in 2012 during violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine. Gulajan was left homeless when ethnic Rakhine mobs in October that year attacked the Rohingya Muslims living in the area of Kyaukphyu, an oil and gas port where a major pipeline comes ashore before traversing Myanmar to China’s Yunnan Province.

Weeks after the bloodshed — Gulajan said she does not remember when exactly — she and her family boarded a boat on the Rakhine coast. Nine days later, after being cramped shoulder-to-shoulder with the 400 or so people on board, with food provided only every second day, the boat landed at the Malaysian island of Langkawi, off the coast of Penang state.

The Rohingya are a stateless minority numbering over 1 million and living mostly in western Myanmar. Gulajan, now 12, is among the tens of thousands of Rohingya who have made the journey to Malaysia, a Muslim majority country, in recent decades.

A people adrift

That steady exodus long predates the “boat people” crisis that made world headlines in May after Thai and Malaysian investigators unveiled mass graves of suspected smuggled migrants and trafficker death camps on either side of their mutual frontier. Over the following weeks, several thousand Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi migrants sought to land on the coasts of Indonesia and Malaysia, with an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 people adrift at sea at the time.

Gulajan, now a student at the Rohingya Community School run by a nongovernmental organization called the Malaysian Relief Agency in Kuala Lumpur, is picking up the basics of English to go with her almost fluent Bahasa Malaysia. “Twelve. Twelve years old!” she exclaimed, as if exasperated with fellow student Ramzan Ali, who had asked her — in Malaysian — to give her age.

Ramzan, 16, is a Rohingya who calls Malaysia home. His family left Myanmar long before he was born — he does not know when, exactly — but his grandmother told him that she left Myanmar three decades ago, one of around 200,000 Rohingya who fled, mostly to Bangladesh, during Myanmar military operations in Arakan state, an alternative traditional name for Rakhine.

“I want to stay in Malaysia. I like Malaysia,” Ramzan said, hinting at tensions with his family, all of whom want to emigrate to a Western country.

More of the same

But for many Rohingya in Malaysia, life in their country of refuge marks no more than a slight improvement on the discrimination and legal limbo that characterized their existence in Myanmar — conditions that “forced Rohingya to leave for a new life in the promised land that is Malaysia,” according to Norian Mai, chairman of Perdana Global Peace Foundation, a philanthropic organization. Norian was speaking in Kuala Lumpur at a June 12 conference on the Rohingya.

“We are thankful to Malaysia for letting us stay in their country,” said M.S. Anwar, a news editor with Rohingya Vision TV, a media outlet founded in 2012 in Saudi Arabia but now operating in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s biggest city.

Anwar, 26, left Myanmar in 2007. He said he was chased out of the Rohingya stronghold of Maungdaw, on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border, by Myanmar’s feared military intelligence.

Anwar is one of the 45,000 Rohingya who have acquired United Nations refugee status in Malaysia — a sometimes elusive and usually long-awaited prize for those who make it across the sea from Myanmar. He has a job, too, unlike many Rohingya, who either cannot find work or are confined to positions such as security guard — which Gulajan’s father has recently become.

Despite all this, Anwar said, in Malaysia, rather than being a promised land, “there is no prospect for the future.”

“I’m strongly wishing to be resettled,” he added, referring to an international process by which refugees are allowed to move on to third countries, usually in the West, after arriving in a transit country such as Malaysia.

However, the Rohingya Community School runs classes not only in English and Malaysian but also in Burmese — the latter to remind the Rohingya that one day, they may have to return to Myanmar. That day can only come, however, “once the politicians settle everything and the Rohingya get recognition,” noted Mohd Shahrulazilan Said of the Malaysian Relief Agency.

Shahrulazilan added that Rohingya parents are not all keen on the idea of their children learning Burmese, suggesting that for many, there will be no return to Myanmar regardless of whether the government changes tack and accepts the Rohingya as citizens and as a recognized ethnic group.

“Some of the families, they say, ‘this [Burmese] is the infidel language,'” said Shahrulazilan. “But we are training them so they can go back and rebuild if the time is right.”

It is more likely, however, that more Rohingya will come to Malaysia than will ever return to Myanmar. Though with the coming of the monsoon rains to Rakhine and Bangladesh, the maritime crossings are on hold for now.

Little incentive to stay

Myanmar has rejected accusations — including those from the Malaysian government — that its harsh treatment of the Rohingya is the cause of the exodus and maintains that the Rohingya are “Bengali” immigrants who came to Myanmar illegally from Bangladesh.

But that is not how Myanmar’s Rohingya see themselves. “We are Islam[ic], so [the] government doesn’t give us jobs. We don’t have citizen[ship],” said Ferozah Binti Abdul Rashid, a 25-year-old teacher at the Rohingya Community School. She left Myanmar three years ago after being unable to find work despite graduating from the University of East Yangon with a bachelor’s degree in botany.

By the time she left Yangon, Ferozah was the sole member of her family left in Myanmar. Everyone else, starting a decade ago with her father, had already left for Malaysia. She did not experience the same raw, life-threatening violence as the Rohingya in Rakhine state, but she recalls the little digs in class and in the school grounds from other students, reminding her that Muslims are not widely liked in Myanmar. “The teachers said nothing even if the Buddhist students mocked me,” Ferozah said.

Anti-Muslim and anti-Rohingya sentiment has ramped up in the years since Ferozah left, and with elections due to take place in Myanmar in November, it is unlikely that the country will adopt any major policy change that might persuade those Rohingya contemplating leaving for Malaysia to stay.

The arrival of the boat people has prompted harsh words not only in Putrajaya, Malaysia’s federal administrative capital, but also from former Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamed, the country’s longest-ruling prime minister. Addressing the June 12 conference, he said that unless Myanmar softens its stance on the Rohingya, it should be expelled from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the 10-country regional bloc that Myanmar joined in 1997, partly at Mahathir’s suggestion.

“There is a process of genocide [against the Rohingya] going on in Myanmar,” the nearly 90-year-old Mahathir thundered, to enthusiastic applause from the 200 or so delegates at the conference.

Mahathir previously sought Myanmar’s expulsion from the bloc in 2003 after an army-backed mob tried to assassinate opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was kept under house arrest for 15 years by the junta that controlled the country up to 2011.

Playing politics

Now Suu Kyi is a member of parliament, and her National League for Democracy is expected to win the most votes in the November election. Constitutional barriers render her ineligible for the presidency, but mindful of her position as a likely kingmaker, she has kept silent on the plight of the Rohingya. Joining a chorus of widespread international criticism, Mahathir himself revealed he had sent her a letter, asking her “to stop this thing.”

According to Mahathir, Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, did not reply. “We sympathized with her when she was detained, and we thought she was very concerned about freedom and her people not being oppressed,” Mahathir said, when asked by the Nikkei Asian Review about the apparent snub.

M.S. Anwar said he was neither surprised nor disappointed at Suu Kyi’s apparent reluctance to speak up for the Rohingya, given that many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar do not seem to accept the Rohingya as anything other than immigrants believing in a foreign religion. “She is no longer a human-rights defender; she is a politician,” he said. “For her to defend the Rohingya is a suicide mission for her in the upcoming election.”

Anwar laughed dismissively when asked about Mahathir’s recent denunciation of Myanmar, noting his previous silence on the issue and recalling that, “Tun (a Malaysian honorific) was prime minister for many years when many Rohingya [were forced to leave] for Malaysia.

Rohingya Exodus