By Moe Myint 

The Irrawaddy

October 10, 2015

The Arakan National Party (ANP) is tipped to win a majority of state and Union constituencies in Arakan State,

RANGOON — Saw Thein Htun’s quest to win a seat in the Arakan State Parliament has hit something of a snag: he is not allowed to campaign.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) candidate for the Buthidaung-2 constituency on the Bangladeshi border, Saw Thein Htun told The Irrawaddy on Friday that he had been prevented by locals from canvassing in several locations, most recently the Arakanese Buddhist village of Thar Si.

“When we reached the village, they said to us, ‘the NLD is a Muslim party, don’t hold a rally here,” he said.

The Arakan National Party (ANP) is tipped to win the seat Thein Htun is seeking, along with a majority of state and Union constituencies in Arakan, in Burma’s Nov. 8 elections.

The party lobbied aggressively for the eventual disenfranchisement of the state’s Rohingya population, which had voted in every national election up to 2010, and is now expected to capitalize on widespread and enduring antipathy among Arakanese Buddhists to the Muslim minority and the inability of the ruling-Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) to address community tensions.

Kaung San Hla, a native of Arakan capital Sittwe, is also contesting a state seat for the NLD. He told The Irrawaddy that even before the communal violence of 2012, a majority of people in the area distrusted the opposition party.

“We can’t hope to get votes in this area,” he said. “It’s even very difficult to rent a building to open a party office.”

Kaung San Hla has a small chance of winning the seat all the same, partly thanks to a minor dispute within the ANP that led some spurned candidates to contest the constituency as independents. Under Burma’s first-past-the-post electoral system, he will need to win a plurality of the vote against seven other contenders.

At the same time, he conceded that with the disenfranchisement of the Rohingya population, he was unlikely to prevail over a groundswell of support for Arakanese nationalist opponents.

‘‘White card holder disenfranchisement [in Sittwe] has hit the NLD like it did in Maungdaw and Buthitaung townships,” he said, referring to the government’s decision to prevent Rohingya in possession of temporary identity documents from voting in the 2015 election.

The Irrawaddy spoke to five NLD candidates contesting seats in Arakan State on Friday. Most claimed the party still had a chance of picking up seats in the south of the state, but noted that the ANP was providing strong competition in every constituency.

Ba Gyi Kyaw, a 71-year-old Sittwe resident and journalist, said that he believed the ANP would sweep the state despite having less of a toehold in southern townships such as Thandwe and Gwa.

‘‘The USDP will win places with the military,” he said, referring to the Burma Army’s Western Command in Ann Township. “The competition will be strong in southern Arakan, but the ANP will win a majority of votes across the state.”

A total of 17 parties and 362 candidates will compete for Arakan’s 64 state and Union constituencies in the Nov. 8 poll.

By Peter Alford

The Australian

October 10, 2015

More than four months since Qatar promised Indonesia $US50 million ($68m) to help with its share of the Rohingya refugee burden, no money has arrived.

Jakarta -- The UN refugee agency has done marginally better appealing for funds to deal with immediate consequences of the Bay of Bengal boat people crisis in May. It has raised 45 per cent of its $US13m target, mostly from governments, including Australia’s $1m.

But the region’s refugee emergency, one that engrossed world news for a month, has been expunged from most minds by the vaster trouble spilling out of Syria.

Only five months ago the stream of Rohingya asylum-seekers from Myanmar and Bengali migrant workers from Bangladesh, often travelling in the same boats, reached crisis point when people-smugglers abandoned at least 5000 of them at sea.

More than 70 people are known to have died on the boats and 1000 still are unaccounted for, according to a UNHCR report.

More than 2000 Rohingyas ­remain in camps in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand in generally miserable conditions. The Bangladesh government repatriated most of its travellers.

Any week now the crisis might resume — almost certainly some boat will come — because the Bay of Bengal and Andaman monsoons have subsided.

UNHCR’s regional headquarters in Bangkok is “acquiring” satellite images of jumping-off and landing points along the Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thai and Malaysian coasts for evidence of renewed smuggling.

Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry says the $US50m offered by Qatar’s emir at the height of the emergency is still being discussed, most recently by the two foreign ministers in New York for the UN General Assembly.

Indonesian government spokes­man Arrmanatha Nasir said the governments had agreed to further talks on “technical aspects” because the aid should help not only with Rohingyas stranded in Aceh province but also at home in Rakhine state, where they are persecuted and stateless.

Qatar’s embassy in Jakarta has not responded to questions from The Weekend Australian.

Jakarta still hopes to resettle more than 800 Rohingyas who arrived in May to third countries within a year, Mr Arrmanatha said. “But it has become more difficult — countries that traditionally become the resettlement countries, European countries, at this moment are taking refugees from the Middle East.”

The May crisis was triggered by Thailand’s crackdown on people-smuggling and extortion racketeers, rupturing the pipeline for black-market labour and refugees.

Since then more than 200 graves have been found near smuggling camps either side the Thai-Malaysia border, evidence of the traffickers’ brutal extortions from their helpless “clients”.

The extent to which the traffic resumes as seas become calm probably depends on how well Bangkok has broken the criminal networks operating from Thailand into Malaysia. However in the interim, few if any of the problems of landing boat people safely — after Thai, Indonesian and Malaysian navies caused outrage abroad by initially “bouncing” the boats out of their territories — and the root causes of the migrations, have been addressed.

A May 29 emergency conference in Bangkok of concerned governments, including Australia’s, and international refugee and crime agencies produced 17 agreed proposals, most repeated by a July Association of Southeast Asian Nations ministerial conference in Kuala Lumpur. “Implementation of most of the proposals and recommendations has yet to begin, including the ­establishment of a joint task force or other mechanism necessary to drive the ­proposals and recommendations for­ward,” the UN report notes.

By Alisa Tang

Thomson Reuters Foundation

October 10, 2015

RATTAPHUM, Thailand - The strapping 23-year-old Rohingya Muslim was matter of fact as he described being forced onto a boat in Myanmar for a tortuous two-month-long journey, beaten and kicked by traffickers as he watched scores die of starvation and thirst along the way.

He said he was abandoned in May in a jungle camp in Thailand's deep south near the Malaysian border, discovered and rescued a few hours later by Thai police and taken to a shelter tucked away amid tropical vegetation and rubber plantations.

But his calm demeanor cracked when he spoke about his wife and one-year-old daughter.

On many evenings in this compound of cement buildings that has become home to 66 male Rohingya trafficking victims from Myanmar and 19 from Bangladesh, the man cried, homesick.

Late last month, the shelter staff took pity on him, granting him a five-minute phone call to his home in Sittwe in western Myanmar's Rakhine state.

"I could hear my baby crying," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation under the wary gaze of the shelter director, who monitored the interview he had reluctantly permitted with the condition that the man's identity was protected.

"I want to go home. I miss them," the Rohingya man added, falling silent and bending over as he crumpled in sadness.

Swept up by trafficking rings taking advantage of the tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence and apartheid-like conditions in Myanmar, this man may never go back home.

The predominantly Buddhist country does not recognize the Rohingya as citizens and says any trafficking victims must pass nationality verification before being allowed back to Myanmar.

He is now among about 600 Rohingya stranded in limbo in Thai shelters and immigration detention centers, some suffering depression and other mental illnesses after their ordeals, with little access to mental health care.

ESCAPE BY BOAT

Communal violence and clashes in 2012 in Rakhine state forced 140,000 Rohingya from their homes into squalid camps. Myanmar maintains the Rohingya are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, and denies them citizenship, healthcare, education and other basic rights.

Since then, tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled, paying smugglers to take them in rickety boats in the hope of reaching Malaysia. Some said they were abducted by traffickers and forced onto boats. Migrants from Bangladesh, including some Rohingya, were also among the boat people. 

Criminal gangs orchestrating the exodus diverted some migrants to secret camps near the Thai-Malaysia border, holding them for ransom and killing and torturing those whose families could not pay up. Others died of disease and neglect.

After the discovery in May of dozens of graves on the Thai-Malaysia border, smugglers abandoned thousands of migrants at sea to avoid being caught in the widening net of Thai and Malaysian investigators. 

The Rohingya rescued from trafficking camps are now stuck in shelters - identified as "people of concern" by the United Nations' refugee agency (UNHCR) and granted temporary protection in Thailand.

They are separated from their families and face an uncertain future.

"When you combine those emotions with the memories of the physical trauma being on a boat for several weeks or having been confined in brutal smugglers camps, then the trauma is compounded," said Jeff Labovitz, head of the International Organization for Migration mission in Thailand.

"In some cases the asylum seekers and migrants endured starvation, beatings, extortion, and rape."

UNHCR says the common mental health issues among Rohingya refugees in Malaysia are "mild to moderate levels of stress, anxiety and depression", due to factors including trauma they faced at home as well as the daily stress of living in a country where they cannot legally work or go to school.

"Some refugees, especially new arrivals, who had been held in traffickers' camps before arriving in Malaysia, have been known to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorders (including flashbacks and nightmares)," said UNHCR in Malaysia. 

PHONE HOME AS THERAPY

In the Thai shelter, a phone call with loved ones has proven one of the best therapies for those who have been through traumatic experiences and face an uncertain future, shelter staff and aid workers say.

The International Committee for the Red Cross, through its "restoring family links" program, provided 1,411 short phone calls last year to the family members of Bangladeshi and Myanmar migrants held in immigration detention centers in Thailand.

Sometimes even a call is no guarantee that trafficking victims will get in contact with families, however, as some are from remote areas of Myanmar that lack phone communications.

"The most difficult thing for me is that I have not talked to my parents. I don't know how they are doing," said a 15-year-old boy who has been living in the Rattaphum shelter since the start of the year. He was also handpicked by the shelter director to speak to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"When I first arrived here, I had the chance to make a call to a phone in the area near my home, and I told them to please pass the message to my family that I am alive and well."

TRAFFICKER TERRITORY

In Thailand, a shortage of translators is a big obstacle to providing adequate psycho-social support for the Rohingya, shelter staff and aid workers say.

"When there is no translator, there is no longer the ability to clearly express needs, concerns, fears or traumas which increases the sense of vulnerability," Labovitz said.

In the past, people posing as well-meaning Rohingya translators were linked to the criminal gangs, luring the shelter victims back into trafficking rings.

UNHCR provides interpreters for counseling and interviews, helping Thai authorities to communicate with the Rohingya, but does not have the resources to provide interpreters on a more regular basis, said Vivian Tan, UNHCR's regional spokeswoman.

Save the Children has organized training in psychological "first aid" for carers in the shelters, as well as counseling and educational and play materials for children.

The Rattaphum shelter, located a 20-minute drive northwest of the city of Hat Yai, and about 20 km from the Gulf of Thailand coast, tries to organize outings for its residents, but these can be dangerous. Many of the victims are witnesses in court cases against dozens of arrested traffickers, including police and military.

"I take them to relax outside, take them to the seaside, but our cars are few and so are our staff," said Athit Rakthong, the shelter director who only permitted a drive-by glimpse of the shelter grounds, where young trafficking victims chatted in groups and waved with a smile to their passing visitors.

"Most important is their safety because these cases involve people in uniform and influential people in this region. The area around here is all theirs."

About 100 of the most vulnerable Rohingya have been resettled in the United States since 2013, according to UNHCR. Six men from the Rattaphum shelter have gone to the United States, including two who flew last month to Chicago.

This gives those who remain behind renewed hope.

Speaking to the man who cried for his wife and infant daughter, Satit, the social worker, said a new life in the United States would be better than statelessness back home.

"The best way we can help him is to connect him with UNHCR so that he can go to America," Satit said. "He would have a chance at citizenship, then he will be able to bring his family to be with him. This is much better than going home."

(Reporting by Alisa Tang; Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)

By Tauseef Akbar

Chicago Monitor

October 10, 2015

On November 8th, the South East Asian nation of Burma will hold primary elections in what is being touted as evidence of its path towards democratization after long decades of harsh military rule. The day will have arrived as a result of years of internal and external pressure that sought to open Burma’s politics and economy. However, these efforts and indeed the very idea that Burma is transitioning to democracy is contradicted by the state sanctioned persecution and disenfranchisement of the beleaguered Rohingya Muslims; an indigenous Burmese minority.

The Rohingya are considered by the UN to be among the “most persecuted people” on the planet. In May, they were in the news described as Asia’s “new boat people” because they have been fleeing in droves from the oppression they face in their homeland—only to be denied refuge in most countries.

They are a stateless minority, whose indigenous rights and citizenship are denied by political leaders of the dominant Burmese ethnic group. Compounding their tragic situation is the factor of nationalist religion wedded to politics; a chauvinistic and Islamophobic Buddhist movement originally called 969, and now known as the Ma Ba Tha, views the Rohingya as the ultimate “other” whose very presence is an affront.

The Ma Ba Tha’s solution, in collusion and with the blessing of Burma’s political leaders is nothing short of genocide. One policy after another strips the Rohingya of their dignity and basic rights: banning Muslim schoolgirls from wearing headscarves, conjuring up fake terrorist organizations as a means to crackdown on the Muslim populace, restriction on humanitarian aid to Rohingyas forced to live in concentration camps, limiting their ability to marry and forcing them to have no more than two children.

The aforementioned are only a few examples of the policies and legislation making life a living hell for the Rohingya.

After all these indignities have been visited upon them, they are called upon to suffer another humiliating reminder of their third-class status: the denial of their right to vote. It was not unexpected, after all they have been through but still jarring in its coldness and in light of Burma’s “democratization” process.

It is a leap backward from 2010 when there was a glimmer of hope because the then military-junta issued “white cards” allowing minorities, including the Rohingya to vote in general elections. This brief hope was smothered when Thurein Htut, officer-in charge of Rakhine state’s electoral commission declared white-card holders will not be on the electoral rolls,

“Former white-card holders don’t have a right to vote in the upcoming general election according to the law despite being able to vote in the 2010 election. So they are not mentioned on the voting lists,” Thurein Htut told ucanews.com on Wednesday.

How would you feel in a country, which your family lived for generations and served its governments in various capacities, only to be repaid with hatred and state sanctioned violence? Rohingya leader Kyaw Hla Aung sums up the answer,

My father and I worked as government servants but we are regarded as foreigners. We have lived here for generations but we are yet to get national citizenship cards. And my two daughters who are former white-card holders will lose the right to vote in the election.

Disenfranchisement is part and parcel of disempowerment and its goal is exactly to make you feel as Kyaw Hla Aung does, a foreigner who does not belong in his own land.

Burma’s actions should not be unfamiliar to Americans, we still struggle with voter suppression and it is only in recent decades that we have granted universal suffrage and franchise to all our citizens. For close to two centuries rights such as voting were denied to African Americans, who faced one hurdle after another to achieve the basic rights that are due all Americans and to realize the promise in the Declaration of Independence that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

Today the Rohingya are subject to harsh laws, dehumanization and the constant threat of state sanctioned pogroms. They are denied the right to vote and face a blistering campaign of intimidation by a fundamentalist Buddhist movement that seeks their disappearance.

As conscience Americans who value honesty, democracy and abhor hypocrisy, we must tell it like it is: Burma is not on the path to democratization and progress. In fact by stripping the Rohingya of the right to vote, it is going backward.

Our own experience shows us that words of condemnation are not enough, we must actively lobby our nation’s leaders not to be short-sighted in their engagement with the Burmese government. Let us not sacrifice our principles on the altar of political expediency and economic gain - to do so would be a betrayal of the Rohingya and the values we claim to uphold and cherish.

In the midst of this sea of oppression there are efforts from governments, NGO’s and individuals to alter Burma’s anti-Rohingya policy. The Burma Task Force has organized a social media drive under the hashtag #LetRohingyaVote with the aim, at the very least, of making the world aware of the disenfranchisement of the Rohingya. Significant media attention and trending twitter hashtags will get the attention of the Burmese government. Here’s a chance, for all those moved by the plight of the Rohingya to contribute in a small way toward helping them; join the hashtag #LetRohingyaVote and make your voice heard.

By David Mepham

Newsweek

October 10, 2015

Burma's Rohingya Muslims are the clear losers from the country's general election—and this before a single vote has even been cast. While the community has suffered systematic persecution for decades, the election has unleashed a frightening level of sectarian hatred against them.

Earlier this year—egged on by an extremist Buddhist group known as the Ma Ba Tha, and in an act of flagrant discrimination - the national parliament and the country's President Thein Sein stripped the Rohingya of voting rights in the November poll and disqualified their parliamentary candidates. Over the last 12 months he's also signed into law four odious 'Race and Religion' laws that discriminate against all Muslims in the country. What's more, by limiting access for international aid agencies, and through wider restraints on the Rohingya in terms of their movement and opportunities for employment, his government has compounded the suffering of some 140,000 displaced people. These Rohingya have now lived for over three years in overcrowded camps for the internally displaced in Rakhine State, following inter-communal violence and sectarian killings that forced them to flee for their lives.

I witnessed this first-hand last week, when visiting camps around Sittwe, the Rakhine State capital. Conditions there were dreadful and, in many places, there was a palpable sense of fear. The plight of children was particularly depressing. Most were clearly not in school and many looked hungry. While they were initially reluctant to talk, one little girl answered our questions. How long had they been here? "Three years." Why had they come? "Because they killed our neighbours". What did they need? "Food, medicine." What did they want for the future? "To go home, but it's not safe".

But this was not the worst of it. In another part of the sprawling camp we came across children who were completely naked and covered in dirt. The sanitary conditions were dire—with makeshift huts separated by open sewers. Many of the children looked ill, and one had a severely bloated belly and shockingly thin legs. We were told that some aid workers come to the area each day for a few hours, to help with the more pressing cases, but that lots of people did not get seen. We observed this later. Scores of mothers and children, waiting in line, sheltering from the blistering midday sun underneath a tarpaulin cover, hoping to see a doctor or nurse. Whatever medical aid is getting through is clearly woefully insufficient.

In the midst of these appalling conditions, we encountered—rather incongruously—a tent filled with high tech phone and video equipment. A young mother was sitting inside and calling a relative in Malaysia, asking him to send money so that she could care for her sick mother. He had apparently left by boat some years previously. We asked about these boats leaving Burma, and whether others in the camp were keen to go too. Some nodded. But others, seemingly in charge of the tent, were evasive and hostile, and we judged that we should not stay long. We later heard from UN officials that people smugglers are very active in the camps. Given the desperate conditions there, many more Rohingya are likely to seek out their services and flee, despite the perilous journey and the abuses they may suffer on arrival.

This is the untold story of the Burmese elections. The international community is keen to talk up the country's flagging reform process and see the elections as a milestone in Burma's transition to democracy, even while acknowledging the many serious deficiencies in the election process. But for the Rohingya the process is worse than flawed. They have lost their voting rights, been denied citizenship, and struggle to survive - while those who rule the country show them only hatred and hostility.

Faced with abuse and misery on this scale, foreign governments, including the U.K., should be exerting much more pressure on Naypyidaw to allow full humanitarian access to the camps, the safe return of Rohingya to their homes or voluntary resettlement for the displaced, the restoration of voting rights, a non-discriminatory citizenship law, and an end to their unconscionable persecution.

The plight of the Rohingya is not the only issue facing Burma. But it is perhaps the single most defining test of that government's commitment to democratic change and the rule of law, as well as the efficacy of the international community's efforts to promote reform in Burma. It is a test they are both failing.

David Mepham is U.K. director at Human Rights Watch. Follow him on Twitter @mephamd.

Commissioners Stand with ASEAN Lawmakers on Human Rights

October 9, 2015

On September 16, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission was pleased to welcome a delegation from ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) for a briefing on the human rights situation in member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), including Burma, where they recently concluded a fact-finding mission. 

The information that was shared by the delegation is deeply troubling. In Burma, a concerted effort is underway to disenfranchise minority communities in advance of elections scheduled for November, including through recently passed legislation that restricts the rights of women and religious minorities. Among the delegation was U Shwe Maung, a member of the Rohingya minority and an incumbent Burmese parliamentarian. Yet the Burmese election commission recently declared that U Shwe Maung is not a citizen, and is thus ineligible to run for reelection in the upcoming national elections. 

The delegation also drew attention to the potential for another regional migrant crisis as the rainy season comes to an end. Little has been done to address the underlying conditions that in the past have driven thousands of people to take to the seas, leading to more than 1,100 deaths since 2014 and raising concerns of instability in Southeast Asia. 

As Members of Congress, we stand with U Shwe Maung and his fellow lawmakers from ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, who are seeking to improve the human rights situation in their countries. We call on the government of Burma, including the Union Election Commission, to reverse the U Shwe Maung decision and uphold his right to run for reelection, as well as to restore citizenship rights–including the right to vote–to all ethnic minorities. 

We look forward to working with all interested individuals to further realize and advance human rights in all ASEAN member states. Equal treatment under the law, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or gender, is a fundamental human rights principle, and is key for the consolidation of democracy, as well as for development, stability and prosperity in Southeast Asia. Reversing existing laws and government policies that discriminate is a necessary first step towards achieving these goals. 

James P. McGovern 

Co-Chair

Joseph R. Pitts

Co-Chair

Alan S. Lowenthal

Member

By Motokazu Matsui

October 10, 2015

By Oren Samet

Foreign Policy

October 10, 2015

By Nurdin Hasan

Benar News

October 10, 2015

At least 345 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar have fled refugee camps in Indonesia’s Aceh province and their whereabouts are unknown, officials and refugees confirmed to BenarNews.

The number of missing represents a third of the 1,010 Rohingyas who landed in Aceh in May, along with hundreds of Bangladeshi migrants, after being rescued from abandoned and stranded human-smuggling boats in the Strait of Malacca.

The missing refugees may have paid human traffickers to smuggle them to Malaysia so they could reunite with relatives there and find jobs, sources told BenarNews.

It is unclear when they vanished from camps scattered along the north coast of Indonesia’s western-most province.

According to humanitarian workers and government officials, the refugees fled in groups of two of to a dozen people at a time with the help of illegal migration agents.

Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim and relatively prosperous country, is a prime destination in Southeast Asia for Rohingyas, many of whom flee religious and ethnic persecution in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar, in search of better employment and educational prospects abroad.

An anti-human trafficking crackdown by Thailand – which lies along transit routes for illegal migration from Myanmar and Bangladesh – led to a May maritime blockade on smugglers’ boats, which forced many to sail farther south in search of places to land.

“Many of my friends here have fled because they need to earn money so they can send it to their families back in Myanmar,” Sahidullah, a Rohingya Muslim cleric who is among refugees sheltering in Blang Ado, a village in North Aceh regency, told BenarNews.

Sahidullah, 22, said he had no plans to flee although one of his eight siblings now worked in Malaysia. He said he hoped the Indonesian government would give work permits to Muslim Rohingyas.

“We only eat and sleep here. There is no work to do from which we can make money, while many of the Rohingya need money to provide for their families they left behind in Myanmar,” he said Wednesday.

Tents

Albert Djalius, an immigration official in the town of Lhokseumawe, confirmed that 80 of the 315 refugees in Blang Ado had fled.

Rohingyas are also housed on the grounds of an old paper mill in Bayeun, in East Aceh, and in the city of Langsa. A large number fled Bayeun, where the refugees were living in tents along a major roadway.

“There were 342 Rohingya refugees, when they were stranded and saved. Now, there are only 184 refugees left. The rest have fled,” Ibrahim, a volunteer in charge of logistics at the Bayeun shelter, told BenarNews this week.

In Langsa, 107 refugees have fled, leaving 178 behind, said M. Daud, an official with the city’s social welfare agency.

According to Afrizal, an official from the Langsa immigration office, refugees are prohibited from working in Indonesia and they must obtain passes from security guards to leave the shelter’s premises.

Sources said they believed that Rohingya traffickers had infiltrated the camps and mixed in with the refugees.

“The refugees left at night, sneaking out of the side fence to the street where there was an agent with a car waiting for them. They were then transported to Medan,” Ibrahim said, referring to a city in neighboring North Sumatra province.

Security guards have caught some of the refugees who were trying to flee. Those who failed to get away said traffickers were charging 3,000 ringgit (U.S. $713) per person to help the Rohingyas escape, Ibrahim added.

Foiled escape

In late September, all the remaining refugees in Blang Ado tried to leave their shelter after reports that four Rohingya women had been raped when they were caught on the night of Sept. 27 trying to flee the camp. However, police intercepted and stopped the exodus, according to local news reports.

Medical tests on three of the women showed no evidence of rape, police in Lhokseumawe said last week.

“Based on forensic medical examinations on the three refugees, we found no indication of rape or sexual assault,” A.K.B.P. Anang Triarsono, the local police chief, told BenarNews.

“Another Rohingya woman was not examined because she said at the beginning that she was not sexually harassed.”

By Steve Herman

Voice of America

October 8, 2015

BANGKOK — One month prior to elections in Myanmar, the human rights group Amnesty International is accusing the government of returning to its old ways of repression.

The London-based organization, in a report being released Thursday, rebuts the government's assertion that no one is being imprisoned for peacefully exercising his rights.

Amnesty contends the pace of repression has drastically escalated in the last two years, with at least at least 91 “prisoners of conscience” currently behind bars in Myanmar.

“The charges that activists are being arrested and detained under are carrying longer prison sentences. They're being charged very frequently with so-called non-bailable offenses, which means they're kept in pre-trial detention,” said Laura Haigh, Amnesty's Myanmar researcher. “From the start of 2015, this appears to have intensified. And we believe that this is in the run-up to the election. Essentially, we think the Myanmar government is playing the long game, trying to get critical voices off the street.”

During the current campaigning for the November 8 general election, however, there are no known such detentions.

“The Myanmar government knows that the world is watching, so I think it's unlikely that we're going to see many arrests in the election period,” Haigh told VOA.

A sweeping presidential pardon at the end of 2013 led to the release of virtually all political prisoners.

Among those currently held are human rights defenders, lawyers, opposition activists, students, trade unionists and journalists.

Student leader Phyo Phyo Aung is facing more than nine years in prison for organizing protests against a new law that restricts academic freedom.

In a VOA interview at a demonstration at Yangon University last November, the activist said her fellow students were protesting for “a democratic education, an autonomous university and a freedom of education” in a country she decried as having the lowest quality of education in Asia.

Next month's polls will be the first general election since a nominally civilian government was installed in 2011. But, with the military still firmly in control of the process, there is widespread speculation about whether the election will be free and fair.

More than 6,000 people are running for positions in the national parliament and regional legislatures. However, at least 75 independent or opposition party candidates were disqualified, many because of the citizenship status of their parents.

Among them are about 15 of 18 candidates from the Democracy and Human Rights Party, a Muslim majority party whose candidates tried to run in the Rakhine state constituencies.

The leaders of predominantly Buddhist Myanmar have refused to acknowledge the primarily Muslim Rohingya minority group, most of whom live in Rakhine.

Myanmar considers the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, which also does not recognize them as citizens.

By Mizzima

October 8, 2015

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi appeared diplomatic when challenged in a TV interview with India Today over her failure to condemn the communal violence and poor treatment of Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine State.

Speaking to India Today’s Karan Thapar in an interview filmed at her home in Yangon and broadcast on Wednesday evening, Suu Kyi stressed the need for reconciliation in Rakhine State, troubled by communal violence that flared up in 2012 when clashes broke out between Rakhine Buddhists and minority Muslim Rohingya.

“I’ve talked about it but people are not interested, because what they want me to do is condemn the Rakhine. I can’t condemn the Rakhine for the simple fact that the Rakhine have many grievances as well, which are a result of the policies that were pursued by the military authorities for decades. And I don’t want to set more flames alight,” she told India Today.

“My role is not to set one community against another, but to try to bring reconciliation between them. I cannot do that by condemning either community.”

Many foreign critics have raised questions over the National League for Democracy chairperson’s virtual silence over the poor treatment of the Rohingya minority, that the government refers to as “Bengalis,” claiming they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Rights groups say the poor treatment and incarceration in camps amounts to a “genocidal policy” targeting the minority.

Suu Kyi was adamant that her role is one to work with the communities to sort out the grievances of all members of the state, which is one of Myanmar’s poorest.

“What people would like to hear are flaming words of condemnation, and I am not out for condemnation. What I am trying to achieve is reconciliation. And we’ve got to keep to that path because there is a long future ahead of us. Our people must learn to live together in peace and harmony, within the security provided for them by the right kind of political framework,” she told India Today.

By Neou Vannarin

Voice of America

October 8, 2015

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA — Two more refugees detained on the South Pacific island of Nauru are expected to arrive in Cambodia soon as part of a controversial resettlement deal with Australia.

The refugees, both ethnic Rohingya from Myanmar, will travel to Phnom Penh after meeting with Cambodian officials who traveled to Nauru.

Khieu Sopheak, spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, told VOA Khmer on Wednesday that the newest refugees were not the ones Phnom Penh had been expecting.

“Australia told us there are four volunteers — three Iranians, one Rohingya. When our officials got there, the four asylum seekers didn’t want to come, but two other Rohingyas volunteered to come instead," he said.

The date of their arrival was not given.

So far, only three Iranians are in staying Cambodia under the deal. One Rohingya man has asked to go back to Myanmar, and Cambodian officials say he is expected to leave within a week. 

The first set of refugees has been living in a compound in Phnom Penh but will be released soon, Khieu Sopheak said.

“They can speak Khmer and understand our traditions and are ready to live outside the camp,” he said. “It’s just a pilot project, so we’ll see how they fit into Khmer society and living outside [the compound]. It’s going forward; it’s not that difficult.”

In September, Cambodia and Australia agreed to take the second group of asylum seekers from Nauru, following a visit to Cambodia by Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison. The deal was announced the same day Australia said it would accept 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq.

Cambodia is reportedly receiving as much as $40 million in aid from Australia in exchange for accepting the asylum seekers, a deal heavily criticized by refugee rights groups.

More than 600 refugees and asylum seekers are thought to be on Nauru. Hundreds more are in detention on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island under an arrangement with Australia. Most are believed to be from countries in South Asia and the Middle East.

The proposed resettlement deal was the subject of months of secret negotiations and has drawn criticism from rights organizations, church groups and opposition politicians in both countries. The U.N. refugee agency said it undermines the principles of the refugee convention to which both nations are signatories.

By Timothy McLaughlin

Reuters

October 7, 2015

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said she plans to lead the next government if her National League for Democracy (NLD) comes to power in the Nov. 8 election, despite being barred from becoming president.

The NLD is expected to do well in the election, billed as the country's first free and fair contest in 25 years, but Myanmar's military-drafted constitution blocks Suu Kyi from becoming president because her late husband and two sons are not Myanmar citizens.

There is no earmarked deputy to the Nobel laureate in the NLD and the party's failed efforts to amend the constitution to allow Suu Kyi to be president have led to speculation about who would lead an NLD majority government.

"I've made it quite clear that if the NLD wins elections and we form a government, I'm going to be the leader of that government whether or not I'm the president," Suu Kyi told the Indian television channel, India Today TV.

The comments are some of Suu Kyi's most detailed on her post-election ambitions.

"Why not? Should you have to be president to lead a country?" said Suu Kyi. "The leader of the NLD government would have to be me, because I'm the leader of my party."

Asked if she planned to emulate India's Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi, who named Manmohan Singh as prime minister when her party formed the government but retained immense power, Suu Kyi said: "Oh no, no, no, not quite like that. So you wait and see."

She did not elaborate.

In Myanmar, the president is chosen from three candidates nominated by the two houses of parliament and the military, which holds a quarter of the seats in the bicameral chamber. The president then forms the government. There is no prime minister.

Suu Kyi has forged ties with Shwe Mann, the speaker of parliament, ousted by President Thein Sein from the leadership of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in August.

Suu Kyi's ties with Shwe Mann, a former general, sparked speculation that the NLD might select him as a presidential nominee but she distanced herself from the idea during the interview.

"We will have a civilian member of our party," Suu Kyi said about a potential nominee.

"It's not a matter of preference. It is a matter of what is appropriate and it would be more appropriate for us to have a bona fide civilian, NLD candidate for president."

RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE

Suu Kyi expressed worries over an increase in anti-Muslim sentiment in Myanmar and religion being used for political means, saying that there were, "very, very worrying signs of religious intolerance which we did not have in this country before."

The NLD has been criticized for not putting up any Muslim candidates in its field of over 1,100 parliamentary and regional assembly hopefuls, but Suu Kyi has remained quiet on the issue.

During the interview, Suu Kyi said that the one Muslim candidate the NLD tried to field was disqualified by the electoral commission.

When asked if she was sorry about not having any Muslim candidates, she said that she was sorry that religion had become an issue in the election.

Nationalist monks, particularly the Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion, better known as Ma Ba Tha, have sharply criticized the NLD for what they see as its failure to sufficiently protect Buddhism.

Suu Kyi said that this worried her, but that it was difficult for her party to fight back because the constitution forbids the mixing of religion and politics.

"It is a fact that this government certainly has not taken much action against those who are using religion to attack the NLD although that is against the law," she said, when asked if government policy had contributed to the increasing role of religion in politics.

One of the most outspoken leaders of Ma Ba Tha, Wirathu, endorsed president Thein Sein, and said the NLD members "were full of themselves" and unlikely to win the election.

Suu Kyi reiterated her defense to criticism that she has said little about Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims, around 140,000 of whom remain stateless in Rakhine state following clashes with Rakhine Buddhists in 2012.

She is scheduled to visit the state later this month.

"I have talked about it, but people are not interested," Suu Kyi said.

"Because what they want me to do is to condemn the Rakhine. I can't condemn the Rakhine for the simple fact that the Rakhine have many grievances as well."

By The Irrawaddy

October 7, 2015

RANGOON — The US Embassy in Rangoon said Wednesday that a federal court summons for President Thein Sein and several Burmese ministers for human rights violations allegedly committed against the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority has nothing to do with Washington’s policy toward Burma.

Last week the US District Court for New York’s Southern District issued the summons after a lawsuit was filed by the Burma Task Force USA, a coalition of 19 Muslim-American organizations.

The case was submitted under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victim Protection Act, and charges Thein Sein and his ministers with crimes against humanity, extra-judicial killing, torture, and mental and physical trauma. It was filed on behalf of three plaintiffs, all US resident Rohingya refugees who claim to have experienced torture and discrimination in Burma. The lawsuit is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

A spokesperson from the US Embassy in Rangoon told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday that the mission was aware of reports about the lawsuit and added that “federal court actions occur independently of the executive branch.”

“This lawsuit is unrelated to US policy toward Myanmar,” the spokesperson added.

The Burmese government has not officially responded to the summons nor the accusations it was based on, and presidential spokesman Ye Htut has made clear that no response should be expected.

“We are surprised to learn that a US court accepted the case filed by an unknown coalition that constructed the case on weak evidence,” he told Radio Free Asia last week.

“We will not respond to it and couldn’t care a fig,” he said, before adding that the case was a “cheap stunt” by groups that have been putting pressure on the Burmese government over its handling of “the Bengali issue,” using the government’s official term for Rohingya.

Through official diplomatic channels, the United States has not shied away from criticizing the treatment of Burma’s Rohingya Muslims, a persecuted minority residing mostly in western Arakan State that the Burmese government considers to be illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.

Most recently that criticism has focused on the systematic disenfranchisement of Rohingya voters ahead of Burma’s Nov. 8 general election, and the disqualification of most Muslim candidates hoping to stand for election in Arakan State.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Burma by boat since violence between Arakanese Buddhists and the Muslim minority flared in 2012, displacing more than 100,000 people—mostly Rohingya—to temporary camps where most still live today. Conditions at the camps have deteriorated severely since the violence, with movement of Rohingya inhabitants restricted and access to health care and jobs limited, prompting the mass exodus.

By Bernama

October 7, 2015

MELAKA: An ethnic Rohingya construction worker was today sentenced to six months' jail and fined RM10,000 or six months in default, by the Sessions Court here today for bribing an Immigration Department officer.

Mohamad Babul Abd Satar, 27, offered the bribe to Immigration officer, Muhammad Aizat Ab Rahim as an inducement not to take action against him for being in Malaysia without a valid pass or permit.

He committed the offence at the construction site of a service apartment in Mukim Bukit Katil here at 10.30 am on Sept 2.

He was charged under Section 17(b) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009 which provides for a jail term of up to 20 years and a fine of five times the amount involved or RM10,000, whichever is higher, on conviction.

The prosecution was conducted by MACC deputy public prosecutor Mohammed Heikal Ismail and prosecuting officer Mohd Fauzi Shadollah, while Mohamad Babul was unrepresented.

In mitigation, Mohammad Babul who had only been in Malaysia for six months asked for a lenient sentence as he is the sole breadwinner with a wife, child and parents to support in Myanmar.

He added that it took him a month to arrive in Malaysia by boat and had to endure physical abuse during his three-month stay in an illegal camp.