Hassan Mahmud

RB Opinion

June 5, 2017

Western media continues to ignore a horrible ongoing genocide of the Rohingya Muslim population in the country of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. While it is indisputable that the Rohingya people have been living in Myanmar for generations, the Myanmar government continues to dispute the Rohingya people’s status as Burmese citizens. The majority of the Rohingya population lives in the Northern part of the Rhakine State in Western Myanmar and has a population in the neighborhood of 1 million to 1.3 million.

People in power sometimes effectively use fear to control and manipulate their populations. The military dictatorship of General Ne Win built such an atmosphere, encouraging Buddhist ultra-nationalism among the public, and a feeling of tribalism, xenophobia, and bigotry encouraged by an institutionalized racism against the Rohingyas. 

In 1982, the Burmese government enacted a “citizenship law” know as the Burmese nationality law that rendered the Rohingya population as illegal immigrants and made them stateless. Denied citizenship, a type of apartheid developed making official policies of segregation and discrimination. The majority of Rohingya population lives in villages that do not have basic schools and even if they achieve elementary education, they are not allowed to get higher education. They require papers when traveling to neighboring villages even if for a simple overnight stay. They are not allowed to formerly participate in the country’s economy, placing the minority in deep poverty. Rohingyas need the permission of the state authorities to get married and usually have to pay a large fee, which they often can not afford. Malnourishment among the children also continues to this day.

A pro-democracy movement led by Aung San Suu Kyi rose to prominence in 1988 as she became General Secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD). The NLD won 81% of the parliamentary seats in a 1990 election which the military nullified, and then placed Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrests for 15 years. There was a huge international outcry and Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. In 2010, President Obama lifted all economic sanctions when the Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrested was lifted, and democratic reforms were allowed. While the military still retains considerable amount of power, Aung San Suu Kyi became State Counselor a role similar to that of Prime Minister. 

Unfortunately, like many Nobel Peace Prize winners, it is quite questionable if the recipient really deserved the award. Aung San Suu Kyi has led pro-democracy reforms for the majority Buddhist population, but kept the Rohingya population stateless and unable to participate in the democracy. Sectarian violence by the Buddhist population on the Rohingya population amplified in 2012 with the Rakhine State riots and has been ongoing ever since. 

Since the United States lifted economic sanctions meant to encourage democratic reforms, the situation for the Rohingya population has become much worse, with the United Nations describing the Rohingya as the most persecuted peoples in the world. 100s of thousands have fled the violence an ended up in refugee camps in such countries as Bangladesh. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published a study this past February in which detailed interviews were conducted with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The atrocities committed by the Myanmar armed forces, the Border Guard Police Force of Myanmar, non-border police forces, and non-Rohingya villagers joining the security forces in civilian clothing paint a horrific picture of ethnic cleansing.

Over half the women interviewed by the United Nation’s team were raped, gang-raped, or sexually assaulted which those that were pregnant or as young as 8 years old. Whole villages were burned down and if a home had elderly that were unable to leave the home, they ended up being burnt alive. Young children were stabbed to death, shot, or thrown into a fire. Helicopters dropped grenades at random at Rohingya villagers. Rohingya villagers were shot at, stabbed or beaten to death. Many Rohingya end up dying try to leave the country, or end up in captured and used for forced labor. Women and young girls have been captured and sex-trafficked to places like Thailand. Over 120,000 to 160,000 that had to evacuate burnt down villages live in internment camps under terrible conditions and are poorly fed.

Sadly this horrific genocide on the Rohingya people is very popular among the Burmese population. The military has staged the notion that armed Rohingya insurgencies are attempting to rise-up and take over the nation, and that area clearance operations are keeping them safe. This has allowed the military to maintain a strong foot-hold on the government, and the primary reason why the situation has gotten much worse.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been completely unsympathetic to the treatment of the Rohingyas. When asked, she acts either aloof or makes statements about atrocities committed by both sides when there is overwhelming evidence that the Rohingyas are the victims. When asked about the release of Rohingyas in internment camps, she states “We have no place for them to go,” as if it is simply impossible for them to integrate with the population or go back to their villages. Aung San Suu Kyi has gone so far as to refuse to let United Nation’s observers into the North Rhakine state region. One can cynically state, Aung San Suu Kyi has joined the ranks of other Nobel Peace prize winners including war criminal Henry Kissinger and President Barrack Obama who expanded the theater of war for US military operations to 7 countries while he was in office. 

The United States government should bring back economic sanctions to force Myanmar to stop this ongoing genocide. However, the US government prefers to push the fiction that it aided a country into a peaceful transition from a dictatorship to a democracy in a model that should be emulated worldwide. At the opening of her Benghazi hearing, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton boasted about steering Burma into a democracy, and also discussed it at some length in her book “Hard Choices.” The Obama administration apparently felt the need to push the narrative as a global steward leading in democratic reforms to position the United States as a world leader. This fiction can be debunked by just looking at its leading ally, Saudi Arabia, which is a highly authoritarian and oppressive dictatorship. Trade between the United States and Myanmar has quadrupled since 2012 with the US exporting soybean, aircraft, machinery, optical and medical equipment. Myanmar’s key exports globally include petroleum products, gemstones, pearls, and tin ores. 

Who sells the weapons to the Myanmar military that are used against the Rohingya? Those that have been making money on arm sales to Myanmar include Russia, China, North Korea, Israel, Ukraine, and India. At least the United States is not making a buck on the slaughter of these people 

So, why does the Western medium, for the most part, ignore the plight of the Rohingyas? Especially noticeable with the United States media, and partly true with other Western media outlets, whenever there is a terrorist attack committed by a radical Islamic group, the broadcast media will dwell on the incident for hours. Sadly, crimes do occur all the time, but if even if the incident is a radical Muslim gone amok with a kitchen knife or his automobile, these incidents have become ratings darlings for media outlets. If fulfills the narrative that Isis or Al Qaeda are the major existential threats to all of Western civilization. Without a doubt, there are horrible terrorist attacks that do occur, but these incidents are given far more attention than any other crimes or threats are equally important if not more so. It is a narrative that sells, and also convinces the Western populations for the need of constant and ongoing military operations throughout the Middle East. A notion that we are in a new age of war based on a “Clash of Civilizations” as pushed by political scientist Samuel Huntington in 1992 for the right wing think tank, The American Enterprise Institute. Samuel Huntington’s notion is false as the largest Muslim population in the world is in Indonesia which is completely unconnected with the Middle East and related terrorists organizations that originated from there. However, this narrative is very successful, and has created large scale Islamophobia. The notion of a violently oppressed Muslim minority runs completely counter to the narrative favored by the media.

Not to mention, exposure of the ongoing genocide of a minority of the population in Myanmar, also exposes the United States as a leader in peaceful transitions to a democracy as a sham. 

Pressure must be brought on the United States to enact economic sanctions on Myanmar. The United Nations needs to pressure the Myanmar government further on ending this human rights nightmare. The government of Myanmar also must be forced to allow the safe entrance and operation of organizations that can provide nutritional, economic, and medical aid to the Rohingya population. This can be done if activist bring about further awareness of the plight of the Rohingyas among the populations of the wealthier Western nations, and especially in the United States. An organization known as Burma Task Force USA has planned rallies throughout the United States to enhance awareness which are to take place on August 19, which is to be known as World Rohingya Day. These events are listed on their Web site, burmamuslims.org, and participation by all is urged.

References:

https://www.burmamuslims.org/content/save-date-august-19-world-rohingya-day

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/southeast-asia-pacific/burma

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2007/10/12/AR2007101201310_pf.html

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-myanmar-rohingya-2017-story.html

https://www.amnesty.org.au/who-are-the-rohingya-refugees/

http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/MM/FlashReport3Feb2017.pdf

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/10/the-public-loves-myanmars-new-war-on-muslims/

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/02/03/gruesome-new-details-on-the-ethnic-cleansing-in-myanmar-no-one-is-talking-about/

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/hillary-clinton-burma-myanmar-general-election

By Bernama

June 4, 2017

KUALA LUMPUR: Donations are needed to help 200 Rohingyas living in the Kampung Pandan area and can be channeled through the Gerakan Belia 4B Cheras which is conducting a Ramadan charity drive.

"Among the items needed are rice, sugar, salt, drinks and clothes," its chairman, Sharifah Zarinah Syed Ibrahim told Bernama Saturday.

She said Gerakan Belia 4B Cheras which has about 150 members, has conducted this charity drive for the last three years.

The donations could be sent to the School of Hope (SOH), a school for Rohingya children which is located in the compounds of the Madrasah Kampung Pandan, from Monday to Friday, from 8am to 11am for the duration of Ramadan.

Sharifah Zarinah who is also SOH head said, at present 50 Rohingya children were receiving basic education at the school.

She said the school had three classes, namely kindergarten, level 1 (standards 1, 2, 3) and level 2 (standards 4,5,6), and follows the national school syllabus including Bahasa Malaysia, English, Science and Mathematics.

"Most of the Rohingya children at the SOH are fast learners and can easily understand a subject...we also have one-on-one sessions specifically for students who need more attention," she said.

Sharifah Zarinah said the SOH operates from Monday to Friday, and has five volunteer teachers from among the members of Gerakan Belia 4B.

By Levon Sevunts

Radio Canada International

June 4, 2017

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greets Myanmar’s de facto leader and honorary Canadian Aung Sun Suu Kyi next week, he needs to pressure her to protect the Rohingya Muslim minority, which is facing genocide and crimes against humanity in the northwest of the country, says a Canadian genocide expert.

Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) at Concordia University and a Fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, says Suu Kyi’s five-day visit to Canada is a unique moment for Trudeau press the Nobel Peace Prize winner to do more to protect the stateless minority.

“It’s a very opportune time for the Canadian government to host her but realize that there are some severe human rights violations going on and Canada should not be quiet about it but should actually pressure here when she’s here,” said Matthews.

Seeking Canada’s advice on federalism and constitution

The Prime Minister’s Office announced Friday that Suu Kyi, whose official title is State Counsellor of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, will visit Canada from June 5 to 9, 2017.

Suu Kyi is travelling to Canada to consult Trudeau on constitutional reforms. Her visit to Canada follows fresh round of peace talks in the capital Naypyidaw aimed at ending a conflict in Myanmar’s troubled frontier regions, where various ethnic groups have been waging war against the state for almost seven decades.

Trudeau will meet Suu Kyi on June 7 to “discuss federalism and democratic reforms in Myanmar, as well as regional peace and security and the importance of promoting democracy, good governance and human rights,” according to the Prime Minister’s Office.

Stateless minority

The Rohingya, who number about one million, have lived in Myanmar, also known as Burma, for generations.

However, many in Myanmar’s predominantly Buddhist population view them as foreign intruders from neighbouring Bangladesh.

The persecution of Rohingya has been going on for a long time, Matthews said. Attacks against the Rohingya in Rakhine State along the border with Bangladesh came into the forefront in the last four-five years before Suu Kyi took power, he said.

“In the past couple of years we have seen different Buddhist monks actually become very open and loud in using their pulpits to spread hate and ask for the masses in Myanmar to attack the Rohingya,” Matthews said. “We’ve had civilians taking up weapons and arms to attack Rohingya and we’ve had almost sectarian strife between the Rohingya and the Buddhist population.”

Muslim mobs have also attacked Buddhist temples and villages in Rakhine and in neighbouring Bangladesh.

The most recent spate of fighting began in October last year, when nine Buddhist Burmese border guards were attacked and killed.

Security forces responded with a major security operation, conducting “clearance operations” and sealing the area, effectively barring humanitarian organizations, media and independent human rights monitors from entering, according to a report by Amnesty International.

Dozens of Rohingya villages have been burned to the ground, women have been raped and civilians murdered by the army, Human Rights Watch reported in late 2016. At least 10,000 Rohingya have fled across the Bangladeshi border to escape the violence.

Targeted human rights abuses

The government has placed thousands of Rohingyas in internment camps, in places where they can’t interact with anyone else and don’t have the freedom to travel, he said.

“There have been deportations, there have been mass killings,” Matthews said. “What has happened with Rohingya is a series of targeted human rights abuses against one particular group with the aim or partially destroying the group or trying to make them leave the territory.”

That’s the very definition of genocide, Matthews said.

However, the Burmese government has denied allegations of genocide and ethnic cleansing, rejecting any evidence to the contrary as “propaganda” and “fabricated news and rumours.”

Lost opportunities

When Suu Kyi took power after the 2015 elections, many in the international community and human rights organizations saw her as a beacon of light, someone who has fought against oppression and for justice, and fought for democracy, Matthews said.

However, many have been very dismayed that that she hasn’t made any strong public statements about what’s happening to the Rohingya and doesn’t seem to have done anything to help their plight, Matthews said.

“So it [persecution of the Rohingya] didn’t start on her watch, but she is now in charge and, having won a Nobel Peace Prize, it’s a little perplexing that she has not been more outspoken or done more to protect the Rohingya,” Matthews said. “I don’t know of any other Nobel Peace Prize winners who have gone on to govern a state committing genocide against a minority.”

With files from AFP

New Delhi -- Tasmida is 19 and is determined to break all barriers to fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor. First, she is one of the many Rohingya Muslim refugees, who had fled their homes in Myanmar to start life afresh in India. Second, she is a girl and her orthodox community does not allow women/girls to venture outside their homes to study or work. Moreover, she belongs to a poor family where finances are not enough to support education for children.

In spite of all these odds, Tasmida creates a record of sort by becoming the first Rohingya girl to write her Class 10 board exams in India recently. A resident of a refugee camp in Delhi, now Tasmida is eagerly waiting for her exam results scheduled to be declared on June 9. 

A determined Tasmida tells The Indian Express that she aspires to become a doctor to treat Rohingya patients in Myanmar who have no access to health care. Until and unless, the teenager does not adorn the white coat, Tasmida vows not to get married. "I want to be a doctor because no doctor tended to the Rohingyas back home... I will not get married till I become a doctor," she says. In her community, girls usually get married at a young age. Tasmida giving priority to her career over her personal life is one more step towards breaking gender gap. "In Myanmar, Rohingyas are not allowed to study beyond Class 10. Authorities withhold Class 10 results for us. Government or private jobs are out of question," she says. Life for Tasmida and her family, like millions of Rohingyas, who were persecuted in Myanmar and took shelter in Bangladesh and India, was never easy. Tasmida's family left Myanmar in 2002 after her father was jailed for several months. First they stayed in Cox Bazaar, Bangladesh, for eight years. Then once again her family had to leave Bangladesh in 2012 after anti-Rohingya violence erupted and authorities in the country started detaining the Muslim refugees.

This time her family decided to come to Delhi in India. Since then Tasmida's family is staying in a ghetto in Southeast Delhi's Kalindi Kunj with several other Rohingya refugees. According to former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Rohingya Muslims are the world's most persecuted minority people. There are around 60 million Rohingyas from the Rakhine State of Myanmar. Most of them are on run as the Bengali-speaking Muslims in Myanmar face state-sponsored violence because of their religion and language. Figures state that 1,40,000 Rohingyas have been displaced from Myanmar. India has around 40,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees, as per the figures available with the ministry of home affairs. After leaving Bangladesh, where Tasmida studied for a couple of years, the teenager restarted her education in a study centre at Kanchan Kunj in the national capital. However, when she expressed her desire to attend junior school at the Bosco Refugee Assistance Project in Jangpura, her father and elder brother did not allow Tasmida to study further.

At this juncture, her other brother, Ali Johar, 24, a college student and a women's rights activist, persuaded the family to send Tasmida to school. Ali, who heads the Rohingya Refugee Committee (Delhi) under the UNHRC says, "Rohingya women are hard-working but they are used to working as agricultural workers in Myanmar. In Delhi's urban set up, they have not been able to find the same kind of work opportunities. And the language barrier is also a problem." Like Tasmida, a couple of other Rohingya girls from her area are now going to schools. Moreover, many Rohingya refugee women have started doing small jobs to earn their livelihood and become self-reliant.

By Mizan Rahman

Gulf Times

June 2, 2017

Dhaka -- Bangladesh has welcomed the formation of a three-member fact-finding mission by the United Nations Human Rights Commission to look into allegations of atrocities recently committed by the Myanmar security forces against the Rohingya populace in Rakhine state.

Foreign ministry officials said in Dhaka, “There is doubt whether the mission will be allowed into Myanmar to carry out its activities as per its mandate because the government of Myanmar has already all but rejected it”.

“Despite this, we welcome the move. We hope that good sense will prevail and Myanmar will co-operate with the mission formed by the global body,” he said.

Echoing the sentiment of his superior, another official said, “It’s a positive step. Let’s hope Myanmar will co-operate with the UN mission to find out the truth.”

President of the UN Human Rights Council, ambassador Joaquin Alexander Maza Martelli, announced the appointment of Indira Jaising (India), Radhika Coomaraswamy (Sri Lanka) and Christopher Dominic Sidoti (Australia) to serve as three members of the fact-finding mission on Myanmar.

Jaising will serve as the chair of the three-member mission, said a press release issued by the global human rights body.

On March 24, 2017, at its 34th session, the council decided to urgently dispatch an independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the president of the council, to “establish facts and circumstances of the alleged recent human rights violations by military and security forces, and abuses, in Myanmar, in particular in Rakhine State”, it said.

Through human rights council resolution 34/22, the 47-member body mandated the members of the mission to look into, allegations of arbitrary detention, torture and inhuman treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary killings, enforced disappearances, forced displacement and unlawful destruction of property, said the release.

The mission members, who will serve in their personal capacities, are also mandated to carry out their work with a view to ensuring full accountability of the perpetrators of these acts and justice for the victims.

India and China had disassociated from the resolution when it was passed.

The council also encouraged the government of Myanmar to fully co-operate with the fact-finding mission by making available the findings of their domestic investigations and by granting full, unrestricted and unmonitored access to all areas and interlocutors, said the release.

The council also stressed the need for the mission to be provided with all necessary resources and expertise necessary to carry out its mandate.

The fact-finding mission is scheduled to present an oral update to the Human Rights Council at its thirty-sixth session in September this year and a full report at its 37th session in March, 2018, it said.

The members of the mission are expected to meet in Geneva in the coming weeks to plan their agenda and work for the months ahead, the release said.

Any official reaction from the Myanmar side is not yet available, said the officials of the foreign ministry in Dhaka.

But, they said that right after the passage of the resolution moved by the European Union to constitute such a mission, Aung San Suu Kyi, state councillor and de-facto leader of Myanmar, rejected such a mission.

On May 2, at a joint press conference in Brussels with Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy Federica Mogherini said the fact-finding mission is focusing on establishing the truth about the past and that she believes this can contribute to establishing the facts.

Asked about the move, Suu Kyi, said: “We are disassociating ourselves from the resolution because we don’t think the resolution is in keeping with what is actually happening on the ground.”

The remarks of the state councillor clearly indicate reluctance on the part of Myanmar to allow the fact-finding mission into Myanmar, said the officials.

In the past, the Myanmar government has refused to allow UN teams into the country, they said.

The officials hinted that eventually if Myanmar does not allow the fact- finding mission, then the mission may be dispatched to Bangladesh to find the truth by interviewing those Rohingyas who had to flee to Cox’s Bazaar to escape the brutality of the Myanmar security forces and local Buddhist population in the Rakhine state.

Bangladesh will be happy to facilitate such a trip as it did in case of UN special rapporteur on Myanmar Yanghee Lee, the foreign ministry officials said.

The UN team that visited Bangladesh after being refused entry into Myanmar in its report prepared based on interviewing Rohingyas in Cox’s Bazar said that Myanmar’s security forces committed mass killings, gang rapes and other atrocities against Rohingyas that might amount to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. Special rapporteur Lee also voiced similar views after her visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Since October, 2016, more than 70,000 Rohingyas have crossed into Bangladesh adding to the 3,00,000 Rohingyas already living in the country for decades.

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at today's press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

Cyclone Mora swept across the Bay of Bengal earlier this week, damaging thousands of homes in Bangladesh and Myanmar. Shelter is urgently needed for those affected. Many refugees and internally displaced people are among the local victims.

Some injuries were reported among Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar area and displaced people in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. An 11-year-old refugee died on Wednesday when he was hit by a falling tree branch in Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar. In Myanmar in central Rakhine state, a displaced boy aged 10 was reported missing after he was swept away by rising waters. 

UNHCR assessments in Bangladesh’s Kutupalong and Nayapara camps found that most of the refugees’ homes – which are built with mud, bamboo, corrugated iron and plastic sheets – suffered some damage. Some 20 percent are completely destroyed. Communal structures such as schools, community centres and the offices of government and NGOs are also damaged. Our partners are assessing the situation in makeshift sites and local villages hosting refugees.

In Myanmar, the government is conducting assessments with the contribution of UNHCR and other humanitarian agencies. Hundreds of shelters in the camps housing internally displaced people in central Rakhine state have suffered damage in the strong winds. This includes 186 shelters that collapsed while 339 are severely damaged.

In both countries, UNHCR and our partners are supporting government-led relief efforts to assist refugees, displaced people and their host communities who were affected by this natural disaster.

The working environment remains challenging amid persistent rains. Parts of central Rakhine are fraught with risks of landslides and collapsing river banks. In northern Rakhine state, relief work is hampered by flooding in parts of Maungdaw town as well as downed power and telecommunications lines. The electricity mini-grid in Bangladesh’s refugee camps is also broken, heightening security concerns after dark.

There is an urgent need for shelter materials. While some refugees in Bangladesh are already repairing their homes, others face nights in the open unless alternative accommodation can be found. UNHCR is prioritizing the repair of communal structures like schools to provide temporary shelter. Our staff are also distributing plastic sheets to those who need it the most.

UNHCR is seeking funds from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to help those affected by the cyclone in the two Bangladesh camps where we are authorised to work.

In Rakhine state in light of the urgent needs, we have provided plastic sheets to several healthcare facilities and are distributing further to people who need a roof over their heads. We are also working with UNICEF to support repairs to schools to minimize disruption of the school year that started yesterday (Thursday). UNHCR will provide further humanitarian aid in close liaison with the authorities.

Food rations, drinking water and latrines are some of the other needs identified so far in the cyclone-affected areas. More needs are likely to be identified as further assessments are completed in Bangladesh and Myanmar.

In Bangladesh, there are more than 33,000 Rohingya refugees registered in the official camps of Kutupalong and Nayapara. Outside the camps, more than 200,000 undocumented Rohingya are living in makeshift sites and local villages in south-eastern Bangladesh, including an estimated 74,000 who arrived after fleeing the violence in northern Rakhine state in October 2016.

In Myanmar, there are some 120,500 internally displaced people who have been living in bamboo longhouses in IDP camps in central Rakhine since they lost their homes in the 2012 inter-communal violence.

For more information on this topic, please contact:

- In Geneva, Ariane Rummery, rummery@unhcr.org, +41 79 200 7617

- In Bangladesh, Joseph Tripura, tripura@unhcr.org, +88 01713 090 375

- In Bangkok, Vivian Tan, tanv@unhcr.org, +66 818 270 280

- In Myanmar, Andrew Dusek, dusek@unhcr.org, +95 9 448 034 427

By AFP

June 2, 2017

Police charge three men who prayed in street after school where they used to worship was shut down by nationalists

Authorities in Myanmar have charged three Muslim men for holding Ramadan prayers in the street after the local school where they used to worship was shut down by a nationalist mob.

Police brought the charges after about 50 Muslims gathered to pray on Wednesday on a road in Yangon’s Thaketa township, the site of one of a growing number of raids by Buddhist hardliners on Islamic events.

Two nearby Islamic schools were closed in late April after ultra-nationalists complained that local Muslims were illegally using them to conduct prayers.

Authorities have said the closure is temporary, but have given no timeline for when they may be reopened.

“We feel sorry. This month is important for us,” said the local Muslim leader Zaw Min Latt, referring to the holy month of Ramadan, which began last week.

“We used those schools for prayer for decades. These restrictions have been brought in after more than 60 years.”

Local authorities issued a statement saying the prayer session threatened “stability and the rule of law” in the mainly Muslim neighbourhood in the east of Myanmar’s commercial capital.

A police officer who asked not to be named confirmed the charges.

Two officers tried to stop AFP journalists from filming when they visited one of the madrasas on Friday.

“It’s our mosque as well as our school. We don’t know when it will be reopened,” Khin Soe, a local resident in his 50s, said as he set off to pray in another part of town.

The case comes as Myanmar’s government has been seeking to clamp down on hate speech after a spike in anti-Muslim actions by hardliners from the country’s Buddhist majority.

Religious tensions have soared since a group of Rohingya Muslims attacked police posts in Rakhine state in October, sparking a bloody military crackdown that has drawn widespread international condemnation. 

Last week Myanmar’s top Buddhist authority officially banned the Ma Ba Tha, an ultra-nationalist movement affiliated with the firebrand cleric Wirathu, which responded by simply changing its name.

The move came after nationalists this month clashed with Muslims in another Muslim neighbourhood in Yangon, after pushing police to raid a house there in search of illegal Rohingya Muslim hideouts.

Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO)

Press release: 31 May 2017

ARNO Welcomes UNHRC Fact-finding Mission

Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO) welcomes the appointment of a three-person fact-finding mission on 30 May by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate alleged atrocities committed by Myanmar security forces against Rohingya Muslims.

It is an excellent team of experts headed by India’s Supreme Court Lawyer Ms. Indira Jaising; and its two other members are Sri Lankan lawyer Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy and Australian rights consultant Mr. Christopher Dominic Sidoti.

On 30 May the President of the 47-member Human Rights Commission, Ambassador Joaquin Alexander Maza Martelli has appropriately formed the team in accordance with Council resolution of March 24 to ‘dispatch urgently’ an international fact-finding mission to Myanmar to prove alleged abuses by military and security forces, particularly against the minority Rohingya Muslim community, including allegation of arbitrary detention, torture, inhuman treatment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary killings, enforced displacement, and unlawful destruction of property.

It has been a serious concern that Myanmar government and military authorities continue denying any violations in spite of well-documented evidences and accounts of atrocity crimes committed against the defenseless Rohingya population, including mass killings, gang rapes and arson in state sponsored deadly violence since 2012 and in systematic military campaigns from 2016 causing influx of thousands of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh.

The Government of Myanmar has the responsibility to protect the victims and is duty-bound to cooperates with this fact-finding mission, including granting it full access as called for in the Human Rights Council resolution. 

However, it is a “welcome relief” and hope to be a great move towards creating a full commission of inquiry to investigate the crimes against Rohingya.

For more details, please contact: 

Australia: 

Dr. Hla Myint +61-423381904

Bangladesh: 

Ko Ko Linn: +880-1726068413

Canada: 

Nur Hasim +1 -519- 5725359

Japan: 

Zaw Min Htut +81-8030835327

U.K. 

Ronnie: +44-7783118354

USA: 

Dr. Habib Ullah +1-4438158609

Email: info@rohingya.org

www.rohingya.org

Ayesha, 16, a Rohingya refugee girl poses for a photograph in her house which has been destroyed by Cyclone Mora at Balukhali Makeshift Refugee Camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh May 31, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

By Ruma Paul

Reuters

May 31, 2017

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh - Left drenched and near destitute by a cyclone that hit Bangladesh a day earlier, thousands of Rohingya refugees hunkered down in the ruins of their camps on Wednesday, waiting for help after a night in the rain.

At least seven people were killed and 50 injured by Cyclone Mora, according to Mohammad Ali Hussain, the chief administrator of Cox's Bazar district, a sliver of land in southeast Bangladesh bordering Myanmar.

The border area that bore the brunt of the storm is home to refugee camps for Muslim Rohingyas who have fled from their homes in northwest Myanmar to escape communal violence and Myanmar army crackdowns.

"Initial reports suggest damage to shelter in camps sheltering Rohingya refugees, is severe,” the Office of the UN Resident Coordinator for Bangladesh said.

The Bangladeshi government has estimated that in all, there are about 350,000 Rohingyas in Bangladesh following a new influx last October, when the Myanmar army launched an offensive in response to insurgent attacks.

Authorities in Cox's Bazar and neighbouring Chittagong district evacuated 350,000 people from low-lying areas before the storm roared in from the Bay of Bengal on Tuesday.

But most Rohingyas remained in their flimsy shelters in the camps when the storm struck, with priority given to evacuating only the most vulnerable, like heavily pregnant women.

Omar Farukh, a community leader in Kutupalong camp - one of several camps for Rohingyas in Cox's Bazar - described the misery of those left behind.

"We have passed a difficult time. We had no tin or plastic sheets above our heads and almost all of us passed the night in the rain," Farukh told Reuters by telephone.

"We tried to save our belongings, whatever we have, with pieces of plastic sheet."

A senior U.N. official working in Cox’s Bazar said there had been no reports of deaths in the camps, only some injuries.

STILL WAITING

The cyclone formed after monsoon rains triggered floods and landslides in Sri Lanka, off India's southern tip, killing 202 people in recent days, authorities said, adding 96 people were missing.

An Indian navy boat rescued 33 Bangladeshis at sea off Chittagong, and recovered one body, the Indian mission in Dhaka said. It was not clear if the people had been on a boat that sank or were washed into the sea by a storm surge.

Transport and communications were in chaos in northwest Myanmar, state media there said.

Camps for internally displaced Rohingya in Myanmar suffered extensive damage, and there were pockets of damage in the broader community, but no reports of casualties, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

When the storm hit Bangladesh it brought wind gusting up to 135 kph (85 mph) and heavy rain. 

By daybreak on Wednesday the storm had died down with only a steady rain falling. Airports and ports reopened. 

Rohingya community leader Farukh said aid agency officials had visited the Kutupalong camp to see what was needed.

A relief worker who had visited the Balukhali camp estimated that one in four huts there had been damaged but there were no serious injuries and people had begun repairs.

Beyond the camps, officials were also assessing the damage elsewhere in Cox's Bazar. The chief administrator said 17,500 houses had been completely destroyed and 35,000 partially damaged in the district.

"Almost all rickety houses in the district were completely or partially destroyed by the cyclone. Not only Rohingya houses," Hussain said.

The cyclone lost some of its force as it moved inland and across the eastern border into India.

Strong wind and heavy rain battered houses, brought down electricity lines, and damaged telecommunication towers in India's Mizoram state, cutting communications and power.

The Meteorological Department said the weather system was very likely to continue to move north-northeast and weaken into a cyclonic storm and later into a depression.

Other northeastern Indian states had received heavy to very heavy rainfall since Tuesday evening.

(Additional reporting by Serajul Quadir in DHAKA, Zarir Hussain in GUWAHATI, India, Yi-Mou Lee and Antoni Slodkowski in YANGON; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Robert Birsel)

By Kyaw Ye Lynn

Anadolu Agency

May 31, 2017

YANGON, Myanmar -- Muslim residents in Myanmar’s largest city Wednesday protested the closure of their two religious schools as they have fewer place for worship in the month of Ramadan -- the ninth and holiest month of the Islamic lunar calendar.

Local authorities -- following negotiations with local Muslim leaders -- chained shut two madrasahs in Yangon city on April 28 after a mob led by ultra-nationalist Buddhist monks demanded an immediate closure of religious schools in the area.

On Wednesday evening, some 100 Muslims gathered on the street in front of one of the two madrasahs to pray and protest the closure as the madrasahs stayed closed until now though the authorities said it was just temporary.

Tin Shwe, the head of the madrasah, told Anadolu Agency that authorities also barred Muslim residents from worshiping in six other schools in Thakayta Township without giving any proper reasons.

“We requested them to let us worship in these schools during Ramadan. But it went unanswered,” he said on Wednesday.

He added local Muslims were performing prayer at their individual places such as houses and shops since the ban.

“This is not the way we should perform prayers, especially in the month of Ramadan,” said Tin Shwe, adding the closest mosque was about a 45-minute walk away.

Min Naung, a 32-year-old Muslim resident of Thakayta, who joined the protest, said he has worshiped in the schools since he was a child.

“This is the first time we are not able to gather during the Ramadan month,” he told Anadolu Agency after the street prayer.

“The ban makes us shocked,” he said.

New York-based Human Rights Watch earlier this month said the closure was "the latest government failure to protect country’s religious minorities".

"The government should immediately reverse these closures, end restrictions on the practice of minority religions, and prosecute Buddhist ultra-nationalists who break the law in the name of religion," said HRW’s deputy Asia director, Phil Robertson.

HRW said Myanmar government has placed opaque and onerous restrictions on the construction or renovation of religious structures, as well as limits on the practice of religion, elements of the systemic discrimination facing Muslims, including the ethnic Rohingya Muslims in western Rakhine State.

Anti-Muslim movements have been on the rise in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar since an outbreak in communal violence in the western Rakhine state in 2012.

By Jacob Goldberg

Coconuts Yangon

May 30, 2017

A Twitter account that appears to be run by a member of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) posted a press release today to deny the group’s involvement in the killing of civilians in Rakhine State and to dismiss claims of terrorist links.

The statement accused the Myanmar government, particularly the Office of the State Counsellor, of disseminating “false, fabricated, and fake news” to harm the group’s “dignity and decency”.

Since ARSA (also known as Harakah al-Yaqin or Faith Movement) claimed responsibility for a series attacks on military and police installations in northern Rakhine State in October 2016, the Office of the State Counsellor has regularly blamed a series of murders and kidnappings in the area on the group, referring to them as “terrorists” and “violent attackers”.

The same Twitter user added in another tweet that the group holds the Myanmar military responsible for the killings.

The ARSA statement said the group was established “to defend, salvage, and protect the Rohingya community in Arakan” and that it has only carried out “defensive attacks” aimed at “the oppressive Burmese regime”.

“We have the legitimate right under international law to defend ourselves,” the statement said.

Among the group’s demands are political representation, freedom of movement and religion, the right of return for Rohingya refugees, and access to relief aid, markets, and education. (See a full list of demands here.)

The statement continued: “We do not commit any form of terrorism against any civilian regardless of their religious and ethnic origin.”

A December 2016 report by International Crisis Group claims ARSA leaders have links to private individuals in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and that Rohingya villagers have been “secretly trained” by Afghan and Pakistani fighters.

“We are well aware and conscious that both the Burmese government and the oppressive Burmese military regime are trying their best to tarnish the noble image of ARSA in order to create obstacles for us in seeking political, financial, technological, and logistics supports and assistances from the members of the international community,” the statement said.

ARSA has also publicly endorsed the establishment of a UN-led fact-finding mission to investigate claims of atrocities committed by the Myanmar military against Rohingya civilians, while the Myanmar government has refused to cooperate.

By Al Jazeera

May 30, 2017

The UN is sending a fact-finding team to investigate alleged human rights abuses against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

The UN on Tuesday appointed a three-member team to investigate alleged abuses by security forces against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

The fact-finding mission will be led by prominent Indian lawyer Indira Jaising, Sri Lankan lawyer Radhika Coomaraswamy, and Australian human rights consultant Christopher Dominic Sidoti, according to a statement from the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) on Tuesday.

Myanmar's military has been accused of killing and raping Rohingya Muslims, a persecuted minority group, in a crackdown in Northern Rakhine state in western Myanmar last year. 

"We expect the mission members to meet in Geneva in the coming weeks to determine their initial course of action – the strategy, methodology and fact-finding approach they will employ in discharging their mandate," Rolando Gomez, a HRC spokesperson, told Al Jazeera via email.

"The three members will be supported by a team of human rights specialists in Geneva."

The mission will present an oral mandate to the UN in September and a full report in March 2018.

The UN adopted a resolution to set up an independent, international mission in March. It was brought by the European Union and supported by other countries including the US to "ensure full accountability for perpetrators and justice for victims".

Some countries including Myanmar, China, India, and Cuba did not support the resolution.

'Much to hide'

Rohingya Muslims, stripped of their citizenship in 1982, are often referred to as "illegal" immigrants by Myanmar's leaders. About 1.1 million Rohingya are denied citizenship and their movement is severely restricted, with tens of thousands confined to camps in Bangladesh since violence drove them from their homes in 2012 and more recently.

Around 75,000 people have fled Rakhine state since the military began a security operation last October in response to what it claims was an attack by Rohingya armed men on border posts, in which nine police officers were killed.

Myanmar has staunchly opposed a UN Commission of Inquiry into alleged abuses. It is not yet clear if the UN team will be granted access to Rakhine, or even be permitted to land in Myanmar.

"As in all such cases, the mission members will make it a priority to reach out to and engage constructively with [Myanmar's] government and other relevant interlocutors. It remains the hope of the HRC that the mission will be facilitated by the government through unfettered access to the affected areas," Gomez said.

In February, a UN report, based on interviews with Rohingya refugees, accused Myanmar's security forces of carrying out mass rapes and killings, possibility amounting to crimes against humanity.

"Minorities all over the world are facing persecution. The situation of the Rohingya community in Myanmar is especially deplorable because they face the risk of a genocide," Indira Jaising, heading the UN mission, told Al Jazeera by telephone.

"We are hoping that our recommendations will make an impact and awaken the conscience of the international community," she said.

The UN team will also look into allegations of arbitrary detention, torture and inhuman treatment, enforced disappearances, forced displacement and unlawful destruction of property by security forces, according to the UN's statement.

A widely discredited army-led report on the crackdown published earlier this month found no abuses had been committed.

"It is unsurprising that Myanmar has rejected a UN probe. Criminals rarely wish for scrutiny of what they have been doing and what is going on in Myanmar is criminal state-led bloodshed on a gargantuan scale," said Priyamvada Gopal, an author and academic who has written about Rohingya Muslims, via an email to Al Jazeera.

"What that does tell us is, of course there is much to hide."

By Nurul Islam

Reuters

May 30, 2017

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh -- A cyclone battered refugee camps in Bangladesh on Tuesday where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar have taken refuge from violence at home, as authorities moved at least 350,000 Bangladeshis out of harm's way.

Cyclone Mora struck the island of Saint Martin and Teknaf in the coastal Bangladeshi district of Cox’s Bazar, where officials said some 200,000 people were evacuated to shelters. In Chittagong district, about 150,000 people were evacuated.

The border area is also home to refugee camps for Rohingyas who have fled their homeland in northwest Myanmar.

Shamsul Alam, a Rohingya community leader, told Reuters that damage in the camps was severe with almost all the 10,000 thatched huts in the Balukhali and Kutupalong camps destroyed.

"Most of the temporary houses in the camps have been flattened," Alam said.

Omar Farukh, a community leader in Kutupalong camp, said conditions were dire: "Now we're in the open air."

Cox’s Bazar district chief Mohammad Ali Hussin said at least 15,000 houses in the district had been destroyed and he had unconfirmed reports of three people killed and dozens injured, including several Rohingya refugees.

Officials in Chittagong reported winds gusting up to 135 kph (85 mph), and said low-lying coastal areas were flooded by a storm surge with waves 2 meters (7 feet) high.

Flights in the area were canceled.

Last October, following a Myanmar army operation launched in response to insurgent attacks, an estimated 74,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh where they joined more than 200,000 who have taken refuge there over the years.

The Bangladeshi government has estimated that in all, there are about 350,000 Rohingyas in Bangladesh.

In predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, where Rohingyas are officially denied citizenship and classified as illegal immigrants, about 120,000 of them have been internally displaced by communal violence over recent years and are living in camps.

'WE'RE WORRIED' 

A U.N. official working with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh said the damage in the camps could not be assessed while the storm was raging.

"Heavily pregnant women have been evacuated but most people in areas like Balukhali and Kutupalong makeshift settlements have stayed," said the official, who declined to be identified.

"The winds are strong and people there live in flimsy structures, so we're worried."

In Myanmar, about 300 houses were damaged in Rakhine State but the extent was unclear, the government said.

But Bangladeshi weather officials said the cyclone was not as bad as they had feared.

"The severity was less than the apprehension,” Shamsuddin Ahmed, a weather official based in Chittagong said.

The cyclone was expected to weaken in Bangladesh by late morning as it moved inland towards India where authorities have warned of heavy rain in the northeastern states of Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.

The cyclone formed after monsoon rains triggered floods and landslides in Sri Lanka, off India's southern tip, killing at least 180 people in recent days, authorities said, adding 99 people were missing and 112 had been injured.

In the eastern Indian state of Bihar, 24 people have been killed in recent days, either by lightning or in collapsed dwellings.

While the rains bring death and destruction every year, they also underpin life across the region.

Monsoon rains arrived at on India's southern coast on Tuesday, a weather office source said, making it the earliest since 2011 and setting India up for higher farm output and robust economic growth. 

(Additional reporting by Serajul Quadir and Ruma Paul in DHAKA, Shihar Aneez in COLOMBO, Wa Lone and Antoni Slodkowski in YANGON; Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Robert Birsel)

By AFP

May 29, 2017

YANGON: Myanmar's ultra-nationalist Ma Ba Tha movement announced Sunday it was rebranding under a new name, days after Buddhist authorities banned the network which has been accused of stoking Islamophobia.

The monk-led movement grew in strength under the country's previous military-backed government, peddling a form of hardline Buddhist nationalism that intensified sectarian tensions with minority Muslims.

But after months of distancing itself from the radical group, Myanmar's top Buddhist clergy on Tuesday ordered the Ma Ba Tha to cease all activities by mid-July or face prosecution.

The threat did little to deter thousands of maroon-robed monks, nuns and lay followers from attending a weekend summit at a Yangon monastery decorated with Ma Ba Tha banners, with many defiantly declaring their intention to keep the movement going.

On Sunday the group released a statement saying they would use a new name: the Buddha Dhamma Philanthropy Foundation.

"We urge all members in all regions and states around the country to work for the country, people and religion using the name of the Buddha Dhamma Philanthropy Foundation," said the statement, signed by its monk leader Tilawka Biwuntha.

The new name is noticeably less controversial and confrontational than the original.

Ma Ba Tha is the Burmese abbreviation for a phrase that translates as "The Association for the Protection of Race and Religion" - a name the group would also give as its official English title.

With the help of notorious firebrand monk Wirathu, who attended the weekend gathering and has a significant Facebook following, Ma Ba Tha became know for sermons and protests that helped foment the idea that Buddhism in Myanmar is threatened by Islam.

Muslims have lived in Myanmar for centuries but only make up around five per cent of the population.

In recent months Buddhist hardliners have shut down religious events across the country and forced two Yangon schools accused of illegally doubling up as mosques to close their doors.

Police arrested several nationalists this month after a fight broke out in a Muslim neighbourhood of Yangon, when dozens of people raided a house believed to be hiding Rohingyas - a Muslim minority maligned by many Buddhists.

Earlier this year the ruling clergy, a body known as Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, banned Wirathu from preaching for a year, though he still spoke at the gathering on Saturday.

The same day Tilawka Biwuntha signalled the group had no intention of disbanding.

"If you write Ma Ba Tha, you can erase the words. But no one can erase Ma Ba Tha from your heart," he told supporters.