By AFP

September 24, 2017

YANGON -- Cartoons taking aim at Rohingya Muslims are spreading rapidly across social media in mainly Buddhist Myanmar, where public opinion on the crisis stands in stark contrast to the outcry overseas.

Fanned by Myanmar's civilian and military leaders, an information war has taken hold and is being embraced with gusto by a legion of satirists, meme-makers and Internet trolls.

Local cartoonists, many of whom earned their revered status for skewering the former junta, have taken aim at the Rohingya.

One widely-shared sketch called "crocodile tears" shows a group of reptiles swimming away from a bank of mutilated animals towards an eager Western cameraman.

"I had to flee my motherland," a crying crocodile says into the microphone, a swipe at the testimonies of Rohingya refugees who have arrived in Bangladesh with accounts of atrocities by Myanmar's army.

"There is something untrue about what they (the Rohingya) are saying," Win Naing, one of Myanmar's most famous cartoonists, told AFP.

The 58-year-old, whose pen name is Aw Pi Kyeh, said he just wanted to provoke thought in a highly charged situation.

"We draw cartoons with a spirit that loves the country."

For decades the paranoid former junta sequestered its people from technology, global opinion and debate.

But since the country creaked open a few years ago, Myanmar's public has dived head first into Facebook and Twitter.

Now, anti-Rohingya diatribes are being "liked", shared and retweeted - reinforcing long-held religious hatreds against the minority.

Since late August, around 430,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh, escaping an army crackdown in Rakhine state which the UN has called "ethnic cleansing".

The global condemnation has triggered a defensive instinct in Myanmar where the Rohingya are not citizens and are broadly reviled.

KEYBOARD WARRIORS

Armed with crass humour, Internet fame and riding a wave of public opinion, cartoonists have delivered sharp counter-punches.

When Malala Yousafzai condemned fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi for failing to speak up for the Rohingya, one cartoonist hit back with a rendering of the Pakistani activist with human excrement instead of brains - a grim reference to her surgery after being shot in the head by the Taliban.

A sketch by cartoonist Okka Kyi Winn, liked nearly 10,000 times on his Facebook page, showed a UN insignia wrapped in a Middle-Eastern keffiyeh, suggesting the body is in cahoots with the Arab world.

While the intention may be pure satire, such images are contributing to a siege mentality in Myanmar, where keyboard warriors are trading blows with vocal pro-Rohingya groups scattered across the Muslim world.

The prevailing view among the Buddhist majority is that foreign media and international NGOs have embellished the plight of the Rohingya and unfairly bashed Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

"The Lady" has refused to weigh in on the squall of claims and counterclaims, saying only that there is a "huge iceberg of misinformation".

Many outside Myanmar are baffled by the seeming lack of empathy, and the often violent rhetoric from a Buddhist people.

But toxic Islamophobia has been brewing in the country for years, fed in part by official rhetoric that the Muslim Rohingya are foreign invaders intent on taking a Buddhist land.

As his troops blanket Rakhine, Myanmar's commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing has continued with Facebook posts branding the Rohingya as "terrorist extremists" of "Bengali" origin - a state-stamped slur that condemns them to the status of illegal migrants.

'BETTER ANGELS'

Newspapers, TV debates and social media have followed suit, jeering at the Rohingya as they flee, says Sein Win of the Myanmar Journalism Institute.

Some of the loudest noises are coming from people who fought repression under the junta, he told AFP, in a remarkable reshaping of the young democracy's political landscape.

"I am disturbed by the actions of the media, civil society and even former political activists. You need to care about humans across the board, not just when it suits you," he said.

On Friday US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Patrick Murphy condemned the hate speech on social media and urged the "better angels" of the Myanmar people to find empathy for the Rohingya.

But cartoonists such as Maung Maung Fountain (pen name) argue their sketches "don't insult any religion or any people".

In one, he draws a camel - a code for Rohingya Muslims - that has edged its way into a tent made from the Myanmar flag then bellows "Human Rights" at the startled Burmese man he has just evicted.

"I meant say that some people want more and more rights and opportunities."

By Al Jazeera

September 24, 2017

UN says there are 'immense' challenges as Bangladesh needs assistance to feed and shelter 436,000 Rohingya. 

Bangladesh needs "massive international assistance" to feed and shelter the 436,000 Rohingya who have fled Myanmar in recent weeks, the head of the UN refugee agency said.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Sunday there were "immense" challenges after visiting the overflowing camps around Cox's Bazar in southern Bangladesh.

"I was struck by the incredible magnitude of their needs. They need everything - they need food, they need clean water, they need shelter, they need proper healthcare," he told reporters.

Grandi said there had been an "incredible outpouring of local generosity" but that now needed to be "beefed up by massive international assistance, financial and material".

"That's partly why I am here, to help ... the government organise that response," he said.

The UN said on Sunday that 436,000 Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority, had arrived from Myanmar's Rakhine state since an outbreak of violence there a month ago.

Grandi said the influx had slowed in recent days but it was impossible to tell whether more would come.

He also said his office was providing "technical assistance" to help Bangladesh register the Rohingya, whom Myanmar considers to be "illegal" immigrants.

Bangladesh only recognises a tiny fraction of around 700,000 Rohingya living in camps near the border with Myanmar as refugees, referring to the rest as undocumented Myanmar nationals.

It has "no plan for the time being" to grant refugee status to the newly arrived Rohingya, senior Bangladesh minister Amir Hossain Amu said on Sunday.

"We want Rohingya to return to their own land," said Amu, who chairs a cabinet committee on national security.

Bangladesh has begun providing the new arrivals with identity cards and recording their biometric data, a process that began last week and is expected to take several months to complete.

Many hope that will allow them eventually to return to Myanmar. Civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi said last week that those who had been verified as refugees from her country would be allowed back.

Grandi said he hoped the UN's role would give the registration "the necessary credibility, which is so urgent not just for repatriation but for assistance".

At the moment, UN agencies say it is difficult to ensure aid is distributed evenly because refugees are undocumented and are still moving from one place to another.

Grandi said the scale of the influx - which he called the "fastest and most urgent refugee emergency in the world" - had made it difficult to assess needs quickly.

But he added: "I think that the response is getting more organised".

UNICEF said on Sunday that a plane carrying 100 tonnes of emergency aid from Europe, including water purifying tablets, sanitary items and plastic tarpaulins, had reached Bangladesh.

By Simon Lewis and Tommy Wilkes

Reuters

September 24, 2017

COX‘S BAZAR, Bangladesh -- Doctors treating some of the 429,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar in recent weeks have seen dozens of women with injuries consistent with violent sexual attacks, U.N. clinicians and other health workers said. 

The medics’ accounts, backed in some cases by medical notes reviewed by Reuters, lend weight to repeated allegations, ranging from molestation to gang rape, levelled by women from the stateless minority group against Myanmar’s armed forces. 

Myanmar officials have mostly dismissed such allegations as militant propaganda designed to defame its military, which they say is engaged in legitimate counterinsurgency operations and under orders to protect civilians. 

Zaw Htay, spokesman for Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, said the authorities would investigate any allegations brought to them. “Those rape victim women should come to us,” he said. “We will give full security to them. We will investigate and we will take action.” 

Suu Kyi herself has not commented on the numerous allegations of sexual assault committed by the military against Rohingya women made public since late last year. 

Violence erupted in Myanmar’s northwestern Rakhine state following attacks on security forces by Rohingya militants last October. Further attacks on Aug. 25 provoked a renewed military offensive the United Nations has called “ethnic cleansing”. 

Reuters spoke with eight health and protection workers in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district who between them said they had treated more than 25 individual rape cases since late August. 

The medics say they do not attempt to establish definitively what happened to their patients, but have seen an unmistakeable pattern in the stories and physical symptoms of dozens of women, who invariably say Myanmar soldiers were the perpetrators. 

It is rare for U.N. doctors and aid agencies to speak about rape allegedly committed by a state’s armed forces, given the sensitivity of the matter. 

“INHUMAN ATTACK” 

Doctors at a clinic run by the U.N’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) at the Leda makeshift refugee say they treated hundreds of women with injuries they said were from violent sexual assaults during the army operation in October and November. 

There have been fewer rapes reported among the influx of refugees since August, said Dr. Niranta Kumar, the clinic’s health coordinator, but those they have seen have injuries suggesting “more aggressive” attacks on women. 

Several health workers suggested that, whereas in October many women had initially remained in their villages believing the army sweeps were only targeting Rohingya men, this time most had fled at the first sign of military activity. 

Doctors at the Leda clinic showed a Reuters reporter three case files, without divulging the identity of the patients. One said a 20-year-old woman was treated on Sept. 10, seven days after she said she was raped by a soldier in Myanmar. 

Handwritten notes say she said soldiers had “pulled her hair” and a “gun used to beat her” before raping her. 

Examinations often find injuries suggesting forced penetration, beating and even what looked like intentional cutting of the genitals, doctors said. 

“We found skin marks, it showed a very forceful attack, an inhuman attack,” said IOM medical officer Dr Tasnuba Nourin. 

She had seen incidents of vaginal tearing, bite marks and signs that seemed to show a firearm was used to penetrate women, she said. 

Among the new influx of Rohingya she had treated at least five women who appeared to have been recently raped, she said, adding that in each case the physical injuries observed were consistent with the patient’s account of what had happened. 

“FRACTION OF THE CASES” 

At Bangladesh government clinics supported by U.N. agencies in the Ukhia area, doctors reported treating 19 women who had been raped, said Dr. Misbah Uddin Ahmed, head of the main health complex there, citing reports from female clinicians. 

“The evidence included bite marks, tearing of the vagina, these sorts of things,” he said. 

In one day alone, Sept. 14, six women showed up at one of the clinics, all saying they were sexually assaulted. “They all said Myanmar army had done this.” 

An IOM doctor who asked not to be identified, working at one of those clinics near the Kutapalong refugee camp, said a woman who crossed from Myanmar in late August said she was raped by at least seven soldiers. 

“She was extremely weak and traumatized and said she struggled to make it to the clinic,” the doctor said. “She had a laceration on the vagina.” 

The doctor treated 15 of the 19 cases of women who appeared to have been raped, and another eight women who had been physically assaulted. Some were given emergency contraceptives, and all were given treatment to reduce the risk of contracting HIV and jabs against hepatitis. Symptoms included bite marks over the arms and back, tearing and laceration on the vagina and vaginal bleeding, the doctor said. 

Internal reports compiled by aid agencies in Cox’s Bazar recorded that 49 “SGBV survivors” were identified in just four days between Aug. 28-31. SGBV, or sexual and gender-based violence is used to refer to only cases of rape, according to U.N. doctors. Data for reported rape cases was not available for other dates. 

A situation report from aid agencies says more than 350 people had been referred for “life-saving care” relating to gender-based violence - a broad term that includes rape, attempted rape and molestation, as well as emotional abuse and denial of resources based on gender - since Aug. 25. It did not refer to the perpetrators. 

Kate White, emergency medical coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Cox’s Bazar said the charity had treated at least 23 cases of sexual and gender-based violence including gang-rape and sexual assault since Aug. 25. 

“This is a fraction of the cases that are likely to be out there,” she said.

“RAPE AS A WEAPON” 

Reuters first reported allegations of mass rape of Rohingya women within days of militant attacks in northern Rakhine in October. 

The same reports were also heard by U.N. investigators who visited Bangladesh in January. 

A report of the U.N. Secretary General in April said the sexual assaults were “apparently employed systematically to humiliate and terrorise their community”. 

Before her rise to power last year Suu Kyi had spoken of rape being used as a tool of division in the country’s myriad ethnic conflicts. 

“It is used as a weapon by armed forces to intimidate the ethnic nationalities and to divide our country, this is how I see it,” she said in 2011 in a video message to a conference on sexual violence in conflict. 

Her spokesman Zaw Htay said there was “nothing to say” when asked if her view had changed since then. “Everything should be according to the rule of law,” he said. “The military leaders also have said they will take action.” 

Reporting by Simon Lewis and Tommy Wilkes in COX'S BAZAR, BANGLADESH; Additional reporting by Shoon Naing in Yangon

By UN News

September 22, 2017

With the number of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar arriving in south-east Bangladesh edging towards half a million, United Nations agencies are stepping up delivery of life-saving aid to two official refugee camps, where the health concerns are quickly growing. 

At the request of Bangladeshi authorities, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is speeding up the distribution of plastic sheeting to get as many people as possible under at least minimal protection from monsoon rains and winds. 

“On Saturday, we plan to begin distribution of kitchen sets, sleeping mats, solar lamps and other essential relief items to an initial 3,500 families who have been selected by community leaders,” UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic told a press briefing in Geneva. 

Refugee volunteers and contractors are helping newly arriving refugees moving into emergency shelter, but it is vital that UNHCR site planners have the opportunity to lay out the new Kutupalong extension in an orderly way to adequately provide for sanitation and to make sure structures are erected on higher ground not prone to flooding. 

In total, more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees are now believed to be in Bangladesh; 420,000 of them have arrived in the past three and a half weeks. 

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi will be in Bangladesh this weekend to get a first-hand look at the scale of the crisis as well as UNHCR’s response, and meet with refugees. 

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that camps are bursting at the seams and there is a huge risk of disease.

“WHO is very concerned about the health situation on the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh, given the very crowded settlements, most of them spontaneous,” said Fadela Chaib, the agency’s spokesperson in Geneva. 

“It has been challenging to roll out the emergency response, not least because of the difficult terrain and the very heavy rains, and the fact that the population in question is dispersed, mobile and often injured,” she added.

Ms. Chaib said the greatest risk is related to water and sanitation, with poor conditions increasing the risk of vector- and water-borne diseases. Cholera, which is endemic in Bangladesh, cannot be ruled out. WHO has provided some 20,000 people with water purification tablets.

“Immunization rates among children is very low,” she said, explaining that when children are malnourished and exposed to the elements, the risk of childhood diseases such as measles are very high. 

WHO, together with other agencies, recently launched an immunization campaign against polio and measles. Owing to the poor weather conditions and the continuous influx of people, the campaign has been extended.

Around 40 WHO staff have been dispatched to Bangladesh, and the agency will deploy a team of epidemiologists over the weekend to support risk assessment for infectious diseases. 

For its part, the World Food Programme (WFP) has now reached at least 385,000 people with food aid as of today. Together with its partners, WFP feeds more than 5,000 people daily in the area. 

“The situation is dire and WFP is on the frontlines trying to reach people as quickly as possible,” spokesperson Bettina Luescher told reporters in Geneva.

By Al Jazeera

September 22, 2017

In speech to UN, Sheikh Hasina presses Myanmar to allow the return of 'hungry, distressed and hopeless' refugees.

Bangladesh's prime minister has accused Myanmar of ethnic cleansing of its Rohingya people and urged the country to allow the return of "hungry, distressed and hopeless" refugees.

Sheikh Hasina told the UN General Assembly on Thursday that Bangladesh was sheltering more than 800,000 Rohingya, of whom 430,000 had arrived in the past three weeks.

She called for safe zones to be created under UN supervision in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

"We are horrified to see that the Myanmar authorities are laying landmines along their stretch of the border to prevent the Rohingya from returning to Myanmar," Hasina said.

"These people must be able to return to their homeland in safety, security and dignity."

More than half of the displaced Rohingya, a majority-Muslim ethnic group, are living in makeshift camps with little access to shelter, food, clean water and sanitation, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

On Tuesday, Marzuki Darusman, the head of the UN Fact-Finding Mission, said they were seeking access to Myanmar to investigate allegations of mass killings and torture.

Children make up about 60 percent of more than 420,000 people who have poured in to Bangladesh. They have seen family members killed and homes set on fire.

They have known fear. And they have endured dangerous journeys through forests and on rickety boats.

Sometimes they have done it alone. UNICEF has so far counted more than 1,400 children who have crossed the border with neither parent.

Now they have traded the fear of Rakhine for the chaos of refugee camps in Bangladesh.

Tens of thousands of strangers are living in the refugee camps, packed in normally uninhabitable places.

Child refugees face many dangers, including separation from their families, trafficking, servitude, and abuse.

Hunger is a constant and most children have to beg at some point if they are to eat. And to do that they have to leave their tents.

Their parents, who are simply too overwhelmed and impoverished themselves, cannot chaperone them.

UNICEF has set up what the agency calls "Child Friendly Spaces" within the camps.

These are spaces where children can be around each other, where they can play and sing and have books read to them.

In a small room that was built just a week ago in this refugee camp, happy faces abound, with balloons and drawings hung on the walls and ceiling.

But the children are all too aware of the terrors they have witnessed, and aid agencies like UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) say they are barely scratching the surface when it comes to addressing their mental and physical well-being.

The aid agency Save the Children warns that more than 600,000 Rohingya children could be in Bangladesh by the end of the year. Many of them will probably be orphans who will need urgent assistance.

The Star Online

September 22, 2017

Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO)

Press release 

21 September 2017

Aung San Suu Kyi’s disingenuous speech fails to address Rohingya genocide 

The Rohingya people are outraged by the highly contentious and ambiguous speech of the Myanmar State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi delivered before the diplomatic community on 19 September in Naypyidaw. She made numerous disingenuous excuses that fail to address the crisis, the untold sufferings of the Rohingya people, that the U.N stated a “textbook case of ethnic cleansing.” 

Without condemning the Myanmar military and collaborators, Suu Kyi tried to deflect the blame for the mass atrocity crimes and told the diplomats that she was unaware the facts why Muslims (Rohingyas) fled to Bangladesh and that “while many villages had been destroyed, more than half were still intact.” It is a hypocritical statement that suggests that she is a morally bankrupt to take a moral stand on “Rohingya genocide”. 

Invoking the UN Charter, she called for a “kinder and more compassionate for all mankind” – just apparently not for the helpless, weakest, poorest and most hated Rohingya minority. Unsurprisingly, throughout the speech, she declined to use the term Rohingya and thereby she rejects in practice the basic international norms and standards which respect physical integrity, self-identification, existence as a community, maintenance of identity and effective participation in governance. She is denying the ethnic Rohingya their “right to exist” in Myanmar.

It is an absurd excuse to talk of “equal rights to higher education” for the Rohingya people who have just been subjected to genocide, who are denied basic rights and freedoms -- freedom of movement, right to education, right to marry, right to vote, right to recognition before the law and as a community. For decades Rohingya students have been barred from studying in country’s colleges and universities, not to speak of equal opportunity. 

Her commitments to implement a “strategy and national verification process” for the Rohingya -- including those possibly returning refugees who fled for their lives and lost almost everything -- are simply ridiculous. Rohingya are natural born citizens of Arakan/Myanmar, they do not require cooperating with such unworthy “verification” scheme, a dirty trick of the perpetrators of genocide. 

It is a groundless excuse to talk those 18 months in power is a very short time for her new government to speak out for the Rohingya. Whereas Suu Kyi did not hesitate to voice for other communities, she did not even visit northern Rakhine State to see the Rohingya victims of deadly violence. In no time she could condemn the perpetrators, demand cessation of violations, insist upon the protection of the vulnerable and facilitate relief, allow the international media and accept the UN Fact-Finding Commission to investigate crimes against humanity. On top of that, in a relatively short time, she could have restored the citizenship of the Rohingya population that has been unjustly stripped of. Instead, by evading her government’s ‘responsibility to protect’ the Rohingya, she is trying to hoodwink the international community.

The plight of Rohingya is well-known as the most serious of all problems in Myanmar. Although their outcry reaches far and wide it does not get the ear of Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar leaders. There is no need to investigate “what the real problems are” or, strangely, to ask the half a million or so who did not flee what calculation they made in staying. 

It is not the time for double-dealing, but to act on the universal principle of justice and equality! 

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

U.S.A: Dr. Habibullah: +1-4438158609

Email: info@rohingya.org

www.rohingya.org

September 21, 2017