Human Rights | MYANMAR CRIME NEWS

Rohingya human rights worker to call on women foreign ministers for more action

on: October 23, 2018

OTTAWA — Razia Sultana has hope for her people, despite the fact tens of thousands have been tortured and raped in what the United Nations has deemed a genocide.

Sultana is Rohingya. She works as a lawyer and human rights activist in the refugee camps of Bangladesh, where over 725,000 Rohingya Muslims are now staying after fleeing extreme violence from the Myanmar militia.

The vast majority of those in the camps are women and children, many of whom were gang raped and tortured and lost family members in brutal mass slaughters.

But many of them still want to go home to Myanmar.

“They want to go back, because that is their life, their ancestral land. But they need a safe zone,” Sultana said.

“Canada is a most powerful country now in the world. They have authority. They can push the Myanmar government (through) international lobbying.”

She wants Canada to use its influence to advocate for the creation of a safe zone within Myanmar to allow the women in refugee camps to return without fear of further violence. In the meantime, proper education should be established within the refugee camps to allow children an opportunity for a better future.

Sultana plans to take this message to a meeting of women foreign ministers being held in Montreal on Friday and Saturday.

The meeting will draw together not only 19 female ministers, but also a group of 10 women who have been internationally recognized for their work in furthering human rights causes — including Sultana. Together, they will discuss international security, feminist foreign policy and aid as well as combating sexual and gender-based violence.

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and Federica Mogherini, high representative of the European Union, are co-hosting the meeting.

Indian SC inquires about living condition in Rohingya camps

on: April 10, 2018

A three-member Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra passed the order on Monday, giving a light of hope to the Rohingya refugees living in India

The Indian Supreme Court has directed the country’s central government to submit a detailed report within four weeks, on the overall living condition in Rohingya camps scattered across India.

Around 40,000 Rohingyas are living in camps, and the court has inquired about whether the refugees have access to basic human necessities like potable water, toilets, education and healthcare.

The Supreme Court also marked three refugee camps, and ordered the government to submit a thorough report about the living condition there.

The camps are Kalindi Kunj in Delhi, and Faridabad and Mewat in Haryana.

A three-member Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra passed the order on Monday, giving a light of hope to the Rohingya refugees living in India.

Speaking to the correspondent, a local Rohingya leader and also a student of Delhi University, Ali Zohor said: “We are optimistic that the court will not pass a verdict granting the government permission to deport us, as the Supreme

Court and the chief justice have ordered the authorities to check on us.”

The court was scheduled to pass a verdict in a case on Monday, filed in response to a decision made by the central government to deport Rohingya refugees currently living in India.

Revealed: Facebook hate speech exploded in Myanmar during Rohingya crisis

on: April 02, 2018

Hate speech exploded on Facebook at the start of the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar last year, analysis has revealed, with experts blaming the social network for creating “chaos” in the country.

Evidence of the spike emerged after the platform was accused of playing a key role in the spread of hate speech in Myanmar at a time when 650,000 Rohingya refugees were forced to flee to Bangladesh following persecution.

Digital researcher and analyst Raymond Serrato examined about 15,000 Facebook posts from supporters of the hardline nationalist Ma Ba Tha group. The earliest posts dated from June 2016 and spiked on 24 and 25 August 2017, when ARSA Rohingya militants attacked government forces, prompting the security forces to launch the “clearance operation” that sent hundreds of thousands of Rohingya pouring over the border.

Serrato’s analysis showed that activity within the anti-Rohingya group, which has 55,000 members, exploded with posts registering a 200% increase in interactions.

“Facebook definitely helped certain elements of society to determine the narrative of the conflict in Myanmar,” Serrato told the Guardian. “Although Facebook had been used in the past to spread hate speech and misinformation, it took on greater potency after the attacks.”

The revelations come to light as Facebook is struggling to respond to criticism over the leaking of users’ private data and concern about the spread of fake news and hate speech on the platform.

‘Rohingya Under Attack’ Wins at 79th Annual Overseas Press Club Awards

on: March 24, 2018

An Associated Press project supported by the Pulitzer Center has won the Hal Boyle Award for best newspaper or news service reporting from abroad at the 79th Annual Overseas Press Club Awards.

This award was given to the Associated Press Staff for its coverage of the Rohingya refugee crisis and the ensuing human rights violations. The stories of persecuted Rohingya Muslims are shared through text, photos, and video.

In the first story, the AP interviews 29 Rohingya women and girls to show the systematic and sweeping occurence of gang rape by the military. The second story reconstructs the massacre of an entire Rohingya village, providing a detailed narrative of first-hand accounts of the violence.

In their evaluation, the judges describe the project: “In a series of powerful and unforgettable stories, rich with detail and dogged reporting, a team of Associated Press journalists documented the horrific crimes unfolding against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar.”

Burma Is Pumping Millions into Rebuilding Rakhine. But Is It for the Rohingya?

on: March 15, 2018

Scenes of the violent military crackdown in Burma’s Rakhine state, a restive area that for decades has been the site of ethnic strife, have become familiar since the violence erupted in August: plumes of smoke rising in the distance, thousands of Rohingya Muslims escaping to Bangladesh on foot, entire villages standing empty.

Now the Burmese government is hoping to paint a different picture.

Under de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the government has pushed the nation’s most powerful business executives, many of them previously under U.S. sanctions, to pump millions of dollars into infrastructure projects, and tapped others to start Rakhine-focused businesses, all while soliciting international donors.

But observers say these plans are fraught and likely to have few benefits for the Rohingya, nearly 700,000 of whom have fled to Bangladesh and who continue to cross the border even as preparations are underway for their return to Burma, which is also known as Myanmar. The efforts also have been insufficient in placating ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, who are deeply distrustful of the government’s plans.

The development push reflects the position of successive governments that the violence in Rakhine, which the United States and United Nations have labeled ethnic cleansing, is caused by a lack of economic opportunity.

“From our point of view, the issue in Rakhine is very much related to poverty,” said Ye Min Aung, the vice chairman of Burma’s chamber of commerce, who has been asked by the government to launch a rice business in Rakhine. “That is the very root cause of the problems.”

Business executives such as him hope to return Rakhine state to its “former glories,” he said.

The rebuilding efforts are led by the Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development in Rakhine (UEHRD), a group formed in October. Suu Kyi, who chairs the committee, said it aims to build a “peaceful and developed Rakhine state.”

How populism directed against minorities is used to prop up Myanmar’s ‘Democratic’ revival

on: March 14, 2018

At the same time as a democratic system is being revived in Myanmar after half-a-century of military dictatorship, strong challenges have re-emerged. A racist, authoritarian populism is being directed against Muslim minorities, notably the Rohingya, in order to prop up a regime that has no vision.

This is threatening not only the administration and the economy, but also more importantly, social and ethnic cohesion. While admitting that these challenges would tax any government and state, the weaknesses and inadequacies at the core have been revealed.

From military ‘socialism’ to populist ‘democracy’

Ideologically, a half-hearted attempt at socialism going by the name of “The Burmese Way to Socialism” under a military-controlled one-party state, came unstuck when this was unseated by a bloody public uprising in 1988. Re-instated military junta rule lasted till 2010.

The leading pro-democracy party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), contested the by-elections of April 2012, won most of the seats, and entered parliament. This victory was repeated and enlarged in November 2015, with the result that a democratically-elected civilian government has been installed.

After five decades of junta or one-party rule, there is now a multi-party system. However, two-thirds of the 93 parties registered are ethnic-based parties, and almost exclusively single-ethnic. Twenty three political parties won seats in the bicameral parliament, but the picture is dominated by just two parties – the military-linked Union Solidarity and Development Party and the NLD.

With ideological decline, rudimentary election campaign platforms and minimal policy contestation, the stage was set for a recourse to populism. Besides the Myanmar public’s widespread rejection of the military government, populism played a large part in the NLD’s electoral successes. To fan this populism, or to deploy parallel ‘brands’ of it, use was made of what has been called ‘nationalism’.

Survivor Campaign – Rape as a weapon of war

on: March 14, 2018

Official statistics on how many women and children have been victims of sexual violence and rape in various “hot” wars around the world are extremely difficult to come by. The high number of under reported cases makes it almost impossible to form a definitive number to the scourge. What can be said, without doubt however, is that rape in war is a massive problem and that rape is used as a weapon by various state and non-state participants.

The efforts to support peace and bring an end to conflict needs to be further enhanced and pushed forward. Governments fueling conflicts for material needs have to be held accountable.

But at the same time, the vicious behaviour meted out against women and children and at times even men in the form of rape proliferates in the conflict zones. The least that can be done is to form structures and put in place systems to care for these vulnerable people.

This is the #Survivor Campaign. Working together to raise awareness and support to trauma centres and orphan care amongst three of the most difficult, violence affected communities of the world: the Rohingya in Bangladesh, Syrians in Turkey and refugees from the Central African Republic.

The Tragic Brilliance Of The Toys Rohingya Children Have Invented From Trash

on: March 13, 2018

Persecuted for decades in their native Myanmar, where they’ve been denied citizenship and face violent ethnic cleansing, the Rohingya people fled to bordering countries in waves, with not much but each other.

In Cox’s Bazar, the tourist town in southeastern Bangladesh that’s seen 655,000 refugees pour in since August 2017, aid organizations have been overwhelmed–meaning that many Rohingya must make their own way, fixing plastic sheets to bamboo poles for “housing.”

The conditions in the overcrowded camps are dire; food is limited, drinking water scarce, and the lack of proper toilets increases the spread of infectious diseases like cholera and tuberculosis. But even amid such desperate circumstances, the refugee Rohingya children find humble and often heartbreaking ways to remain children.

Many resort to scavenging for discarded objects along roadsides and in dumpsters–a plastic bottle cap here, a syringe there. The rudimentary toys caught the eye of photographer Ed Jones, who had initially traveled to Cox’s Bazar to photograph what families had brought with them from Myanmar. But as he would soon discover, few had time to pack belongings. Toys? Furniture? Clothes? All would have slowed them down on their dangerous journey; even without these items, many Rohingya have been intercepted and killed trying to make their way out. The photos he took of his trip were published on Getty Image’s FOTO site.

900,000 Rohingya Refugees: The Moment When Humanitarian Spirit Failed

on: March 13, 2018

In the face of the historical disasters experienced by humanity, a majority of the world has developed some sort of reflex to ‘close their eyes’ and ‘play ostrich’. Many leaders, administrators, and representatives around the world, prefer to remain indifferent and unresponsive to these catastrophes. When asked about what the EU should do regarding the situation in Myanmar, High Representative, Federica Mogherini, gave a marked answer: “I tend to avoid answering questions that are not related to the agenda we had.”

The answer also revealed an important truth: Today, the world agenda is shaped only by the interests and problems of the powerful. Those who are oppressed are often left alone with their own problems if they are not rich, have no oil or natural resources, or do not have any relevance to serving the interests of the powerful.

Ignoring, or underestimating, the inhumane practices Muslims are subjected to has become an ugly tradition, particularly in certain circles. Problems that could easily be solved with simple interventions, with little cost and effort, continue to grow exponentially behind a collective wall of nonchalance. The disastrous events taking place in Rakhine, Syria, Africa or Southeast Asia, continue to find a place in world news reports every day, as a shame on humanity.

Most of the international institutions that could solve the problems of humanity are far from fulfilling their functions. For instance, the UN content themselves with simply condemning the incidents in Rakhine with a Security Council Resolution. They do not produce any concrete or constructive solution to the massacres and persecution the Rohingya Muslims—which the UN itself defines as “the most persecuted minority” —are subjected to.

As is known, the Rohingya Muslims living in Myanmar’s Rakhine state have been subjected to severe oppression and persecution for nearly 40 years. They are continuously forced out of their homes by the Myanmar government and the army. The oppression, persecution, massacres and policies of exile are being systematically escalated by the Myanmar government since 2012, and have reached an unprecedented form of outright ethnic cleansing in the last two years.

UN official convinced of Myanmar Rohingya ‘genocide’

on: March 12, 2018

(CNN)A senior United Nations official investigating Myanmar’s ongoing crackdown against the Rohingya says she is increasingly convinced it may amount to genocide.

More than 680,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh since August 2017, bringing with them stories of mass murder and destruction at the hands of the country’s military.

“I am becoming more convinced that the crimes committed following 9 October 2016 and 25 August 2017 bear the hallmarks of genocide and call in the strongest terms for accountability,” said Yanghee Lee, the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar.

Lee, who was speaking to the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, also called for a body to be set up at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where most Rohingya have sought refuge, to compile evidence of human rights abuses in Myanmar.

She said its “aim would be to facilitate impartial, fair and independent international criminal proceedings in national or international courts or tribunals.”

CNN contacted Myanmar’s government for comment but didn’t receive an immediate response.

Lee was speaking as her scathing report on the state of human rights in Myanmar was released, in which she calls for calls “for a thorough, impartial and credible investigation to be conducted without delay and perpetrators to be held responsible for the alleged crimes that were committed in Rakhine State”.