Thai navy denies allegation of Rohingya smuggling

Thailand’s navy denied on Friday a Reuters report that its personnel were involved in a lucrative smuggling and trafficking network that exploits minority Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in Myanmar.

The Reuters investigation, citing people smugglers and Rohingyas who made the journey, found that Thai naval security forces were involved in the smuggling of Rohingya Muslims.

They have fled Myanmar, also known as Burma, in sharply growing numbers over the last year following outbreaks of religious violence at home.

The smuggling network, centred on the west coast of southern Thailand, transports thousands of Rohingya mainly into neighbouring Malaysia, a Muslim-majority country the Rohingya view as a haven from persecution.

Latter From Rohingya Saudi Arabia

I would like to pour out our facing problem and difficulty in processing Iqama and job allowance opportunity in Saudi Arabia. As far as I know that, it brought the great opportunity for Rohingyas by Saudi government sympathy to Rohingyas on behalf of persecuting in Arakan. I am warmly welcome and thankful to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

On this regards, the Iqama processing start on hand of Jalia al Burmawiya( Burmese community) in March 2013. Their procedures are excellently good and systematically.  Firstly, fill up the application form with bio- data and annexed documents for Iqama.  Secondly, to have proved, he/she is Burmese or not. Finally, Saudi authority checked the all data and application form and negotiates with sponsor (Kafeel) and companies. I would like to explain our path to get Iqama. In Jalia al Burmawiya members are local born dearest and nearest and deep rooted persons who came here more than 40 years ago, they know nothing about Arakan,Rohingya, Burmese language and write. As my experience to fill up the form, I have given a token to enter the room where form are filling, after few hours later,  I was in front of some Jalia al Burmawiya  members who examined me from where I came, what you know about in Arakan and famous persons in your village or town etc….. They didn’t check and glimpse my file which was full of my data and documents. After passing of cross question of them, given a token this was made of empty cigarettes bundle. A few minutes later, my name was called by a man to follow him to a room for filling form, when I entered the room; I saw all clerks were dressed as Saudi who filled the form in completely Arabic. They started string of questions checking documents (Birth certificate, ID thon kak show, Degree certificate) page by page as if he can read Burmese and began to fill the form, after filled up the form another person was commended to cut the hair only one inch who gave the token with file number for oral examine to proof as Burmese citizenship again.

Rohingya struggle in Bangladesh refugee camps

Bangladesh capital Dhaka has cracked down on migration from neighbouring Myanmar, closing its border, refusing to support asylum seekers and turning back boats.

Surakatun and her family have been eating boiled leaves and rice for the past three days.

It’s a normal lunch at the unofficial refugee camp in Kutupalong – once the pots are empty, that’s it.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-16/rohingya-struggle-in-bangladesh-refugee-camps/4824574

“My husband is old now so if I don’t go out and beg we go hungry,” she said.

Arakan Rohingya Union bitterly divided

No group of human beings on this planet has suffered more persecution than the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar. The UN called them one of the most persecuted minority groups in the world.

Violence toward Rohingyas in Myanmar sparked by the alleged rape and murder of a Buddhist woman in June 2012, has continued steadily over the last year. This is a very bad time for the main group that represents the Rohingya people, the ARU (Arakan Rohingya Union), to find itself bitterly, even irreversibly divided, but that is what is taking place.

Now as they battle for the cause of their people still in Myanmar, those leading this fight in the ARU have reached an impasse over the actions of the group’s leader, Dr. Wakar Uddin.

Why Burma could become another Rwanda

Burma is ethnically cleansing the Rohingya people. When David Cameron meets the Burmese president tomorrow he must call for it to stop.

After the genocide that tore apart a nation and killed 800,000 in Rwanda, the world said never again. But nearly 20 years later, we find ourselves on the brink of another campaign of destruction against an entire people. Yet once again it is being greeted with silence.

A man collects clean water from a pump in a UK-supported camp for displaced Rohingya people, near Sittwe, Rakhine Province, Burma, 19 June 2013 (Photo credit: DFID – UK Department for International Development)

In Burma, ethnic cleansing is happening. We have seen more human rights violations and attacks on Rohingya minorities in the past two years than in the last 20. Organised in monasteries and on Facebook, a wave of hate is being broadcast against the Muslim Rohingya community in Burma and a new apartheid system is being introduced.

My family regularly get called “dogs” or worse when they walk down the street. The government continues to deny us citizenship, telling us this isn’t our home. We can’t marry the people we love and are told we’re only allowed to have two children per family. We can’t travel from one village to another without permission. No other minority in the world faces such extreme and vicious treatment. We are being treated as criminals simply because we exist.

But now the situation is getting really desperate. Mobs have attacked our villages, driving us from our homes, children have been hacked to death, and hundreds of my people have been killed by members of the majority. Thugs are distributing leaflets threatening to “wipe us out” and children in schools are being taught that the Rohingya are different.

Everyone from our community is affected. I was lucky enough to flee 10 years ago when it was simply discrimination, but last year the rising violence forced my brother to flee to Bangladesh. Many people I know have faced appalling abuse and torture in a country they used to call home.

If this sounds all too familiar, that is because it is. This is the same type of racist incitement used to such devastating effect in Rwanda against the Tutsis in 1994. All signs are pointing to a coming horror. Yet the government has not just failed to stop these brutal attacks but is participating in it by inciting violence and fuelling hate.