The indomitable spirit of Raphael Lemkin, bibliophile, assiduous documenter of humanity’s dark deeds and inexecrable conduct, is bound to be an unsettled one. This brilliant, committed and peculiarly dedicated creature took years to come up with what would, in time, become a word so horrifying as to transfix judges of international law. The amalgam word of genocide stalks the conscience[Read More…]
Book Review: ROHINGYA REFUGEE CRISIS IN MYANMAR: ETHNIC CONFLICT AND RESOLUTION (Palgrave Macmillan) Edited by: Kudret Bülbül, Md. Nazmul Islam & Md. Sajid Khan Considering the current situation of crisis, the publication of the Rohingya Refugee Crisis in Myanmar: Ethnic Conflict and Resolution is very timely and something that was required. The editors of the book, Kudret Bülbül, Md. Nazmul[Read More…]
Source: Center for Strategic and International Studies As of July 2021, only $366 million of the total required, around $1 billion, humanitarian assistance fund for the Rohingyas has been disbursed. The disbursement has declined to 34 percent, which used to be within the range between 72 to 75 percent of the total required funds in the first three years of[Read More…]
A prominent Rohingya Muslim leader has been shot dead in a refugee camp in southern Bangladesh. Mohibullah, who was in his late 40s, led one of the largest of several community groups to emerge since more than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Myanmar after a military crackdown in August 2017, Al Jazeera reported. He was talking with other refugee leaders outside[Read More…]
Washington-based global lender the World Bank, through concessional lending arms, has gone to bat for Bangladesh to foster its development initiatives since 1972; committing more than $30 billion by backing priorities in economic, social and infrastructural development. Since 2018, this UN affiliated multilateral body, largest source of financial assistance to developing nations, has committed a total $590 million grant to[Read More…]
In late August of 2017, Rohima Kadu’s idyllic village of Chin Khali, Rakhine was visited by Myanmar’s much dreaded military, the Tatmadaw and its local Buddhist militia associates. A helpless Rohingya widow of 50, Rohima was at a loss. Her eldest daughter, with whom she was living at that time, was bedridden with malaria and too weak to run. So,[Read More…]
Written by Nizamuddin Ahmad Siddiqui & Abu Zar Ali The Supreme Court of India, by way of an order dated 8th April 2021, allowed the deportation of Rohingyas from the Indian territory. The Government of India had argued that these people were illegal migrants who had crossed the borders from the neighbouring state; and though they enjoyed the equal protection[Read More…]
Driven out of homeland and in search of a shore to call as one’s own- the story of every refugee fits in this framework. Termed as the most persecuted people of 21st century, life of Rohingya refugees since decades has been all about striking a balance between series of uprooting and stay planted as long as they are on the[Read More…]
The future of the Rohingya people seems uncertain. A predominantly Muslim minority group indigenous to a region on the western coast of Myanmar – historically referred to as Arakan and presently called Rakhine State – the Rohingya are not recognized by the Burmese state. On February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military – known as the Tatmadaw – staged a coup against[Read More…]
An estimated 730,000 Rohingyas had crossed into Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh three years ago in order to flee the persecution in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. Although the Rohingyas, who are currently residing in Bangladeshi camps as refugees, wish to return to their homes in Rakhine State, very little has been done to create a safe environment for their return. The challenges facing the Rohingya people, described by the United Nations as[Read More…]
Rohingya people, who have no identity of their own, are now facing another danger. Pandemic COVID-19 took away one of the Rohingya, who took shelter at a camp at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh on the wake of genocide in their own land in Myanmar. United News of Bangladesh reported that the man died from coronavirus infection while undergoing treatment at[Read More…]
Spring, the best season, is twinkling Bangladesh. Mango pods adore trees here and there across the country. Hopes are pinching dreams for big profit. In this flashy season optimism of Bangladeshis has been grabbed by a scare – COVID -19. Yes, ruling of coronavirus has been started the country. It has already occupied several places of the delta country- Bangladesh.[Read More…]
The International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) Order to the Government of the Republic of Myanmar to adopt various provisional measures to protect the Rohingya community from “physical destruction” and to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article 11 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide including killing members of the group and imposing[Read More…]
Leaders currently in office rarely make an appearance before either the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court. International law remains affixed to the notion that heads-of-state are, at least for the duration of their time in office, safe from prosecution. Matters change once the time in office expires. Be that as it may, Myanmar’s Aung San Suu[Read More…]
The Bangladesh government is planning to move hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees from Burma (Myanmar) into prison-like dwellings on the remote and geographically unstable silt island of Bhasan Char. Around 900,000 Rohingya refugees are currently living in bamboo shelters and other makeshift accommodation in flood-prone valleys in Bangladesh, having fled murderous attacks by the Burmese military and Buddhist supremacist[Read More…]
The international legal principle of non-refoulement and India’s obligation under this has come under intense media discussions following India deported on October 4 seven Rohingya immigrants back to their country of origin i.e. Myanmar where they fear persecution. India is also contemplating en mass deportation of around 40,000 Rohingya immigrants living in different parts of the country. Though the[Read More…]
Very quietly, without fanfare, in a story that went by almost unnoticed, the U.S. State Department website posted a report this week on the Rohingya massacres and atrocities. Based on a survey, for which it contracted a Washington-based law firm (PLPG — Public International Law and Policy Group) to conduct the interviews, the report relied on 15,000 pages of supporting[Read More…]
There is an image engraved in our minds of a stoic, reserved, elegant Aung San Suu Kyi unbending in her struggle against Burma’s generals for democracy, and we assumed for human rights. Last year, when the refugees streamed out of her country in the wake of atrocities, it blocked all UN agencies from delivering food, water and medicine to affected[Read More…]
The long Rohingya run is passing more than a year in its current phase – a huge number of the Rohingyaas in Bangladesh. Amidst diplomatic dialogues, and imperialist intrigues the Rohingyas staying in Bangladesh are passing difficult days. The Rohingyaas’ days are harsh and hard, very difficult to bear. Their days are uncertain and undignified also. Living on doles is[Read More…]
Rohingya refugees are back in the news again. On Tuesday (July 30) Mr. Rijiju, the Minister of State for Home said some of the Rohingya living in India do not have the status of “refugee” but are “illegal migrants” who would be deported once their details have been prepared. Reiterating his earlier position, Rijiju said since they are illegal migrants,[Read More…]
“In my four years as High Commissioner, I have heard many preposterous claims. That claim is almost in its own category of absurdity. Have you no shame, sir, have you no shame? We are not fools.” These were some of the remarks made by outgoing United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, in his final briefing to the Human[Read More…]
The 680,000 Rohingyas escaping from the jaws of death in Myanmar, to Bangladesh, were recovering from their traumatic experience, when the news of an agreement finalized by the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh, caused a lot of concern and depression among them. Firstly, apart from the main “Citizenship” factor and unreasonable “verification procedure”, the humanitarian aspect was completely neglected;[Read More…]
We came here to find refuge They called us refugees So we hid ourselves in their language Until we sounded just like them…… J J BOLA … “Refuge” India has grappled with refugees many times in history. According to UNHCR there are about 31, 000 refugees registered with the organisation by the end of December 2014. In the 16/17 centuries[Read More…]
Although the genocide of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar has gathered greater media attention in recent months, there is no indication that the international community is prepared to act in any meaningful way, thus leaving hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees stranded in border camps between Myanmar and Bangladesh. While top United Nations officials are now using the term[Read More…]
The Rohingya crisis reflects intention of the Myanmar government to forcibly oust the Muslims from Rakhine State. The brutal attack on unarmed civilians and placing of landmines along its border by Military in coordination with Border Guard Police and armed Rakhine Buddhists is the proof. Coastal area in Rakhine state is clearly of strategic importance to both China (0ne[Read More…]
Pope Francis lost a historical opportunity to truly set his legacy apart from previous Popes. Alas, for him, too, political expediency trumped all else. In his visit to Burma (Myanmar) on November 27, he refrained from using the word ‘Rohingya.’ But what’s in a name? In our frenzied attempts at understanding and articulating the plight of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Burma,[Read More…]
21-22 September 2017; Tambru, Myanmar-Bangladesh border and Rohingya refugee camp in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh: ‘Refugee camps’ of sorts or just make shift shelters of “Rohingya” minorities of Myanmar, who have fled the genocide and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the Myanmar army and majority population, have sprung up along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. These camps are stretching from just outside of[Read More…]
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly. (Shakespeare’s As You Like It) Muslim Rohingyas, after their centuries-old native and independent Arakanempire, now the Rakhine state that belongs to the militant Buddhist Myanmar, have been subject to a brutal ethnic cleansing for[Read More…]
A couple of weeks ago I was in Dhaka, Bangladesh, it was at the time when several news agencies were reporting the Rohingya crisis unfolding in Myanmar. There was social media frenzy around the atrocities by the Myanmar security forces and the radio silence from Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. This international uproar was a result of 100,000s[Read More…]
The UN Security Council held its first meeting on Rohingya in nine years last Thursday (September 28, 2017). The language was harshly critical of Myanmar. Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the situation as a “human rights nightmare” and “urged Myanmar to end its military operations”. The number of Rohingya refugees has meanwhile mushroomed to more than 500,000. All the[Read More…]
On April 13, 1919, the 9th Gurkhas, 54th Sikhs & 59th Sind Rifles, on the orders of Col. Dyer, fired on an unarmed, peaceful crowd gathered to celebrate Besakhi at the Jalianwala Bagh in Amritsar. As a result, 1000 people died and perhaps three times that number were injured. Even though, the crowd was overwhelmingly Sikh, one of the platoons[Read More…]
Indications are that leaders in both the adjacent countries have one factor in common: they’ve got caught in a cleft stick. The world has witnessed numerous “cleansing operations” but rarely has it seen the unabashed capitulation of someone who was honored with the highest accolade and had the support of a wide range of people across regions. Whether it’s a[Read More…]
The UN Genocide Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part”. Hitler sought and effected “removal” and “annihilation” of the Jews, Churchill hated and thence deliberately starved 7 million Indians to death, and both sought to cover it up. In 2017 Trump vows to “to totally destroy North Korea”, Aung San Suu[Read More…]
I urge you, Mr. Xi Jinping, President of Peoples’ Republic of China to take a good look at this photo. Do you see what I see? I see the agony. I see sadness. I also see numerous questions in the eyes of these Rohingya kids that are asking – why are we here, why our parents are not with us,[Read More…]
About 50 demonstrators showed up at a rally for Rohingya refugees at Surrey’s Holland Park on Saturday evening. The Surrey Center Liberal MP Randeep Singh Sarai was also in attendance. He was the only elected official to be present. Since the rally was held in his riding he came to speak in solidarity with the victims of ethnic cleansing in[Read More…]
When the German transatlantic liner the St. Louis set off with 900 German Jews seeking refuge, it was 1939 and they were trying to escape what became one of the most despicable events in European history. Neither Canada nor the United States offered to help the people on this ship and it sailed on to Cuba. Seventy-eight years later, almost 400,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar since the last week of August. In an ethnic cleansing[Read More…]
There is much attention on the plight of the Roghingas in the media these days. Rohingas are an ethnic population of over one million Sunni Muslims living in Myanmar’s Northern Rakhine state. They are being persecuted by their own government and the United Nations has called them as the world’s most persecuted community. Since last one decade, scores of Rohingyas[Read More…]
A documentary on the plight of the Rohingyas For them, dignity – safety – well-being are pious words. For them, it’s a constant struggle – of their bare existence or, survival. The Rohingya has been a victim of denial and deprivation for ages, over occasions. The world requires to step up, to come forward, be part of the global ethics.[Read More…]
Aung San Suu Kyi,
take the flowers out of your hair
and place them on a Rohingya mass grave
to show you care.
Dear Mr. Riiju, This is a letter from an ordinary citizen of India who has been working with the refugees for over two decades. I am deeply disturbed and in a way appalled to see your arguments before the parliament of India about the Rohingyas. This has definitely set the cat among the pigeons by calling them illegal immigrants and[Read More…]
Indians Abroad for Plural India (IAPI) and South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD) condemn the Government of India’s endorsement of the Myanmar government’s treatment of the Rohingya minority that has been described by the UN as “ethnic cleansing” and the Hindu nationalist BJP government’s determination to expel the Rohigya refugees already in India as illegal immigrants. Rohingyas[Read More…]
WORLD: (BURMA/MYANMAR) A statement calling to end the violence committed against the Rohingya community in Myanmar, and urging the Government of Myanmar to recognise the human rights of the Rohingya people Today, on 15 September 2017, a group of 58 Asian human rights defenders, including the Chairpersons of the National Human Rights Commissions of: Indonesia, Nepal, Timor Leste, and the[Read More…]
This week Just Asia begins with Burma, where many Rohingya are suffering horrific injuries and loss of limbs by landmines along the Burma-Bangladesh border in their attempt to flee the violence. After the militant Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa) attacked several police posts on August 25, the Burmese government carried out a brutal counter-insurgency clampdown. The UN estimates some 300,000[Read More…]
This land is a mark on the forehead
A bullet yet to be drenched in red
Where death comes in split peels of seconds
Licking its bleached teeth tasting
Yet of yesterday’s slaughters
And the world exhales a bad breath –
ROHINGYA
The world stares in SILENCE
India is a home of millions of refugees and asylum seekers such as Tibetans, Afghani, Burmese, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankans and Africans. In past, Antonio Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR) has applauded India’s refugee’s policy. In fact, Indian hospitality of welcoming foreigner is rooted in ancient Indian tradition of ‘Athithi Devo Bhav’ meaning Guest is (our) God. However,[Read More…]
The decades old brutal crackdown by Myanmar army, police, nationalist monks and Buddhist fundamentalists on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State in the country’s northwestern region has intensified in recent months, is no doubt one the most unaccounted human tragedies of our era. The Rohingya Muslims comprising more than 1.1 million souls apart from another million scattered in different countries, have been living in Myanmar[Read More…]
To a certain extent, Aung San Suu Kyi is a false prophet. Glorified by the west for many years, she was made a ‘democracy icon’ because she opposed the same forces in her country, Burma, at the time that the US-led western coalition isolated Rangoon for its alliance with China. Aung San Suu Kyi played her role as expected,[Read More…]
A silent genocide of Myanmar (also known as Burma) Muslims is in progress. Such is the urgency shown by Burmese Govt. to annihilate its Rohingya Muslims that it has even used Gunship helicopters to fire lethal & heavy ammunition on fleeing Muslims. The international community is a mute spectator to the organized holocaust and 57 Muslim Countries, except with[Read More…]
My dear Aung San Suu Kyi I am now elderly, decrepit and formally retired, but breaking my vow to remain silent on public affairs out of profound sadness about the plight of the Muslim minority in your country, the Rohingya. In my heart you are a dearly beloved younger sister. For years I had a photograph of you on my[Read More…]
This week Just Asia begins with Burma, where Rohingya refugees continue streaming to Bangladesh after violence erupted in Rakhine state just over a week ago. Although the Bangladesh government has a zero-tolerance refugee policy, it seems that security officials are ignoring government orders and allowing refugees to cross the border. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch has released satellite imagery showing that[Read More…]
Scratch the skin of a saint, claimed George Orwell, and you are bound to find a sinner with an extensive resume. Such resumes are evaluated in these modern times by accolades, awards, and summits. The Noble Peace Prize tends to be crowning affirmation that somewhere along the line, you sufficiently fouled up to merit it. The calls, some even shrill,[Read More…]
George Orwell, the author of the ‘Burmese Days’ once said that, “Every saint is a sinner until proven innocent”. Aung San Su Kyi, a Nobel Peace Laureate who is currently presiding over one of the most horrendous genocides of our time of her country’s ethnic minority, the Rohyngas- has never been a saintnor is she likely to be one in[Read More…]
I believe “genocide” is the right word to describe the ongoing mass killing, rape, and expropriation of Rohingyas in Mayanmar. Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) first used the expression in 1943, to denote the mass killings, rapes, torture, extortions, and marginalization of Jews and others in Axis-occupied Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. As Lemkin has defined genocide,[Read More…]
The Rohingyas — or at least some Rohingyas — are now being projected as terrorists, as “Jihadists” out to kill Myanmar soldiers and civilians. Myanmar leaders including Aung San SuuKyi have spoken along these lines. This view of the Rohingyas is being propagated by the Myanmar government with greater zeal since a small armed group called the ArakanRohingya Salvation[Read More…]
Authorities in Myanmar say close to 100 people have been killed since Friday when armed men, reportedly from the ArakanRohynga Salvation Army (ARSA), launched a pre-dawn raid on police outposts in the conflict region and this has been the main cause of the latest violence in Arakan. According to one report, “The army has declared a war against ‘terrorism’, encircling[Read More…]
40 thousand people 40 thousand phantoms are marching towards you right now you have taken their lands you have taken to hatred you have been taken by greed they knew nothing of this they knew everything their backs, painted by barbwire, cooked by bullets know everything 40 thousand dreams that couldn’t connect how the price of onion & flour and[Read More…]
Every society has certain taboos – cultural/religious, social, and political – set apart and designated as restricted or forbidden to associate with, or even to bring in ordinary discussion. The Rohingya issue (for some strange reasons) seems to be such a taboo in Bangladesh. Both people and government here don’t want to go beyond certain limits to have a[Read More…]
Ever since tensions again escalated between the government of Myanmar and the Rohingya people on October 2016 and the reinvigorated persecution of the minority group that followed, thousands of Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh — the United Nations humanitarian office’s most recent estimate is 69,000. Scores of them have, meanwhile, been seen begging on the streets between Ukhia and Tekhnaf[Read More…]
2016 did not end completely hopelessly. In late December,15 Nobel Laureates including Professor Mohammed Yunus and 12 global leaders wrote an Open Letter to the President of the United Nations Security Councils (UNSC) and its members decrying the Rohingya carnage in Myanmar that are“amounting to ethnic cleansing” and that the crisis has “the potential for genocide” and that it “has[Read More…]
Persecution of Rohingyas in Myanmar is continuing with impunityand without a break. Dieng and Yanghee Lee, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, have confirmed these atrocities and “requested independent UN investigations on the alleged ‘ethnic cleansing’ and other mass atrocities in the Rohingya region of Rakhine State”. But Aung San Suu Kyi has remained defiant to an extent[Read More…]
There is increasing recognition of the fact that ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Rohingyas, — A GENOCIDE — is taking place in Rakhine, Myanmar. A number of groups and individuals are coming to terms with this grim reality especially after the “evidence of a new reign of terror and wholesale destruction of communities exercised by the Myanmar state against the Rohingya[Read More…]
In Myanmar government has decided to arm and train the non Muslim local people in order to enhance the security in the Rakhine State where the ethnic problems between the Rohingya Muslims and Buddhist residents prevail. The move is being treated as to crush the Rohingya Muslims who have been denied any substantial rights within the state and the ethnic[Read More…]
In one of its recent reporting the Guardian reports that at the entrance to Thaungtan village in Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta a brand-new signasserts, “No Muslims allowed to stay overnight. No Muslims allowed rent houses. No marriage with Muslims.” Al-Jajeera also reports of similar rise in systematic eviction, rape, loot and arson of Rohingyas (the Muslim ethnic minority of Myanmar’s Delta)[Read More…]
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Breadcrumb 
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My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
