Portraits of Much Persecuted, Oft-Ignored Rohingya

Greg Constantine’s unflinching yet sensitive look at the Rohingyas’ plight has made an impact. (JG Photos/Tunggul Wirajuda)

February 10-2014

 The elderly Rohingya man epitomized his people’s plight. One of more than 300,000 Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar, the former forced laborer fled his home state of Rakhine in the 1990s following years of oppression by the Myanmar authorities and the Rakhine ethnic group. The years of suffering and exile are etched in his face, while his shaded right eye symbolized his blindness in one eye after a beating by his Burmese overseers. Next to his photo, a snapshot of a Rohingya family contrasts with the photo of a woman fleeing persecution under it. The former aptly represents the families and lives shattered by the ethnic and sectarian conflict suffered by the Rohingya, while the latter’s blank, forward looking gaze seem to point towards an uncertain future.

Ruling Party MP Investigated for Defaming Police

USDP Lower House member Shwe Maung. (Photo: Twitter/Shwe Maung)

February 04-2014

RANGOON — Shwe Maung, a ruling party parliamentarian representing the Rohingya majority township of Buthidaung in strife-torn Arakan State, said he was called in for questioning on Tuesday by the Home Affairs Ministry on allegations of defaming the Burmese police force and state.

Another Massacre of Rohingya - Another Failure to Act

February 04-2014
Following the violent attacks against the Rohingya of Burma in June and October 2012, where hundreds were killed and more than 140,000 forced to flee their homes, no-one doubted that more attacks would take place. It was just a question of where and when. Now we have the answer. The where was Du Chee Yar Tan village, the when was 14th January.

Burma’s Rohingya Are Now Being Forced to Live in Squalid Ghettos Watched by Guards

Increasingly, for most Rohingya, the only solution is to flee the country

Rohingya men look out from behind a barbed-wire fence used as a barrier to restrict travel on Nov. 25, 2012, on the outskirts of Sittwe in Burma
February 04-2014
The policeman manning the barbed-wire roadblock at the entrance to Bhumi quarter in Sittwe spells out the rules: if the Rohingya try to leave without a permit, they are apprehended and taken back to their homes. Asked if the Arakanese (Rakhine) are treated the same, he smiles, embarrassed, and shakes his head. This neighborhood, in the capital of western Burma’s Arakan (Rakhine) state, is one of several Muslim-majority areas of the town that have been transformed into de facto open-air prisons, with the movement of inhabitants tightly restricted by armed guards.

Myanmar's Buddhist-Rohingya ethnic divide

Displaced Rohingya Muslims struggle with persecution and Buddhist resentment.

February 04-2014

Sittwe, Myanmar - A checkpoint guarded by three bored-looking policemen in the middle of a narrow road separates two very different worlds.

On one side in Sittwe, capital of Myanmar's western state of Rakhine, people lead a common life: They're free to go wherever they please, marry whomever they want, and to attend religious ceremonies in their Buddhist temple of choice.

The Specter of Mass Killings in Burma

Religious intolerance is threatening the country’s tenuous transition to democracy.

An ethnic Rakhine man walks in front of houses burnt during fighting between Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya communities in Sittwe, the capital of Burma's Rakhine state, in 2012. (Reuters)

January 31-2014

With all the dispiriting news about democracy these days, it is easy to lose sight of the promising transitions underway in Tunisia and Myanmar (Burma). After the recent constitutional bargain between the moderate Islamist party, Ennahda, and its secular opposition, Tunisia now seems headed toward viable democracy. Burma, however, remains a long ways from that achievement.

Rohingya MP claims police involved in Maungdaw blaze

January 31-2014

Shwe Maung, a Rohingya MP in Burma’s Lower House who represents Buthidaung constituency, has said that local Maungdaw police were involved in the fire that ripped through the west tract of Duchira Dan village on 28 January, razing between 16 and 22 homes belonging to Rohingya families.

Speaking exclusively to DVB on Thursday, Shwe Maung said that until the day before the fire, local Rohingya men were assigned as lookouts to guard the three village tracts since most of the residents living there were women.