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  thabet 9:00 am on October 4, 2010 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bangladesh ( 49 ), geopolitics ( 234 ), international relations ( 267 ), refugees ( 19 ), rohingya, saudi arabia ( 187 )   

  A US congressman has called for the Rohingya people of Myanmar to be recognised as ‘full citizens’ by their government:

  An influential American lawmaker on Thursday [...] introduced a resolution in the US House of Representatives calling on the Burmese regime to immediately recognize the Rohingya people “as full and equal citizens of Burma.”

  The resolution, introduced by Congressman Christopher Smith, also urges the Burmese military regime to lift all restrictions on movement, marriage and access to education. It calls for an end to the regime’s campaign of religious and ethnic persecution “amounting to crimes against humanity throughout Burma.”

  Co-sponsored by Congressman James McGovern and Joseph Pitts, the resolution urges the government of Bangladesh to address “the dire humanitarian conditions and food insecurity in the makeshift camps” along its border with Burma, in co-operation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and to “desist from forcing unregistered Rohingya to return to Burma.”

  It also highlights the situation of Rohingyas in Saudi Arabia and urges the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to allow Rohingyas “access to education and livelihoods.”

  32 Rohingya were arrested by Bangladesh recently after they entered the country ‘illegally’. The Bangladeshi prime minister recently called on the Myanmar government to take back Rohingya refugees from her country “in the spirit of good neighbourly relations”.

   

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  johnpi 8:46 pm on October 17, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bangladesh ( 49 ), Burma ( 10 ), Myanmar ( 4 ), rohingya, Rohingyas ( 3 )   

  Bangladesh Expels Rohingyas.

  Bangladeshi authorities have increasingly cracked down on Rohingya refugees living illegally in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazaar District in Bangladesh and pushed them back across the Burmese border, according to border sources.

  Chris Lewa, coordinator of the Arakan Project, said, “At least 1,200 people have been deported to Burma since January, according to our research, and 190 people were deported in two weeks alone this month.”
  ….

  Lewa believes Bangladesh authorities will push back all Rohingya refugees who are not registered with the UNHCR before Burma finishes erecting the wire fence on its border.

  In August, five people were charged with crossing the border illegally under the Immigration Act and were sentenced to five years in prison at Buthidaung Township in Arakan State after they were arrested by Nasaka, the Burmese border security force, Lewa said.

   
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  johnpi 8:27 pm on August 10, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: bangladesh ( 49 ), Burma ( 10 ), Muslim Refugees ( 9 ), Myanmar ( 4 ), refugees ( 19 ), rohingya   

  Bangladesh complains of Myanmar refugee ‘burden.’

  Bangladesh on Monday said hundreds of thousands of persecuted Muslim Rohingyas who have illegally crossed the border from Myanmar have caused major social, economic and environmental damage.

  Foreign minister Dipu Moni said the refugees put a “heavy burden” on Bangladesh, and called on Myanmar’s military junta to stop the Rohingyas from fleeing from their homeland.

   
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  johnpi 5:32 am on July 14, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Malaysia ( 111 ), Racism in Malaysia ( 9 ), rohingya, slavery ( 15 ), slaves ( 2 )   

  Malaysian immigration officials sell Rohingya into slavery – Eyewitness accounts.

   
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  razib, murtad fitri 6:02 pm on June 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Burma ( 10 ), ethnicity ( 41 ), rohingya   

  i had some further thoughts today on the persecution of the rohingya in burma. clearly there’s a plain out & out racist element here insofar as the dark-skinned “bengali” rohingya are different from most of the other ethnicities of burma, aside naturally from the indian minority which arrived during the british raj (most of whom left, but of those who remain many have switched their identity from hindu to buddhist in the surveys i’ve seen).

  my thoughts were triggered by the fact that the rohingya do not use bengali script, but traditionally used arabic modified scripts (like urdu, ‘hanafi,’ etc.), and more recently have used burmese or roman script. the rohingya are also uniformly muslim. the burmese, in particular the dominant ethnic bamar, do not view them as a national minority because they are perceived to be recent immigrants from bengal. the rohingya themselves don’t seem to agree with this, and many claim arab or non-bengali antecedents. the latter is not totally atypical for south asian muslims, who wish to suggest exogenous origins so as to identify with the ‘ashraf’ elite muslims. but with the rohingya there are i think more details in their specific circumstance, most especially because there have long been muslims in burma, and many burmese muslims are not rohingya, and these muslims do not suffer the same degree of persecution as the rohingya.
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    s 7:51 am on June 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    ooooh i appreciated this very much.

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  johnpi 9:45 pm on May 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Muslim unity ( 2 ), persecution ( 17 ), racism ( 248 ), rohingya   

  It’s pronounced Rohingya, not Macaca…

  After calling attention here at Talk Islam in January to this gentleman’s online racist rants against the Rohingya, he removed said rants from his blog. However his comments live on in infamy here at TI, should he decide to go into politics or something…

  Pretty Pink Unicorns, and DDedend are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    DDedend 11:35 pm on May 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    Howdy. I’ve never heard of macaca used as an insult before. Pity the Rohingya, between a rock and hard place.
    Question: Pork is a no-no to eat for Islam adherants, so why did I just read that the Marsh Arabs of Iraq (Ma’dan) traditionally eat wild boar? What is up with that? Is that like the Catholic tradition that beavers are friday fish?

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    Pretty Pink Unicorns 11:45 am on May 13, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    The Marsh Arabs are not all Shi’i Muslims; some of them are members of other faiths, most notably Mandaean.

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  johnpi 8:21 pm on May 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Hegemony of human rights discourse ( 35 ), Hegemony of human rights discourse watch ( 31 ), justice ( 17 ), Malaysia ( 111 ), persecution ( 17 ), rohingya, thailand ( 14 )   

  Malaysian Muslims selling other freeborn Muslims into slavery over the border in Thailand.

  Malaysia is a “tier 3″ human trafficking country, one of the worst, according to this report, and Malaysian government officials are heavily implicated.

  “illegal Myanmar migrants deported from Malaysia were often turned over to human traffickers and forced to work in brothels, fishing boats and restaurants in Thailand if they had no money to purchase their freedom.”

  Since we know that many of these illegals are Rohingya, and we’ve already heard “brother Muslims” leveling racist verbal assaults online against them, it leaves little doubt in my mind that at least some of these victims are Rohingya Muslims.

  Marranci did a good job of calling out bs double standards in the Muslim community here:

  The majority of Muslims, even those so ready to violently scream and shamefully misbehave in the name of a free Palestine, will not whisper even a single word to help these ‘brothers’. How many Muslims have heard an imam mention the name Rohingya during his supplication (Du’a) for Afghanis, Palestinians, Iraqis and even perhaps the Chechen muhajedeen?

  Also, I’m tagging this “hegemony of human rights discourse” since the only groups that are advocating on behalf of the Rohingya are operating out of the human rights framework.

   
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  Lawrence of Arabia 2:53 pm on February 13, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: rohingya, thailand ( 14 )   

  Thai Colonel: I humanely abandoned the Rohingya at sea

  He argued that no other country treated asylum-seekers as humanely as Thailand, and that if any proof of ill-treatment were presented to him, he would resign.

   
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  thabet 1:56 am on February 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Burma ( 10 ), human rights ( 515 ), liberal interventionism ( 61 ), rohingya, united states ( 803 )   

  The US has called on Burma to stop persecuting its Rohingya Muslim minority, who have fled the country in their hundreds of thousands.

  No case for liberal interventionism with bombs and guns?

  ABC is discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    ABC 7:30 am on February 11, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    Save Rohingya, visit at http://acehblogger.org

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  abunoor 11:45 am on February 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Angelina Jolie ( 5 ), Muslim Refugees ( 9 ), rohingya, thailand ( 14 )   

  We may be disappointed that more Muslims aren’t speaking out for the rights of the Rohingya Muslim refugees, but in the meantime, UN Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie is:

  GENEVA (Reuters) – U.S. actress Angelina Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency, urged Thailand Thursday to welcome Muslim refugees fleeing Myanmar.

  Thailand’s treatment of the Rohingyas, an oppressed Muslim minority from mainly Buddhist Myanmar, has been widely condemned as evidence emerges that hundreds were rounded up by the Thai military and towed out to sea.

  Jolie issued the plea during a visit to camps in northern Thailand which house 111,000 mostly Christian ethnic Karen refugees from Myanmar.

  “Visiting Ban Mai Nai Soi and seeing how hospitable Thailand has been to 111,000 mostly Karen and Karenni refugees over the years, makes me hope that Thailand will be just as generous to the Rohingya refugees who are now arriving on their shores,” Jolie said in a statement issued by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

  Picture after the jump:

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  aziz, razib, and abunoor are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    aziz 11:51 am on February 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    can someone get me her email address? i think we need to invite her onboard

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    abunoor 11:54 am on February 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    Aziz, I couldn’t get the “jump” thing working for some reason.

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    razib 12:37 pm on February 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    she just wants their babies.

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    aziz 3:35 pm on February 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    hey Abu, try copying and pasting this (edit your post by clcking the little “e”

    <!–&ndash; more ––>

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  johnpi 10:48 pm on February 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: rohingya, the Ummah ( 2 ), unity ( 2 )   

  Marranci calls out Muslims on their lack of response to the plight of the Rohingya.

  Can I expect to see Muslims around the world campaigning together to ask that the Rohingya have the right to a home, their own home, and that the international community takes serious steps to protect, so guaranteeing a decent peaceful life to the Rohingya community? Of course, I know very well that this will not be the case. Maybe we may find some, mainly non-Muslim, organizations trying to make the Rohingya Muslim tragedy known and to organize humanitarian support. However, the majority of Muslims, even those so ready to violently scream and shamefully misbehave in the name of a free Palestine, will not whisper even a single word to help these ‘brothers’. How many Muslims have heard an imam mention the name Rohingya during his supplication (Du’a) for Afghanis, Palestinians, Iraqis and even perhaps the Chechen muhajedeen?

  It would be too long to explain here the reasons for this widespread disinterest among the majority of Muslims about the destiny of Rohingya Muslims. Let me only say that many of the reasons are political: many Muslim governments have their hands dirty with Rohingya Muslims’ blood, but still play the ‘Muslim ummah’ card, as in the case of the Danish Cartoons, when it is needed for their political games – but never when ordinary Muslims, like the Rohingya, without political value to barter with, find themselves oppressed.

   
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  johnpi 8:58 am on January 29, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: how Muslims treat the poor, persecution ( 17 ), rohingya   

  The Muslim Rohingya people of Myamar/Burma have been much in the news lately with stories coming out of Thailand that hundreds are feared dead or lost at sea due to actions take by the Thai military.

  The Rohingya are believed to descend from seventh century Arab settlers whose state was conquered by the Burmese in 1784. The group has inhabited what is now western Myanmar for centuries.

  So I was taking my usual umbrage at the persecution of Muslim minorities by non-Muslims, then I came across this charming blog entry from 2007 by a Malaysian Muslim academic, the “protem President of the Muslim Bloggers Alliance:”

  We don’t need these parasites. Send them home or drop them off at the borders. Enough is enough. We have been lenient with them far too long! No other Asian country lets them in knowing their problematic tendencies. Why should Malaysia be the dumping ground of Asia?

  Pack them off to Myanmar or ask the United Nations to send them off to those countries who always make a fuss of human rights these and that! We sure do not need these kind. No more!

  In the comments somebody challenges him for writing this and then talking about “Muslim brotherhood.” He responds:

  Do not live with a blinkered view that when I defend Islam and Muslims, I do so without taking into consideration what type of ‘Muslims’ are worth defending.

  Muslims who are superficial ‘Muslims’ aren’t included in my defend list.

  As best I can gather, what makes them superficial Muslims is that they beg in front of the mosque and create an “eyesore.” I guess we Muslims have our own “Gospel of Wealth” that blames the less fortunate for their misery and indicts poor Muslims for their poverty.

  PI.info, Ali, razib and 2 others are discussing. Toggle Comments

   
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    aziz 9:07 am on January 29, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    Here’s a blogger responding to the irascible MP.

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    thabet 9:29 am on January 29, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    Let’s call this what it is: another example of Muslim racism.

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    razib 1:16 pm on January 29, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    t rohingya’s a bengali-related people. forget the arab part; they’re kala fuckers, like bangladeshis who malaysians are familiar with as construction workers, laborers, etc. yeah, it’s pretty straightforward racism/xenophobia. though it isn’t like bangladesh has taken many in.

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    Ali 8:04 am on January 30, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    he is not a Muslim academic.

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    PI.info 8:32 am on January 30, 2009 Permalink | Reply

    Thanks for the correction. I have invited him to come here and join the conversation to explain his comments.

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  thabet 4:18 am on January 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: human rights ( 515 ), immigration ( 65 ), refugees ( 19 ), rohingya, thailand ( 14 )   

  More evidence emerges of Thai brutality against Burmese (Rohingya) refugees.