Tag: rakhine

Anger across Asia at Myanmar’s violence against Rohingya Muslims – Los Angeles Times/Sydney Morning Herald

JAKARTA — Hundreds of protesters in Indonesia rallied for the third straight day Monday as Muslim nations across Asia voiced growing concern over Myanmar’s brutal military crackdown against its Rohingya Muslim minority . Gathering outside the Myanmar Embassy in Jakarta, the demonstrators, mostly hijab-clad women, chanted, “God is great!” and demanded the Indonesian government put pressure on neighboring Myanmar to stop the military operation that has sent tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees streaming into camps in Bangladesh — the second such exodus in the last 12 months. “We are here because of solidarity of Muslims,” said one demonstrator who gave her name as Mama Bahin.

Low turnout mars lackluster Myanmar by-elections – Nikkei Asian Review

YANGON — The governing National League for Democracy looks set to win most of the 12 national parliament seats contested in Saturday’s by-elections — Myanmar’s first vote since the 2015 poll when the NLD romped to a historic landslide victory over the army-backed incumbent Union Solidarity and Development Party. Ahead of a full official results announcement for all 19 by-election seats, possibly by late Sunday evening, ethnic parties looked the likely winners in the minority-dominated Rakhine and Shan states, while the now-opposition USDP won a seat in Mon state, an ethnic minority region south of Yangon. Than Chaung, a voter in the Yangon 6 constituency, said he voted “for Aung San Suu Kyi, for NLD.” Asked if he was happy with the progress made under the NLD government, he replied: “she will make changes, but slowly, we know that.”

Pressure grows on Aung San Suu Kyi over Rohingya – RTÉ World Report

RANGOON – More than a year after Aung San Suu Kyi won a landslide victory in Burma’s first valid national election in a quarter century, the former political prisoner is looking increasingly aloof from her own history as a victim of human rights abuses. The plight of the Muslim Rohingya minority in the west of Burma, or Myanmar as it is officially called, is well known. Denied citizenship and regarded as Bengali immigrants, the Rohingya not only have been subject to decades of official discrimination but have been largely scorned and ostracized by most Burmese people. Aung San Suu Kyi’s personal opinion on the Rohingya is unknown, she says little to the press these days, but since taking up her role as Burma’s de facto leader last year, she has done little to alleviate their plight — bar ask officials not to refer to them as “Bengali,” a term the Rohingya do not accept as it implies that they are immigrants from Bangladesh.

Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis stirs regional protests – Nikkei Asian Review

JAKARTA — The spiraling humanitarian crisis in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State is prompting anger among Muslims across Asia. Last week, thousands of protestors in several regional capitals slammed Myanmar’s treatment of its Muslim Rohingya minority — even going as far as labelling the country’s de facto leader, a former political prisoner and now State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, as a “butcher” over the military’s brutal crackdown in Muslim-dominated borderlands close to Bangladesh. In Indonesia, home to more Muslims than any other country, around 400 demonstrators, including members of some Islamic political parties, gathered in front of the Myanmar embassy in Jakarta on Nov. 25, shouting demands that Aung San Suu Kyi hand back the Nobel peace prize she was awarded while under house arrest by the Myanmar military in 1991. “I’m sorry Ms. Suu Kyi, we know you accept the Nobel peace prize, but where is the peace in Myanmar? There is no peace in your country for Muslims,” said rally co-ordinator Julkifli Ali.

Suu Kyi campaigns in hostile territory – Nikkei Asian Review

THANDWE, Rakhine State — Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi took her election campaign over the weekend to the troubled western state of Rakhine, where she urged citizens to avoid religious discrimination and not be swayed by rhetoric aimed at stirring up Buddhist-Muslim tensions in the divided region. “Hatred and fear is of no benefit to Myanmar,” Suu Kyi told a crowd of around 2,000 in the coastal town of Thandwe on Oct. 17. Despite efforts by Buddhist hardliners to depict her party as being over-friendly toward Muslims, Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy is expected to win more seats than any other party in the Nov. 8 election. However, the NLD is thought unlikely to have much success in Rakhine State, also known as Arakan, where the ethnically-based Arakan National Party is expected to perform well among the state’s estimated 2 million Rakhine Buddhists who make up about two-thirds of the local population.

Rohingya MP banned from contesting election – Nikkei Asian Review

YANGON — One of five lawmakers from Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority who have sat in the country’s national and regional parliaments since 2010 has been barred from contesting the upcoming Nov. 8 national election. Shwe Maung, speaking to the Nikkei Asian Review on Sunday, said he had received an official notice from the government’s election commission that he was not eligible to run in the election – even though he holds a seat in national parliament. He said he would appeal the decision take by the district election sub-commission in Maungdaw, a Rohingya-majority district in northern Rakhine state, bordering Bangladesh. “I have seven days to appeal and perhaps tomorrow I will make the appeal at the Rakhine state regional electoral commission,” said Shwe Maung, who was elected in 2010 as a lawmaker in Myanmar’s lower house, representing the Union Solidarity and Development Party.

Controversy marks start to Myanmar’s first census in three decades – Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-controversy-marks-start-to-myanmars-first-census-in-three-decades-20140330,0,7115002.story#axzz2xS7C6Lzk TAUNGGYI, Myanmar – Wearing a white t-shirt emblazoned with the national census logo, Tin Naing counted off the...