Myanmar officials hold repatriation talks with Rohingya leaders

Al Jazeera
27 July 2019

High-level delegation from Myanmar is in Cox's Bazar to convince Rohingya refugees to return to Rakhine state.

The Rohingya want guarantees of safety and official recognition of their minority status before they return to Myanmar [File: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images] 

A high-level delegation from Myanmar is in Bangladesh's southern Cox's Bazar district to hold repatriation talks with Rohingya refugees.

The purpose of Saturday's visit was "to talk with Rohingya refugees in order to convince them to return to their home country", said Md Delwar Hossain, director general at Bangladesh's Foreign Ministry.

ASEAN can no longer turn a blind-eye to Myanmar's atrocities

Aljazeera
by Eric Paulsen

22 July 2019

ASEAN has a responsibility to help facilitate a repatriation process that prioritises the well-being of the Rohingya.

 

Rohingya refugees hold placards as they participate in a rally to observe World Refugee Day at the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh on June 20, 2019 [File: Rafiqur Rahman/Reuters]

After fighters attacked security targets in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state on August 25, 2017, the Myanmar military responded by killing and maiming thousands of Rohingya civilians, raping hundreds of women and girls, and burning entire villages to the ground. Almost two years after the military-led "clearance operation" that forced more than 745,000 Rohingya men, women and children to flee and seek refuge in Bangladesh, this humanitarian crisis seems more intractable than ever.

UN warns of telecom blackout cover for Myanmar military abuses

Aljazeera
25 Jun 2019

Blackout in parts of Rakhine and Chin states imposed amid reports of escalating military offensive against Arakan Army.

The UN Special Rapporteur says the military is stepping up operations against ethnic Buddhist rebels in Rakhine state [FILE/Ann Wang/Reuters]

Myanmar's army may be committing serious human rights violations under cover of a mobile phone blackout in parts of Rakhine and Chin states in the west of the country, Yanghee Lee, UN special rapporteur on Myanmar, said on Monday.

Myanmar military committing war crimes in Rakhine: Amnesty

Aljazeera
by Kate Mayberry

29/05/2019

Human rights group calls for situation in Rakhine state to be referred to International Criminal Court, sanctions.

 Myanmar border guards at Goke Pi outpost in Buthidaung during a government organised media tour of Rakhine state in January [Stringer/Reuters]

The same units of the Myanmar military that in 2017 were implicated in a brutal crackdown that drove hundreds of thousands of mainly Muslim Rohingya from the country are again committing war crimes as they step up their campaign against ethnic Rakhine rebels, Amnesty International has said.

Myanmar soldiers jailed for Rohingya massacre freed after months

Aljazeera
27/05/2019

Troops released in November 2018 after serving less than one year of their 10-year prison terms, Reuters report says.

Ten Rohingya men with their hands bound kneel as members of the Myanmar security forces stand guard in Inn Din village on September 2, 2017 [Handout via REUTERS] [Reuters]

Myanmar has granted early release to seven soldiers jailed for the killing of 10 Rohingya men and boys during a 2017 military crackdown in the western state of Rakhine, two prison officials, two former fellow inmates and one of the soldiers told Reuters news agency.

AJ Shorts wins human rights press award in Hong Kong

Aljazeera 
22/05/2019

Digital documentary Growing up too Fast in Afghanistan was recognised in the short video category.

 The film is about a 14-year-old boy whose father was killed by ISIL, forcing him to abandon school [Al Jazeera]

The Al Jazeera English Online unit AJ Shorts was honoured alongside fellow awards winners from The New York Times, Reuters, BBC, Washington Post and leading East Asian news outlets at this year's Human Rights Press Awards ceremony in Hong Kong.

Rohingya women, girls being trafficked to Malaysia for marriage

Ajazeera

by Kaamil Ahmed

08-05-2019

Al Jazeera reveals how refugees in Bangladesh camps are vulnerable to proposals from single Rohingya men in Malaysia.

 Hamida holds up a picture of her 15-year-old daughter-in-law, who was brought from Myanmar and into Bangladesh and then smuggled to Malaysia to marry her son [Kaamil Ahmed/Al Jazeera]

Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Senwara Begum travelled for two weeks by road and boat, over mountains and along rivers, guided only by a trafficker she feared, before she reached Malaysia to marry a man she had never met.

Reuters journalists Wa Lone, Kyaw Soe Oo freed from Myanmar jail

Aljazeera

News/Journalism Is Not A Crime

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested after investigating the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men by security forces.

Two Reuters journalists, jailed in Myanmar after being convicted of breaking the Official Secrets Act, have been freed after more than 500 days behind bars.

The two reporters, Wa Lone, 33, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 29, were convicted in September and sentenced to seven years in jail in a case that raised questions about Myanmar's progress towards democracy and sparked an outcry from diplomats and human rights advocates.

Myanmar troops kill six in Rakhine for suspected rebel links.

Aljazeera

3rd May 2019

Soldiers opened fire as a clash erupted with the detained villagers, according to member of parliament.

More recently, civilians have been caught up in clashes between the military and the Arakan Army [File:Min Kyi Thein/AP Photo]

Myanmar security forces have shot dead at least six people in the troubled western state of Rakhine after soldiers and police detained hundreds of people at a school, a military spokesperson said.

Al Jazeera's 100 Faces of Rohingya wins Drum Online Media Award

Aljazeera 
May 01'2019

Photojournalist Showkat Shafi wins prize for powerful curation highlighting the portraits of 100 Rohingya refugees.

Showkat Shafi: 'As a photographer, I wanted to go beyond the numbers that these people were being reduced to' [Al Jazeera]  

Producer and photojournalist Showkat Shafi, of Al Jazeera English Online, won a prestigious prize for his photography on Tuesday at the Drum Online Media Awards in London.

The prize, in the category of Best Use of Photography, was for Showkat's 100 Faces of Rohingya, a powerful curation highlighting the portraits of 100 Rohingya refugees, aged three to 95, who were part of some 730,000 Rohingya forced to flee into neighbouring Bangladesh by the Myanmar Army.

'Do not forget the Rohingya': UN urges support for refugees

Aljazeera 
28 April, 2019


Top UN officials call for generosity from world to help Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh camps.

Bangladesh wants to move 100,000 of the Rohingya refugees sheltered in camps to a cyclone-prone island [Dar Yasin/AP]

Top United Nations officials have urged the international community not to forget the plight of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and called for global support to ensure their safe and voluntary return to Myanmar.

Outcry mounts over deaths in custody in Myanmar's Rakhine State

Aljazeera 
26th April 2019

Military's Myawady newspaper blames 'heart failure' for deaths of men taken away by soldiers.

The Arakan Army is fighting for more autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in a state infamous for the 2017 military crackdown against its Muslim-majority Rohingya [File: Min Kyi Thein/AP]

The deaths of three ethnic Rakhine men in Myanmar military custody and the secret cremation of their bodies has provoked outrage, as fears over military impunity increase in the intensifying conflict with Rakhine rebels.

The Arakan Army (AA) is fighting for more autonomy for ethnic Rakhine Buddhists in a state already infamous for the 2017 military crackdown against its Rohingya ethnic minority.

Top Myanmar court rejects appeal by massacre reporters.

Bangkok Post
23 Apr 2019

Detained Reuters journalists Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone are escorted by police as they leave after a court hearing in Yangon, Myanmar, Aug 20, 2018. (Reuters file photo)

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar: Myanmar's Supreme Court rejected an appeal Tuesday by two Reuters journalists jailed for seven years each on charges linked to their reporting on the Rohingya crisis, one of the defence lawyers confirmed.

Reporters Wa Lone, 33, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 29, have been behind bars since their arrest in December 2017 under the Official Secrets Act.

'We're broken': Rohingya on hunger strike in Saudi detention

Aljazeera
by Saba Aziz

At least seven hospitalised after 650 Rohingya men refuse food at a detention centre in Jeddah, activists say.

Family members of detainees call for their release at a camp in Bangladesh [Courtesy: Ambia Perveen]

 

Scores of Rohingya detainees inside a Saudi detention centre have gone on a hunger strike for the third time in recent months, activists told Al Jazeera.

UN: Recent Myanmar army attack may have killed dozens of Rohingya

Aljazeera
April 9'2019

UN says it has unconfirmed reports suggesting that as many as 30 people may have been killed in Rakhine state attack.

 The western state was at the epicentre of a brutal crackdown by Myanmar's security forces in 2017 [File: Min Kyi Thein/AP]

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has said it fears that dozens of Rohingya civilians may have been killed in a military attack in Myanmar's Rakhine state last week, despite official government tolls putting the number of dead at six.

Nowhere to go: Myanmar farmers under siege from land law.

AL JAZEERA

3rd April 2019
by Jacob Goldberg

The Myanmar government has tightened a law on so-called 'vacant, fallow and virgin' land, and farmers are at risk.

The law puts farmers at risk, mostly in territories that are home to ethnic minorities [File: Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP Photo]

Yangon, Myanmar - Han Win Naung is besieged on his own land.

Last September, local administrators in Myanmar's southern Tanintharyi region put up a sign at the edge of his 5.7-hectare farm that read "Under Management Ownership - Do Not Trespass".

Campaigners target firms doing business with Myanmar's military

Aljzeera
by Joshua Carroll
March 28' 2019
 

Facebook and Western Union are among the most recognisable names on 'dirty list' distributed by human rights activists.

Myanmar's military has been accused of 'genocidal intent' in its crackdown against the Rohingya [Ye Aung Thu/AP]

Yangon, Myanmar - Sprinklers whirled as workers swept leaves and pushed lawn mowers on a recent sun-baked afternoon at the Okkala Golf Resort in Myanmar's main city.

As he steered a golf buggy between the fairways, the caddy master gestured to a man teeing off nearby who he said was a local movie star.

Rohingya crisis: Volunteers document survivor stories

Aljazeera
by Stefanie Dekker
2019 March 21
A group of young Rohingya refugees speak up and fight for justice.

The International Criminal Court is looking into whether the persecution of the Rohingya by Myanmar’s government warrants an investigation.

A group of young Rohingya refugees say they've been fighting for justice ever since they fled along with hundreds of thousands in August 2017.

An Unholy Alliance: Monks and the Military in Myanmar

Aljazeera 

18 Mar 2019 

Is the joining of forces between radical Buddhist monks and generals threatening Myanmar's young and fragile democracy?
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A film by Fatima Lianes

With almost 90 percent of Myanmar's population being devoted Buddhists, the religion has been at the heart of the nation's very identity for centuries.
But while the pillars of Buddhist teachings are love, compassion and peace, there is a very different variation to the philosophy being taught at the Ma Ba Tha monastery in Yangon's Insein township.

Bangladesh monsoon aid agencies prepare for wet season

Aljazeera
by Stefanie Dekker, March 17,2019
  
It is estimated that up to 200,000 Rohingya refugees could be at risk.





Aid agencies in Bangladesh are preparing for monsoon season - which could start as early as next month and last until October.