Argentinian Arrest Warrants for Crimes against the Rohingya: The Power of Small States

Opinio Juris
16.07.2024

[Eva Buzo is a barrister and Executive Director of Victim Advocates International. Clare Brown is a Senior Legal Officer and Gender Advisor for Victim Advocates International. Kate Gibson is an international criminal lawyer and Senior Counsel to Victim Advocates International. Pia Conradsen is Rohingya Victim Coordinator of Victim Advocates International.]

It’s High Time To Say ‘No’ To A Discriminatory Quota System – OpEd

eurasiareview
Dr. Habib Siddiqui
July 13, 2024   

In recent days, Bangladesh is seeing student protests in many parts of the country, esp. in the university campuses. The protesting students have valid reasons to protest about a quota system that they find highly unfair and discriminatory. A whopping 30% of the well-paid and massively over-subscribed Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) posts are reserved for the family members of those who fought during the liberation war of 1971, and another 10% for women, 10% for districts, 5% for ethnic minorities and 1% for the disabled/handicaps. This leaves only 44% of the jobs reserved for merit to roughly 98% of the applicants.

CNA Explains: Myanmar’s ex-president visited China, followed by its junta No 2. What’s the play?

CNA
Leong Wai Kit
10 Jul 2024

Myanmar correspondent Leong Wai Kit unpacks recent trips to China by Thein Sein and Soe Win, and what both countries want from each other.

This handout photograph taken on Jul 6, 2024 and released by the Myanmar Military Information Team shows Myanmar's military deputy commander in chief of defence services Soe Win (C), upon his arrival at Qingdao in Shandong province of China. (Photo: AFP) 

Beijing has been regularly inviting Myanmar’s junta-appointed ministers to China on various official visits.

The fate of the Rohingya may be in the Arakan Army’s hands

Aljazeera
Nasir Uddin
Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chittagong
3 July 2024

A woman cooks next to destroyed houses and burned trees following fighting between Myanmar's military and the Arakan Army in a village in Minbya Township in Rakhine State on May 21, 2024 [File: AFP]

 

In late May, reports emerged that tens of thousands of Rohingya have been forced to flee their homes in the townships of Buthidaung and Maungdaw, northern Rakhine State.

The only one solution to the Rohingya crisis

Dhaka Tribune
Tribune Editorial
Publish : 22 Jun 2024,

The ethnic cleansing of Myanmar’s Rohingya population has been one of the most prolonged humanitarian crises in human history, one which has led to the exodus of more than a million of the Muslim minority to seek refuge in Bangladesh where they are currently subsisting in various camps.

Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh Pressured to Join Myanmar’s Civil War

THE I DIPLOMAT
By Dayna Santana Pérez
June 21, 2024

After the midday prayers on a hot Wednesday, Hussain* was summoned by an armed group to a “community meeting” in his block within the world’s largest refugee settlement.

The ‘impossible’ life of Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees

Aljazeera
By Aisyah Llewellyn
Published On 20 Jun 2024

The first group of Rohingya refugees was found off Aceh in June 2020 [Antara Foto/Rahmad via Reuters]

Aceh and Medan, Indonesia - Gura Amin spends 12 hours a day, six days a week packing boxes in a Malaysian factory.

The 22-year-old Rohingya refugee makes about 2,400 Malaysian ringgit ($510) a month, which he uses for his daily expenses and to pay off a 10,000 Malaysian ringgit ($2,123) debt to the people who brought him across the sea from Indonesia.

Myanmar Armed Group Calls for Evacuation as It Approaches Border Town

THE I DIPLOMAT
Sebastian Strangio
June 17, 2024

The Arakan Army has called for the mostly Rohingya residents of Maungdaw to leave, a month after it was accused of mass arson attacks in a neighboring township. 

A powerful ethnic armed group in Myanmar’s west says that it is on the verge of capturing Maungdaw, a mainly Rohingya town close to the country’s border with Bangladesh, and has called on its residents to evacuate as a matter of urgency.

They left a trail of ash: decoding the Arakan Army’s arson attacks in the Rohingya heartland

THE STRATEGIST
13 Jun 2024
Nathan Ruser

The village of Maw Ni Bill (Oe Thei) being burnt by arson attack on May 18th.

 

In the late evening of Friday 17 May 2024, Rohingya neighbourhoods in the town of Buthidaung in Myanmar’s Rakhine State were disturbed by an ominously familiar sight. Armed gunmen had come to their doors and ordered them to leave before the gunmen set their houses alight. If they refused, they were told, they would be burnt with their house.

Rohingya Muslims Flee Violence in Myanmar as ‘Hate-Driven Unnatural Disaster Unfolds’ – Sparking Pleas for UK and US to Act

BYLINE TIMES
Steve Shaw
14 June 2024

The attack on Buthidaung – where thousands of Rohingya Muslims had sought refuge – has been called a “turning point” in what has been dubbed a “slow-burning genocide”

Rohingya women sit inside a shelter in Lhokseumawe, Aceh province, Indonesia, in December 2023. Photo: Associated Press / Alamy

 

It was late evening when the first bursts of gunfire echoed through the town of Buthidaung in western Myanmar. Soon after, dark plumes of smoke rose as home after home was set ablaze.

Whose Justice? Rohingya Perspectives on Post-Atrocity Justice

JUST SECURITY
by Rebecca Hamilton
June 11, 2024

Over the past two decades of listening to survivors of atrocity crimes – including the perspectives shared in a recent survey of Rohingya survivors of genocidal violence in Myanmar – I have seen time and again that while the desire for justice is universal, the question of what justice means in any given community (and for different individuals within any given community) is often very particular and highly influenced by local context. There is nothing terribly surprising in this observation. What is striking, however, is the degree to which the professional community working on and around international criminal law (ICL) (and I include myself in this) often fails to absorb the full implications of this reality.

Prioritizing safety in the Rohingya camps

Dhaka Tribune
Tribune Editorial
Publish : 11 Jun 2024, 

It is a matter of great concern that at least three Rohingya refugees were killed and seven others injured when a clash broke out at a camp. What is more concerning is that incidents of violence and unrest have only increased in frequency over the years, and this volatile environment at the camps could have ramifications that soon get out of control.

Who is the face of modern ethnic hatred?

Dhaka Tribune
Shafiur Rahman
Publish : 08 Jun 2024,

Is there a new contender in the race?

File image of Rohingya repatriation. Photo: Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune

Who is the face of modern ethnic hatred? Figures like Netanyahu, Milosevic, Karadzic, and Min Aung Hlaing come to mind, but Twan Morn Naing is the latest contender. Not only is he the brother of Twan Myat Naing, the Commander-in-Chief of the Arakan Army and another voice of genocidal rhetoric, but Twan Morn Naing is carving his own path in the annals of hate.

Arakan Army treatment of Rohingya minority poses challenge to Myanmar opposition

RFA
A commentary by Zachary Abuza
2024.06.08

 The Rakhine force, the most effective rebel army fighting the junta, vents its grievances on the battlefield.

Illustration by Amanda Weisbrod/RFA; Images by Adobe Stock

Evidence of Arakan Army culpability in mass arson attacks on Rohingya homes in western Myanmar's Buthidaung township – where satellite imagery has confirmed that more than 400 homes were burnt to the ground – poses a serious challenge to the anti-junta opposition.

Exodus of Thousands after Myanmar Unrest

Naharnet
AFP
03,June 2024

Thousands of displaced people have surged towards already overcrowded camps in western Myanmar, the U.N. said Saturday, after vicious new communal violence that has left dozens dead.

A Myanmar Rebel Group Is Accused of Persecuting Rohingya

The New York Times
By Verena Hölzl

June 3, 2024

People rebuilding homes after fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army in Rakhine State last month.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

 

International courts are still investigating the Myanmar military’s slaughter of the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority in 2017 that the United States has called a genocide. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled to Bangladesh and those who stayed faced persecution from the junta. Now a new threat to the group is looming, this time at the hands of a powerful rebel force.

Who are the ‘outsiders’ blamed for Rohingya camp fires?

Dhaka Tribune
Udisa Islam
Publish : 03 Jun 2024,  

• Balukhali camp most affected in 5 years
• Most fires erupted at night
  

BGB members assist firefighting units at Ukhiya Rohingya camp-13 fire in Cox’s Bazar on Saturday, June 1, 2024. Photo: Courtesy

 

Two recent fire incidents destroyed hundreds of houses at Ukhiya Rohingya camp in Cox’s Bazar. The first fire incident occurred on May 24 and the latest on Saturday. The Rohingyas have always referred to the fire incidents at the camp as sabotage. However, they also mention that some unknown people or outsiders had set fire to the camp. 

A Myanmar Rebel Group Is Accused of Persecuting Rohingya

The New York Times
By Verena Hölzl
June 3, 2024,

Allegations against the Arakan Army, a key force in the fight against the junta, threaten to revive old horrors of sectarian atrocities. 

People rebuilding homes after fighting between Myanmar’s military and the Arakan Army in Rakhine State last month.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

International courts are still investigating the Myanmar military’s slaughter of the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority in 2017 that the United States has called a genocide. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled to Bangladesh and those who stayed faced persecution from the junta. Now a new threat to the group is looming, this time at the hands of a powerful rebel force.

Rohingya Camps Turn Into Hub Of Global Terrorism; Pose Big Security Threat To India, B’Desh: OPED

The Eur Asia
Guest Author
June 3, 2024

OPED By: Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

Officials of law enforcement agencies in Bangladesh have been consistently saying radical Islamic militancy outfit Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) is involved in murders, and members of this outfit regularly enter Bangladesh from Myanmar and commit a series of crimes while they also run drug peddling, arms trafficking, human trafficking, and kidnapping.

Recently, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told reporters that Rohingya camps in Bangladesh may become the hub of international terrorists. He said, “There may be an influx of arms. Many things can happen. And we already see some signs of these”.

Once-Welcomed Rohingya Refugees Now Face Hostility From The Hosts In Bangladesh

Eurasia Review
May 30, 2024

The hosts, the Bangladeshi Muslim population, have expressed an alarming level of hostility towards the Rohingya refugees due to their extended stay and its subsequent negative consequences, like competition over limited resources. CREDIT: Yuki Higuchi from Sophia University, Japan

The number of refugees has sharply increased in recent decades, reaching 37.8 million in 2022. Amidst this surge, host communities—locals residing in areas where refugee camps are situated—are also positively and negatively impacted by the refugee influxes. The negative impacts include competition over scarce resources and in the unskilled labor market. While the international media and aid organizations put the spotlight on assisting refugees, the challenges faced by host communities are frequently sidelined.