HRW asks Myanmar to end harassment of Rakhine media outlets

Financial Express

FE ONLINE REPORT
Published: September 01, 2020

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on Myanmar authorities to stop using criminal laws, website blocks, and licensing delays to severely restrict the two ethnic media outlets in Rakhine State.

The international rights organisation, in a statement on Tuesday, said the authorities have filed charges against Aung Marm Oo, chief editor of Development Media Group (DMG), under the rights-abusing Unlawful Associations Act, blocked access to the outlet’s English and Burmese language webpages, and failed to act on DMG’s application to renew the publishing license for its bimonthly print journal. Narinjara News, the other ethnic Rakhine media outlet, has also been blocked since March, the statement pointed out.

Why China wants Suu Kyi to win Myanmar’s polls

ASIA TIMES
by Bertil Lintner
September 3, 2020

China’s interests will be better served by the Suu Kyi-led status quo than a return to military-dominated rule 

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) and Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi shake hands before a bilateral meeting at the Presidential Palace in Naypyidaw on January 18, 2020. Photo: AFP/ Nyein Chan Naing/Pool 

BANGKOK – As Myanmar enters an election season, the economy, Covid-19 and issues of war and peace are expected to dominate the campaign trail discourse.

But for the international community, speculation centers on which direction foreign policy will likely take after the poll: toward an even stronger and closer relationship with China or a shift towards a more independent posture.

Canada, Netherlands join Gambia's genocide case against Myanmar

Aljazeera
03 September 2020


The two nations will pay special attention to prosecuting gender-based violence against Rohingya, including rape.

More than 730,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after a brutal military crackdown in 2017 [File: Mohammad Ponir Hossain/ Reuters]

Canada and the Netherlands will formally join The Gambia's legal bid to hold Myanmar accountable over allegations of genocide against its mostly-Muslim Rohingya minority in a move described by observers as historic.

In a joint statement on Wednesday, Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne and his Dutch counterpart Stef Blok said the two nations were intervening in the case before the International Court of Justice in order "to prevent the crime of genocide and hold those responsible to account".

Facebook Improving Hate Speech Detection Ahead of Myanmar Election

The New York Times
By Reuters
Sept. 1, 2020

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc said on Tuesday that it was preparing for Myanmar's general election in November by improving the detection and removal of hate speech and content that incites violence and preventing the spread of misinformation.

The company said in a blog that between now and Nov. 22, it would remove "verifiable misinformation and unverifiable rumours" that are assessed as having the potential to suppress the vote or damage the "integrity" of the electoral process.

Genocide: The term that fits the crime in Myanmar

The Washington Times

ANALYSIS/OPINION:
By Yasmin Ullah and Eric P. Schwartz - -
Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Myanmar began its worst violence against Rohingya Muslims three years ago

-FILE- In this Friday, Sept. 22, 2017 file photo newly set up tents cover a hillock at a refugee camp for Rohingya Muslims who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, in Taiy Khali, Bangladesh. Gambia has filed a case at ... more >

What would you have done if you had been a world leader witnessing mass killing in Rwanda in 1994? Or in Darfur in 2003? Or even in Germany during the Holocaust?

Imagine men raping women, burning villages and shooting people as they run away. Historic parallels are never perfect. There are always comparisons and differences. But think four years ahead as President Trump or President Biden leaves office in 2024. Wouldn’t it be better to know that in the case of Myanmar, America did what we should have done, when we should have done it?

Star Student Epitomizes Myanmar Discrimination Against Rohingya Minority

Radio Free Asia
2020-08-27

Rohingya student Muhammad Ayaz (R) receives a ring from one of his high school teachers in recognition of his scholastic achievements, in Buthidaung town, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, in an undated photo.
Photo courtesy of Muhammad Ayaz's family

For Myanmar high school students, passing their matriculation exam with distinction is a near guarantee of getting into a university, even if not the school of their choice.

But that hasn’t been the case for Muhammad Ayaz, a Rohingya Muslim high school student from Buthidaung town in western Myanmar’s volatile Rakhine state, who passed his matriculation exam this year, earning distinctions in all six subject areas tested.

OPINION - What solidarity means for Rohingya survivors of Myanmar Genocide?

AA
Maung Zarni
27.08.2020

Past 3 years, Rohingya are defined not by victimhood, but by incredible ability to survive, revive, rejuvenate as people

 The writer is a Burmese academic and coordinator of the Free Rohingya Coalition and a fellow at the Genocide Documentation Center in Cambodia.

 

LONDON

The third anniversary of Myanmar’s largest wave of the genocidal purge of the Rohingya community in western Rakhine province on Aug. 25 was marked by the memories of massacres, rapes, and displacement of 750,000 people from nearly 400 villages.

Due to both the COVID-19 lockdown and the nearly one-year-long internet ban imposed by Bangladesh, survivors of Myanmar genocide in the camps could only engage in “silent commemorative events” in their little huts made of plastic sheets.

‘Second Dhaka Declaration' urges compensation from Myanmar for Rohingya-hosting countries

Financial Express
FE ONLINE REPORT
August 27, 2020

The ‘Second Dhaka Declaration' has called on the government of Myanmar to provide all the host countries as well as the Rohingya people proper monetary and legal compensation.

The document recognised the fact that Bangladesh is currently hosting over 1.2 million Rohingya refugees within its borders.
It also urged Myanmar to take responsibility for the incidents against Rohingya people and organise a transparent and accountable investigation of their displacement.

Three years later, US pressed to declare Rohingya crisis 'genocide,' hold Myanmar accountable

MYCENTRALOREGON.com
By CONOR FINNEGAN, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — Three years ago, Myanmar’s military escalated its persecution of the Rohingya — a mostly-Muslim ethnic minority — with a sustained, violent campaign of murder, rape and beatings that cleared hundreds of thousands from their land and burned their villages to the ground.

But even amid continued sporadic violence against Rohingya in Myanmar, the United States has declined to declare the campaign a genocide.

UN Court Calls on Myanmar to Settle The Case of The Rohingya Refugees at Once

albawaba
August 26th, 2020

Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi attends a meeting of the Union Peace Dialogue during the 4th Union Peace Conference (21st Century Panglong) at the Myanmar International Convention Center in Naypyidaw on August 20, 2020. THET AUNG / AFP 

Highlights

The ICJ case that the Gambia has brought can and should be part of a broader political strategy aimed at creating the changes that are needed in Myanmar to make it possible for the Rohingya to return to Rakhine and to live safe and dignified lives

Rohingya politicians excluded from Myanmar election

REUTERS
Shoon Naing
AUGUST 25, 2020

YANGON (Reuters) - Aspiring politician Abdul Rasheed was born in Myanmar and is one of the very few members of the Rohingya Muslim minority to have Myanmar citizenship.



His father was a civil servant. But when the country goes to the polls in November, the businessman will not be able to stand as a candidate because officials accuse him of having foreign roots.

OPINION - Time to add Myanmar’s most influential genocidal monk Sitagu to ICC List

AA

Maung Zarni
05.08.2020

LONDON

In November last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) moved to begin the full investigation into Myanmar’s violent international crimes and other events connected to the exodus of Rohingya from western Myanmar in decades.

In August 2017, Myanmar Tatmadaw, or the military, launched the "Security Clearance Operations," which resulted in the exodus of 750,000 Rohingya from across the borders into the adjacent Bangladesh city of Teknaf.

Myanmar May Postpone Election in War-Torn Rakhine State: Official

Reuters,
Wire Service
By Shoon Naing
July 30, 2020

FILE PHOTO: Myanmar police officer poses for a photograph in Maungdaw, Rakhine July 9, 2019. REUTERS/Ann WangReuters

NAYPYITAW (Reuters) - Myanmar will postpone elections in parts of war-torn Rakhine state if the military declares them unsafe, a senior election official said on Thursday, prompting a backlash from ethnic parties with strong support in the region. 

"It is necessary to have peace and stability to hold elections," said Union Election Commission chair Hla Thein, adding that the army-controlled ministries of defence and home affairs would soon determine whether the region was stable.

For Myanmar's Elections to Be Free and Fair Rohingya Must Get the Right to Vote

TIME
By Matthew Smith
July 27, 2020

Rohingya refugees watch televised proceedings at the U.N.'s International Court of Justice from a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh Dec. 12, 2019.
Allison Joyce—Getty Images

Americans won’t be the only voters going to the polls in November. Myanmar’s third national election since transitioning from half a century of military rule is slated for Nov. 8.

Already, several questions loom over this test of the country’s democratic trajectory. How will the government ensure ethnic civilians displaced by armed conflict can vote? How will Facebook protect voters from disinformation? How will the government manage campaigns and polling in the age of COVID-19? 

China's weapon supply to Myanmar terrorists re-ignites NE insurgency fears

Indian Defense News 
Sunday, July 26, 2020
By: Business Standard

The recent seizure of a large quantity of illegal Chinese weapons in Mae Tao region, which is on the Thai side of the Myanmar-Thailand border, has given rise to India's fear of "another attempt to reignite insurgency in its Northeast region", a Europe-based think-tank said.Citing a June 23 report published in The Irrawaddy, the European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) said, "While preliminary investigations have suggested that the weapons may have been destined for insurgent groups in Myanmar, the development has nonetheless raised antennae within security circles in New Delhi. It has also reignited the serious questions that had existed for long about the scope and depth of China's support to terrorist groups in the region in pursuit of its policy of what a Thailand-based organisation termed 'diplo-terrorism'."

What Myanmar Is and Is Not Doing to Protect Rohingyas from Genocide

JUST SECURITY
Param-Preet Singh
July 23, 2020

(Editors Note: This article is part of a special Just Security forum on the ongoing Gambia v. Myanmar litigation at the International Court of Justice and ways forward.)


 In August 2017, the desperate plight of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims grabbed headlines when the military’s brutal campaign of murder, rape and other abuses forced more than 740,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. In 2019, the United Nations-backed Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar warned that the 600,000 Rohingya remaining in Myanmar’s Rakhine state faced a greater than ever threat of genocide because of the government’s attempts to “erase their identity and remove them from the country.”

Chinese Investment in Myanmar: Beyond Myitsone Dam

THE I DIPLOMAT
By Ruosui Zhang
July 22, 2020

How national security concerns sealed the varying fates of Chinese investment projects in Myanmar.

Almost nine years have passed since the Thein Sein administration unilaterally announced the suspension of construction work on the Myitsone dam in September 2011. The building of the controversial hydroelectric dam is a gargantuan Chinese investment project in Myanmar, with an estimated total cost of $3.6 billion, and with a planned reservoir area larger than the size of Singapore. The suspension followed increasingly severe public protests in Myanmar expressing opposition to the Myitsone dam project. Naypyidaw credited the suspension decision to the “people’s will, and many analysts have thus attributed the unexpected suspension to the victory of popular anti-China sentiments and anti-dam movements, following Myanmar’s domestic political transition. If the “people’s will” really brought the Myitsone dam project to a halt, might other Chinese overseas projects be at risk of a similar fate?

Weapons originating from China: India seeks probe findings from Thailand, Myanmar

OneIndia
Vicky Nanjappa
Tuesday, July 21, 2020

New Delhi, July 21: India has asked Thailand and Myanmar to share the details of a probe in which illegal arms originating from China were seized. It may be recalled that the Royal Thai Army had intercepted a big consignment of illegal arms and ammunition. The ammunition having its origin in China was smuggled into Myanmar.

Representational Image

New Delhi's envoy to Bangkok, Suchitra Durai held a meeting with Unsit Sampuntharat, governor of the Tok province of Thailand. Local police and immigration officials too were present at the meeting. India is keen to find out about the renewed flow of illegal weapons that originate from China.

US, Chinese embassies in Myanmar exchange barbs

TAIPEI TIMES
Reuters
Mon, Jul 20, 2020

REGIONAL RIVALRY: The US embassy said Beijing was trying to undermine the sovereignty of its neighbors, while the Chinese said the US statement was sour grapes

The Chinese embassy in Myanmar yesterday accused the US of “outrageously smearing” the China and driving a wedge with its Southeast Asian neighbors over the contested South China Sea and Hong Kong, as tensions mount between the superpowers.

US Showed its 'Ugly Face', Chinese Embassy in Myanmar Claims as Two Nations Indulge in Name-Calling

International Business Times
 Akshay Saraswat
July 19, 2020

A war of words has broken out between the two countries' embassies in Myanmar. Both sides have issued strong statements denouncing the other

A serious diplomatic fight has broken out between China and the United States in Myanmar. The spat has descended into name-calling as the two countries level allegations against each other. The root of the problem is growing Chinese assertiveness over its claimed rights in the South China Sea.