Rohingya family living in UK: 'We have to hold the military accountable for its atrocities'

Asian Image
Muhammad Khan
@MUHASSANKHAN

13th February 2021

Rohingya family living in UK: 'We have to hold the military accountable for its atrocities'

A Rohingya family now living in the UK have spoken of their experiences and the atrocities carried out by the Burmese military. They also told of life in a refugee camp.

Sirazul Islam, 21, was born in a camp in Kutupalong, Bangladesh and lived there till the age of eight before coming to the UK. He currently lives with his family in Bradford.

The world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s bazaar in Bangladesh is home to one million Muslim Rohingya people. The Rohingya are commonly referred to as the most persecuted minority in the world.

UN Rights Body Adopts Watered-Down Text on Myanmar Coup

U.S.News

Associated Press,
JAMEY KEATEN,
Feb. 12, 2021

The U.N.'s top human rights body has passed a consensus resolution urging military leaders in Myanmar to immediately release Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian government leaders detained after a military coup.

Myint Thu, ambassador of the Permanent Representative Mission of Myanmar to Geneva, addresses his statement during the Human Rights Council special session on "the human rights implications of the crisis in Myanmar" at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Feb. 12, 2021. The special session of the Human Rights Council on the situation in Myanmar is take in person and in virtualle due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.'s top human rights body passed a consensus resolution Friday urging military leaders in Myanmar to immediately release Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian government leaders detained after a military coup, while watering down an initial draft text amid pressure led by China and Russia.

In a special session at the Human Rights Council, the original resolution presented by Britain and the European Union was revised to remove calls to bolster the ability of a U.N. rights expert to scrutinize Myanmar and for restraint from the country's military.

After the updated resolution passed with no opposition, Chinese Ambassador Chen Xu thanked the sponsors for “adopting our recommendations” but said China still was distancing itself from the measure.

US Slaps Sanctions on 10 Current and Ex-Military Officers, 3 Entities Who Led Coup in Myanmar

 NEWS18  

PTI
FEBRUARY 12, 2021

The US Department of Commerce is also taking immediate action to limit exports of sensitive goods to the Burmese military and other entities associated with the recent coup.

A protester holds a placard with an image of Myanmar military Commander-in-Chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and Justice For Myanmar (AP Photo)

Washington: The US on Thursday slapped sanctions on 10 current and former military officers and three entities in Myanmar who led the recent coup against the democratically elected government and detained its leaders Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint.

Six of the individuals are part of the National Defense and Security Council and were directly involved in the coup — Commander-in-Chief of the Burmese military forces Min Aung Hlaing, Deputy Commander-in-Chief Soe Win, First Vice President and retired Lieutenant General Myint Swe, Lieutenant General Sein Win, Lieutenant General Soe Htut, and Lieutenant General Ye Aung.

‘We cannot hope for anything good’: Myanmar coup sparks despair for Rohingya

The Guardian
Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Shaikh Azizur Rahman
Sun 14 Feb 2021 

While Aung San Suu Kyi defended a genocidal campaign against the Muslim minority, refugees fear military rule will end dreams of a return home

Rohingya living as refugees in Bangladesh had hoped to return to Myanmar, but live in fear of the military. Photograph: Damir Šagolj/Reuters

For the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar, news of the fall of Aung San Suu Kyi after the military coup was bittersweet.

After all, no community had felt more betrayed by Myanmar’s civilian leader. When she came to power in 2015, the belief was that she would overturn decades of persecution and finally bring about peace and citizenship, following in the footsteps of her father, Gen Aung San.

Instead, under her watch the military carried out their most violent operation against the Rohingya, embarking on a genocidal campaign of rape, pillage and murder in Rakhine state in 2017 and driving almost a million people over the border to Bangladesh as refugees.

White House Responds To Burma Coup, Imposing Sanctions, Export Controls

KHARON

Samuel Rubenfeld
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2021

U.S. threatens further action if the military does not restore democracy


Students and teachers protest against the military coup in Kayin State, Burma. (Source: Ninjastrikers)

The White House announced broad new curbs on Burma following a coup earlier this month, issuing an executive order, imposing sanctions on military companies and leaders, and other restrictions.

The U.S. actions follow several days of protests in Burma, which is also known as Myanmar, after the Feb. 1 coup that ended a decade of democracy there. The United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday adopted a resolution without a vote that “deplored the removal” of the democratically elected government and called for the military to protect the rights of people.

စစ်ကောင်စီကို ဆက်လက်အံတုကြရန် လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ် စား ပြုကော်မတီ တိုက်တွန်း

Myanmar Now
Feb 14, 2021စစ်ကောင်စီက ယမန်နေ့တွင် ပြင်ဆင်ထုတ်ပြန်လိုက်သော ဥပဒေနှစ်ရပ်သည် ပြည်သူလူထု၏ အခွင့်အရေး များကို ကန့်သတ်ရန်ကြိုးစားခြင်း ဖြစ်သည်ဟု ကော်မတီ၏ ကြေညာချက်က ဆိုသည် ။

မန္တလေး နိုင်ငံခြားဘာသာတက္ကသိုလ် ကျောင်းသားကျောင်းသူများ၏ အာဏာသိမ်း စစ်အုပ်စု ဆန့်ကျင်ရေး လှုပ်ရှားမှု။ (ဓာတ်ပုံ - Myanmar Now)

  အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်ကောင်စီက ပြင်ဆင်ထုတ်ပြန်လိုက်သော နိုင်လွတ်လုံဥပဒေနှင့် ရပ်ကျေးဥပဒေ နှစ်ရပ်လုံး သည် တရားမဝင်သည့်အတွက် ပြည်သူများ လိုက်နာရန်မလိုအပ်ကြောင်း ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော် ကိုယ်စား ပြုကော် မတီ (CRPH) က ယနေ့ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ ၁၄ တွင် ကြေညာချက်ထုတ်ပြန်လိုက်သည်။

Boris Johnson condemns Myanmar coup, but is silent on genocide

MIDDLE EAST EYE

Peter Oborne
12 February 2021

British inaction in the face of the Rohingya slaughter shows, yet again, that atrocities against voiceless Muslims count for little or nothing in the chanceries of the West 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks in London on 10 February 2021 (AFP)

Within hours of last week’s Myanmar coup d’etat, the denunciations came pouring in. Britain began considering new sanctions. US president Joe Biden pledged action against the military leaders who had directed the coup, which dislodged Myanmar’s Nobel-prize-winning leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

In London, the British Foreign Office hauled in Myanmar Ambassador U Kyaw Zwar Minn, citing the need for “a peaceful return to democracy”. Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the “unlawful imprisonment” of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar May Target Free Speech in Effort to Stifle Protests

The New York Times

By Richard C. Paddock
Feb. 12, 2021

Myanmar May Target Free Speech in Effort to Stifle Protests

Civil society groups say a proposed measure to limit online expression and privacy rights could lead to mass arrests of those who criticize the military government.

Over the last 10 days, a civil disobedience movement against the military takeover in Myanmar has seeped into nearly every aspect of society.Credit...The New York Times

The military government in Myanmar has increasingly used nighttime arrests, legal threats, a curfew and a ban on large gatherings to tame weeklong anti-coup protests that have spread from the cities to the countryside. Now, civil society groups fear that the military is preparing a new law that would further restrict online expression and limit the privacy rights of citizens.

One telecommunications company, Telenor, said Friday that it was aware of the proposal and was reviewing it. A coalition of 158 civil society organizations signed a statement raising concerns that the potential new law would lead to the widespread arrest of government critics.

Myanmar's Creatives Are Fighting Military Rule With Art—Despite the Threat of a Draconian New Cyber-Security Law

TIME

SUYIN HAYNES
FEBRUARY 12, 2021

An image of three-finger salute is projected on a building during a night protest against the military coup and to demand the release of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in Yangon, Myanmar, Feb. 9 Reuters

K

hine, an artist based in Yangon, doesn’t think of himself as political. Right now, he says, he’d much rather be creating paintings of imagined scenes. But since Myanmar’s military coup on Feb. 1, he’s been making something different: “counter-propaganda”—posters and stickers meant to inspire civil disobedience and criticize the military junta. “What me and other artists are making right now is not art,” says Khine, who gave a pseudonym out of fear for his safety. “But it’s what the time calls for, and it’s what I’m feeling right now.”

Rohingya in Bangladesh’s camps held rally against coup in Myanmar

DNA

Central News Desk

Md. Kamruzzaman
February 13, 2021

DHAKA, Bangladesh: Dozens of Rohingya youths in the world’s largest refugee camps in Bangladesh’s southern district of Cox’s Bazar on Friday held a peaceful rally, supporting the ongoing pro-democratic movement in Myanmar.

“We love democracy and human rights everywhere in the world and so we always support a democratic transition in Myanmar,” Khin Maung, founder of Rohingya Youth Association (RYA) told this journalist.

Underlining the military coup in Myanmar as a move that has stopped the democratic transition of power in the Southeast Asian state and will increase human rights violation, he added: “This is our main concern as a citizen of Myanmar and part of Myanmar society.”

The Regional Implications of Myanmar’s Coup

Joshua Kurlantzick
Aspenia Online
February 12, 2021

Myanmar Commander in Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing salutes as he attends an event marking the anniversary of Martyrs' Day at the Martyrs' Mausoleum in Yangon on July 19, 2016. Soe Zeya Tun/File Photo/Reuters

The coup in Myanmar in early February, the country’s first in more than three decades, has reshaped Myanmar’s political landscape. The country had been on a shaky path toward some kind of democracy, following the 2015 election landslide for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), and its repeat victory in the November 2020 national elections. Now, the coup has taken Myanmar back to some of its darkest days.

U.N says it is 'essential' that aid work continue in Myanmar after military coup

REUTERS

Reuters Staff
FEBRUARY 12, 2021

Demonstrators march with signs to protest against the military coup and demand for the release of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in Yangon, Myanmar, February 12, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer

(Reuters) - The United Nations said on Friday it is essential that lifesaving humanitarian assistance continue to be delivered in Myanmar, after a military coup on Feb. 1 that has sparked mass protests across the country.

“The UN and its partners have, for many years, been responding to humanitarian needs caused by conflict and natural disasters in Myanmar,” said Ola Almgren, the U.N. Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar.

US hits Myanmar with sanctions, aid cuts, export bans in bid to reverse military coup

abc NEWS

Conor Finnegan
11 February 2021, 

  U.S. leverage may be limited with generals who've defied pressure for decades.

People in Myanmar take to streets to protest the military coup.

ABC News’ Ian Pannell reports on the nationwide protests taking place in Myanmar in the week since the military detained the country’s democratically-elected leader

The U.S. is implementing its first penalties against Myanmar's military leaders after declaring their overthrow of the democratically elected government last week a coup d'état.

What lies ahead for the Rohingya repatriation process after Myanmar’s military coup?

moderndiplomacy

Sourav Ghosh
February 12, 2021

A young Rohingya girl holds her brother outside a youth club in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. © UNHCR/Vincent Tremeau

With much hope and greater expectations, Myanmar resumed its democratic journey in 2011, ending more than half a century of military rule. However, within just a decade, the military has once again overthrown a democratically-elected government and seized power marking the end of democratic normalcy. Myanmar’s military coup happened on February 1, 2021, the same day when the parliament was scheduled to reconvene following the general election that took place in November last year. In the election, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party scored a landslide victory in both the houses of the Parliament. The coup took place just as Suu Kyi’s party, the League for National Democracy, was prepping up to form a new government. Finally, since Myanmar is engaged in trilateral talks with Bangladesh and China on the Rohingya repatriation issue, the military coup raises the question on what does the future hold for Rohingya repatriation process now?

What Myanmar’s Coup Means For The Rohingya

WAMU

Ashley Westerman
NPR | FEB 11

Rohingya refugees walk at the Balukhali refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, on Feb. 2. Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in camps in Bangladesh are condemning the military coup in their homeland and saying it makes them more fearful to return. A brutal counterinsurgency operation by Myanmar’s military in 2017 drove more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to neighboring Bangladesh.Shafiqur Rahman / AP

This month’s military coup in Myanmar has made an already dire situation for Rohingya refugees even worse, say human rights activists. Now, prospects are even more unlikely for hundreds of thousands to return to Myanmar from sprawling camps in neighboring Bangladesh.

“The coup is obviously good for no one,” says Matthew Smith, cofounder of the human rights advocacy group Fortify Rights. “But for the Rohingya, the risk is heightened. This is the military regime responsible for the atrocities over many, many years.”

29th Special Session of the Human Rights Council on the human rights implications of the crisis in Myanmar

Joint Statement by Tom Andrews, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
and the Coordination Committee

Geneva, 12 February 2021

Madam President, Distinguished members of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

I’m delivering this statement on behalf of my mandate and on behalf of the Coordination Committee of Special Procedures. In light of the subject matter of the session today, the Committee has asked me to deliver our joint statement.  

We thank you for convening this Special – and very timely - session.

Introduction: The Need for Action

The very act of convening this session makes an important statement of the gravity with which this Council views what can aptly be described as an outrageous and illegal act – a coup d’état of a duly elected government and its duly elected leaders.

This is the 29th time that a Special Session of the Human Rights Council has convened. It is noteworthy, that the 27th Special Session was also convened to focus on illegal actions taken by the Myanmar military against its own people––in that case, the mass atrocity crimes that were committed against the Rohingya ethnic minority.

လူ႔အခြင့္အေရး အထူးကိုယ္စားလွယ္ကို ျပည္ဝင္ခြင့္ပိတ္ဖို႔ စစ္အစိုးရညႊန္ၾကား

လြတ္လပ္တဲ့အာရွအသံ ( RFA )
ျမန္မာဌာန | သတင္းမ်ား
2021-02-12

ျမန္မာနိုင္ငံဆိုင္ရာ ကုလသမဂၢလူ႔အခြင့္အေရး အထူးကိုယ္စားလွယ္ မစၥတာေသာမတ္ အင္ဒ႐ူး Thomas Andrews။Photo: RFA

  

ျမန္မာနိုင္ငံဆိုင္ရာ ကုလသမဂၢလူ႔အခြင့္အေရး အထူးကိုယ္စားလွယ္ မစၥတာေသာမတ္ အင္ဒ႐ူး Thomas Andrews ကို ျပည္ဝင္ခြင့္ဗီဇာမေပးဖို႔ နိုင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီးဌာနက ဆုံးျဖတ္ထားတယ္ဆိုတဲ့ သတင္းေတြ ထြက္ ေပၚေနပါတယ္။

နိုင္ငံျခားေရးဝန္ႀကီးဌာန ျပည္ေထာင္စုဝန္ႀကီးကိုယ္စား၊ ညႊန္ၾကားေရးမႉးခ်ဳပ္ ေဒၚမာလာသန္းထိုက္ လက္မွတ္ ေရးထိုးထားတဲ့ စာတေစာင္ လူမႈကြန္ရက္မွာ ပ်ံ႕ႏွံ့ေနၿပီး၊ အဲဒီစာမွဦ မစၥတာ အန္ဒ႐ူးစ္ကို ဘယ္ဗီဇာအမ်ိဳးအ စား ကိုမွ ထုတ္မေပးဖို႔ ညႊန္ၾကားထားတာကို ေတြ႕ရပါတယ္။

Facebook Limits Spread Of Posts From Myanmar’s Military Government

Forbes

Rachel Sandler

Forbes Staff
Business

I cover breaking news.

TOPLINE 

Facebook said Thursday night it would reduce the spread of content from Myanmar’s military, taking its most aggressive step yet to moderate content as tensions rise following a coup earlier this month.

A woman uses her mobile phone to check Facebook in Yangon on February 4,2021 as Myanmar's generals ... [+] AFP VIA GETTY IMAGE

KEY FACTS

• Calling the situation in Myanmar an “emergency,” Facebook said it will reduce the distribution of all posts from military-run accounts and pages because they have “continued to spread misinformation.”

A Letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate

THE WHITE HOUSE

FEBRUARY 11, 2021 

 

STATEMENTS AND RELEASES

February 10, 2021

Dear Madam Speaker: (Dear Madam President:)

Pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), I hereby report that I have issued an Executive Order (the “order”) declaring a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Burma. The order responds to the February 1, 2021, coup in Burma by targeting the military and its leaders, their business interests, and their close family members. The order holds to account those responsible for unjustly arresting and detaining government leaders, politicians, human rights defenders, journalists, and religious leaders; rejecting the will of the people of Burma as expressed in elections held in November 2020; and undermining the country’s democratic transition and the rule of law.

U.S. 'Stands With The People,' Imposes Sanctions On Myanmar's Coup Leaders

nrp

SCOTT NEUMAN

February 11, 2021

Women protest on Wednesday against the military coup that toppled the government led by Aung San Suu Kyi earlier this month. The Biden administration on Thursday announced sanctions against several of the coup leaders.Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on 10 current and retired top-ranking leaders in Myanmar's military following a coup earlier this month that toppled the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

In a statement issued Thursday afternoon, the Treasury Department announced it was freezing U.S.-based assets belonging to the sanctioned individuals. The list includes six members of the newly installed junta, including its head, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, and his deputy, Soe Win. Hlaing was already on a U.S. sanctions list from 2019, when he was targeted for the army's brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in the country's western Rakhine state.