US Sanctions Chinese Official for Role in Religious Persecution

VOA

Voice of America
13th May 2021,

The United States has sanctioned a Chinese Communist Party official for involvement "in gross violations of human rights, namely the arbitrary detention of Falun Gong practitioners for their spiritual beliefs."

The sanctions against Yu Hui, former office director of the Central Leading Group on Preventing and Dealing with Heretical Religions of Chengdu, Sichuan Province, were announced as Secretary of State Antony Blinken unveiled the State Department's annual Report on International Religious Freedom.

Yu Hui and his family are no longer allowed to enter the U.S., according to a news release.

100 days in power, Myanmar junta holds pretense of control

The News & Observer

GRANT PECK ASSOCIATED PRESS
BANGKOK
MAY 12, 2021

FILE - In this March 30, 2021, file photo, anti-coup protesters stand beside burning tires as they fortify their position against the military during a demonstration in Yangon, Myanmar. One hundred days since their takeover, Myanmar’s ruling generals maintain just the pretense of control over the country. There are fears the military takeover is turning Myanmar into a failed state. (AP Photo, File) AP

After Myanmar’s military seized power by ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, it couldn’t even make the trains run on time. State railway workers were among the earliest organized opponents of the February takeover, and they went on strike.

Health workers who founded the civil disobedience movement against military rule stopped staffing government medical facilities. Many civil servants were no-shows at work, along with employees of government and private banks. Universities became hotbeds of resistance, and in recent weeks, primary and secondary education has begun to collapse as teachers, students and parents boycott state schools.

မောင်တောတွင် နယ်ခြားစောင့်ရဲနှင့် ARSA တို့ကြား တိုက် ပွဲဖြစ်

ဧရာဝတီ
12 May 2021

မောင်တောနယ်စပ်တွင် တွေ့ရသော နယ်ခြားစောင့်တပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင် တဦး / မင်းအောင်ခိုင်

ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်၊ မောင်တောမြို့နယ် နှစ်နိုင်ငံနယ်စပ် မိုင်တိုင်အမှတ် ၅၀ အနီးတွင် အာဏာသိမ်း စစ်ကောင်စီ ၏ နယ်ခြား စောင့် ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့ နှင့် ARSA အဖွဲ့တို့ကြား ယနေ့ နံနက်ပိုင်းက တိုက်ပွဲဖြစ်ပွားခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရသည်။

ဘာဆန်ချာကျွန်းဟာ ရိုဟင်ဂျာတွေကိုထားဖို့ လုံခြုံတဲ့နေ ရာလို့ ဘင်္ဂလား‌ဒေ့ရှ်ပြော

လွတ်လပ်တဲ့အာရှအသံ ( RFA )
May 12'2021

■ အမ်ဖန် ဆိုက်ကလုန်းမုန်တိုင်းကြောင့် ဘင်္ဂလား‌ဒေ့ရှ် ကမ်းရိုးတန်းတလျှောက်မှာ ထိခိုက်ပျက်စီးခဲ့ပေမယ့် ဘာ ဆန်ချာကျွန်းဟာ မုန်တိုင်းဒဏ်ကို ခံနိုင်တဲ့အတွက်  ရိုဟင်ဂျာဒုက္ခသည်တွေကို ထားဖို့ အလုံခြုံဆုံးနေ  ရာတခု ဖြစ်တယ်လို့ ဘင်္ဂလား‌ဒေ့ရှ် ဘေးအန္တရာယ်စီမံခန့်ခွဲရေးနဲ့ ကယ်ဆယ်‌ရေးဝန်ကြီးက ပြောလိုက်ပါ တယ်။

ဒါကြောင့် ကော့ဆက်ဘဇားခရိုင် ဒုက္ခသည်စခန်းတွေက ရိုဟင်ဂျာတွေကို ဘာဆန်ချာကျွန်း‌ပေါ်  ပြောင်းရွှေ့နေရာချထားနိုင်တယ်လို့  ဆိုပါတယ်။

ရခိုင် မောင်တောမှာ နယ်ခြားစောင့်ရဲနဲ့ ARSA တိုက်ပွဲဖြစ်

VOA 

မြန်မာပိုင်းအစီအစဉ်
သားညွန့်ဦး

12 ေမ၊ 2021

မြန်မာ-ဘင်္ဂလားဒေ့ရှ် နှစ်နိုင်ငံနယ်စပ်အကြားရှိ "no man's land" ကိုကာရံထားသည့် ခြံစည်းရိုးနားတွင် လုံခြုံရေးတာဝန်ယူထားသည့် မြန်မာ နယ်ခြားစောင့် တပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင်များ။ (တောင်ပြိုလက်ယာကျေးရွာအနီး၊ မောင်တောမြို့) (ဇွန် ၂၉၊ ၂၀၁၈)

ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ် မောင်တောမြို့နယ်က နယ်ခြားစောင့်ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့ကို ARSA အကြမ်းဖက်အဖွဲ့က လာရောက်ပစ် ခတ်ခဲ့တာကြောင့် ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင်တစ်ဦး ဒဏ်ရာရရှိခဲ့ပြီး ARSA ဘက်က တဦး ကျဆုံးခဲ့ပါတယ်။ တိုက်ပွဲတွေ ရပ်စဲနေတဲ့ ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်မှာ အခုရက်ပိုင်းအတွင်း ဒါဟာ ပထမဆုံးတိုက်ပွဲ ဖြစ်ပွားခဲ့တာလည်း ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ဒီအကြောင်း ရန်ကုန်ကလာတဲ့ သတင်းအပြည့်အစုံကိုတော့ ကိုသားညွန့်ဦး က တင်ပြပေးပါမယ်။

Myanmar: Journalists who fled coup face Thailand deportation

B B C  

Analysis

Johnathan Head

11 May 2021

Many journalists who have been covering protests in Myanmar have been arrested

Three journalists and two activists who fled from Myanmar are set to go on trial in Thailand on charges of illegally entering the country.

If found guilty they are likely to be deported back to Myanmar, where they say their lives would be in danger.

The trial was to begin on Tuesday in Chiang Mai but was postponed for another six days.

Since the military coup on 1 February, dozens of journalists have been arrested and charged in Myanmar.

Myanmar poet’s body returned to family with organs missing

Aljazeera
10 May 2021

Prominent cultural figures and celebrities have emerged as key supporters of opposition to the February 1 coup.

Demonstrators march during an anti-military coup protest in Mandalay on Monday [Stringer/EPA]

Myanmar poet Khet Thi, who wrote in resistance to the generals who seized power on February 1, has died after being detained by the security forces and his body was returned with the organs removed, his family said on Sunday.

A spokesman for the country’s military leaders did not answer calls to request comment on the death of Khet Thi, who had penned the line “They shoot in the head, but they don’t know the revolution is in the heart.” The poet was 45, according to his Facebook page.

Myanmar coup: ‘No sign’ of end to brutal crackdown on all fronts

UN News

Peace and Security
11 May 2021

Unsplash/Gayatri Malhotra, Protestors calling for democracy in Myanmar.

One hundred days since the Myanmar military seized power, the "brutal" repression of protesters has continued, despite all international efforts to end the violence, the UN rights office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday.

“The military authorities are showing no sign of letting up in their brutal crackdown on opponents in a bid to consolidate their hold on power”, spokesperson Rupert Colville told journalists at a media briefing.

Myanmar coup: 100 days of turmoil

Dhaka Tribune
AFP
May 10th, 2021

An anti-coup protester walks past burning tires after activists launched a ‘garbage strike’ against the military rule, in Yangon, Myanmar on March 30, 2021 Reuters

The generals stage a coup on February 1, detaining Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi and her top allies in pre-dawn raids

Myanmar's military seized power on February 1, ousting the civilian government and arresting its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

The 100 days that have followed have seen mass street protests, bloody crackdowns by the junta, economic turmoil and growing international concern.

Bhashan Char Relocation: Bangladesh’s Effort Appreciated by UN

moderndiplomacy
May 11, 2021
Shaikh Abdur Rahman

Bhashan Char. Image source: dhakatribune.com

Bhashan Char, situated in the district of Noakhali, is one of the 75 islands of Bangladesh. To ease the pressure on the digested camps in Cox’s Bazar and to maintain law and order, Bangladesh has relocated about 18,500 Rohingya refugees from the overcrowded camps to the island since December last year. The Rohingya relocation plan to Bhashan Char aligns with the Bangladesh government’s all-encompassing efforts towards repatriation. The initial plan was to relocate 100,000 of the more than a million refugees from the clogged camps to the island. From the onset of the relocation process, the UN and some other human rights organizations criticized the decision pointing to remoteness and sustainability. UNHCR showed their concern over the island’s susceptibility to seasonal storm and flood. They proposed for a “technical assessment” of the Bhashan Char facilities.

If Dhaka joins Quad, it’ll harm ties with Beijing

The Daily Star
Unb, Dhaka
May 11, 2021

Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming has said Bangladesh should not join "Quad", a US-led initiative, and Dhaka's relations with Beijing will "substantially get damaged" if it joins the initiative.

He termed "Quad" a military alliance aiming against China's resurgence and its relationship with neighbours.

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The ambassador said Quad is a "narrow-purposed" geopolitical clique, and Bangladesh should not join it as the country will not derive any benefit from the initiative.

The US, India, Japan and Australia are part of an informal strategic alliance the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad as it is known.

"History has proved again and again such partnership surely damages our neighbours' own social, economic development and people's well-being," Ambassador Li said.

Global Islamophobia: China, India, and Beyond

INTERNATIONAL POLICY DIGEST
Mohamed Elshekh
MAY 10, 202

State-sponsored persecution and unlawful vigilantism characterize the sociopolitical conditions of many Muslim minority communities. The French Senate’s latest proposal to ban the hijab in public settings and the ongoing exodus of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar spotlight only a few manifestations of Islamophobia in countries across the globe. The laws and rhetoric against Islam and Muslims have led to violent killings, mass migration, and even genocide. These are not merely isolated case studies of Islamophobia but global trends that need to be challenged. Governments have mobilized targeted efforts against the beliefs and practices of Muslims, effectively rejecting international standards which safeguard religious pluralism and the freedom to worship.

24 Rohingyas rescued while being trafficked to Malaysia

The Daily Star

Star Digital Report 

May 11, 2021

Police rescued 24 Rohingyas -- 14 female, five male, and five children -- from Teknaf upazila of Cox's Bazar while being trafficked to Malaysia.

The law enforcers also arrested four alleged human traffickers -- Md Ali Chand, Nurul Amin, Rashida Begum, and Razia Begum -- during two separate drives in Borodail Jahajpura and Jaliaghata villages yesterday (Monday), Md Hafizur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Model Police Station, told The Daily Star.

Study in the U.S.

Press Release: U.S. Embassy Resumes Student Visa Appointments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 11, 2021

Yangon – The Consular Section at the U.S. Embassy will open visa interview appointments for student visa applicants later this month.

Students in Myanmar deserve the opportunity to pursue their education in the United States. The U.S. Embassy in Myanmar is committed to supporting the people’s aspirations for a brighter future through cultural and academic exchange.

Wife of Rohingya refugee seeks help from Suhakam

FMT

Samuel Chua
May 10, 2021

Maslina Abu Hassan and her son Muhammad Ridwan at the Suhakam office.

KUALA LUMPUR: Fearful of threats and intimidation, Rohingya refugee Zafar Ahmad Abdul Ghani has not stepped out of his house for twelve months.

His family received threatening text messages, his wife’s car tyres were slashed recently, and they live in constant worry every day – and the wife is now seeking a meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to help protect her family.

It began in April last year when hateful remarks and threats against Rohingya refugees flooded Facebook and Twitter, in the wake of fake news that an activist from the community demanded that they be granted citizenship.

အာရကန် (ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်) မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအေနာက်ဘက် ဒေသမှ ပဋိပက္ခမြေ

နိုင်ငံရေးပါတီ စာရင်း

အောက်ဖော်ပြပါ စာရင်းထဲက ပါတီ တစ်ခုချင်းစီရဲ့ အကြောင်းကို က လစ်နှိပ်ပြီး ဖတ်ရှုနိုင်ပါတယ်။

၁။ မြိုတိုင်းရင်းသား ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးပါတီ

၂။ တိုင်းရင်းသား စည်းလုံးညီညွတ်ရေးပါတီ

၃။ လားဟူ အမျိုးသားဖွံ့ဖြိုးတိုးတက်ရေးပါတီ

၄။ ကိုးကန့် ဒီမိုကရေစီနှင့် ညီညွတ်ရေးပါတီ

၅။ ပအိုဝ်းအမျိုးသားအဖွဲ့ချုပ်(PNO)ပါတီ

၆။ ဒီမိုကရက်တစ်ပါတီ(မြန်မာ)

၇။ ကယန်းအမျိုးသားပါတီ

၈။ ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်အမျိုးသားအင်အားစုပါတီ

၉။ ကရင်ပြည်သူ့ပါတီ

၁၀။ “ဝ”အမျိုးသားစည်းလုံးညီညွတ်ရေးပါတီ

Rights group says Israel may still be arming Myanmar; NGOs call for arms embargo

THE TIMES OF ISREAL

EDITH M. LEDERER
8 May 2021,

Israel’s police training and vehicle supplies ended in 2017, but deliveries of surveillance equipment may be ongoing amid coup, Amnesty International official says

Myanmarese residents in Israel protest agaisnt the military coup wich took place in Myanmar, outside The Chinese Embassy in Tel Aviv on February 15, 2021. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — More than 200 global organizations urged the UN Security Council on Wednesday to impose an arms embargo on Myanmar, saying the time for statements has passed and immediate action is needed to help protect peaceful protesters against military rule and other opponents of the junta.

A statement by the non-governmental organizations said the military “has demonstrated a callous disregard for human life” since their February 1 coup, killing at least 769 people including 51 children as young as six years old and detaining several thousand activists, journalists, civil servants, and politicians. Hundreds of others have disappeared, it said.

OPINION - Purge genocide culprits from democratic leadership: Myanmar

AA

Maung Zarni

08.05.2021

Hesitating to take stand against Rohingya genocide is costing $1B to National Unity Government and blocks its global recognition

File Photo

The author is coordinator of the UK-based Free Rohingya Coalition, general secretary of Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia, and a fellow of the Genocide Documentation Center in Cambodia

LONDON

It was excruciatingly painful for me to watch the four-minute question and answer between US Congressman Brad Sherman and Kyaw Moe Tun, Myanmar’s pro-democracy permanent representative to the UN during the virtual hearing, entitled the Unfolding Crisis in Burma hosted by US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on May 4.

Myanmar army says no ASEAN envoy visit until stability restored

Aljazeera

8 May 2021

At least 774 people have been killed and more than 3,700 detained in the military’s crackdown on opponents as army raids against ethnic rebels surge.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the coup, which unleashed anger amongst a public unwilling to tolerate a return to military rule [Stringer/Reuters]

Myanmar’s ruling military, which is facing nationwide protests against the coup that removed the elected government three months ago, has said that it would not agree to a visit by a Southeast Asian envoy until it could establish stability, prompting concerns that it would carry out more deadly violence against demonstrators and ethnic minorities.