Rise in Bigotry Fuels Massacre Inside Myanmar

JANE PERLEZ

Sat, 1 March, 2014

DU CHEE YAR TAN, Myanmar — Under the pale moon of Jan. 13, Zaw Patha watched from her bamboo house as Mohmach, 15, her eldest child, was dragged from the kiosk where he slept as guardian of the family business. 

The men who abducted the boy struck him with the butt of a rifle until he fell to the dirt path, she said in an interview, gesturing with a sweep of her slender arms. Terrified, she fled into the rice fields. She assumes he is dead. 

Three doors away, Zoya, dressed in a black abaya, showed the latch on her front door that she said armed men had broken as they stormed in and began beating her 14-year-old son, Mohamed. She has not seen him since. 

The villagers’ accounts back up a UnitedNations investigation, which concluded that the attack on Du Chee Yar Tan that night resulted in the deaths of at least 40 men, women and children, one of the worst instances of violence against the country’s long-persecuted Rohingya Muslims. They were killed, the United Nations says, by local security forces and civilians of the rival Rakhine ethnic group, many of them adherents of an extreme Buddhist ideology who were angered by the kidnapping of a Rakhine policeman by some Rohingya men.

Quintana raises concerns over Du Chee Yar Tan investigation

The UN's rights envoy to Myanmar on Wednesday raised "serious concerns" over the impartiality of a government investigation into allegations of deadly attacks on Rohingya Muslims in unrest-torn Rakhine state.

Tomas Ojea Quintana warned that tensions in Rakhine, following two major waves of unrest that left around 140,000 people displaced and sparked anti-Muslim violence in other parts of the country, could" jeopardise the whole (Myanmar political) transition process".

He said domestic probes had so far failed to satisfactorily address claims of a recent eruption of violence in a remote part of the state, including "the brutal killing of men, women and children, sexual violence against women, and the looting and burning of properties".

Myanmar, whose sweeping political reforms have been overshadowed by religious bloodshed, has strongly denied civilians were killed but authorities said a police officer was presumed dead after a clash in January.

Myanmar Police Burn down Rohingya Homes in Rakhine State

GIANLUCA MEZZOFIORE

Wed, Jan 29,2014

Burmese police set fire to at least 70 Rohingya homes in the village of Du Char Yar Tan, where at least 48 Muslims were said to have beenkilled by a Buddhist mob amid renewed sectarian violence, it has been claimed.

Fire in Du Char Yar Tan                  Ministry of Information/Myanmar

Two eyewitnesses said that police burnt down the houses overnight. The village has been semi-deserted after the mob violence a week ago. Two hundred villagers were allowed to return in the area in the remote Maungdaw township in Rakhine state. 

"We are calling for an international investigation. Without protection, more Rohingya will die," Tun Khin, human rights activist and president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation in the UK, told IBTimes UK.

The Ministry of Information confirmed the incident on Facebook but blamed Muslim villagers who "burned their own homes".

The Burmese government has rejected international calls for a UN investigation into the recent massacre. Officials from the minister of foreign affairs denied that any Rohingya were killed but claimed that a policeman had been reported missing after he was attacked by Muslim villagers.

Myanmar army uses Rohingya women as sex slaves

Latest media reports show Rohingya women are forced into prostitution and sexual slavery at military bases across the Southeast Asian country.

The reports say Myanmar's security forces kidnap Rohingya women and girls and put them to forced labor and prostitution in military bases.

“The women have been beaten, drugged, and sexually assaulted by men wearing army fatigues,” media outlets quoted witnesses as saying.

The Muslim minority in Myanmar continues to face increasing persecution and hardship. They have no social status in Myanmar as the government denies them citizenship rights.

Those who flee Myanmar to neighboring countries, including Thailand, in hope of a better future face similar risks.

International bodies and human rights organizations accuse the government of turning a blind eye to the violence against Rohingya women.