Habib Siddiqui

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon convened a meeting in the UN headquarters on Myanmar on Fri day, April 24, 2015. In his speech to the participants of the Partnership Group for Peace, Development and Democracy in Myanmar , Mr. Ban warned Myanmar that stability in its most sensitive region can’t be achieved unless it addresses the issue of citizenship for minority Rohingya Muslims. He told a Myanmar delegation that the U.N. has seen “already troubling signs of ethnic and religious differences being exploited” as elections approach later this year. Speaking at the meeting, India ’s permanent representative to the UN, Asoke Kumar Mukerji noted that in Rakhine State , the Myanmar Government "has taken steps towards restoration of law and order and has expressed readiness to cooperate with UN and other humanitarian agencies regarding rehabilitation of those affected by violence." "We urged member states to agree to the discontinuation of annual resolutions on the human r...

    While the majority of Rohingyas of Myanmar today are Muslims, there are Hindu Rohingyas, too. Mahi Ramakrishnan, whose gradma was a Rohingya has made a documentary that tells the tale of the Rohingyas, starting with their escape from ethnic cleansing in their country to the false refuge they found in countries such as Malaysia. Rohingyas of Myanmar  mostly live the western state of Arakan (Rakhine) bordering Bangladesh.     You can read about her project by clicking here or read below. Here is another news report made in 2013 about the reasons that Rohingya refugees were forced to flee to Malaysia.   ===================== KUALA LUMPUR , April 24 ― Mahi Ramakrishnan’s connection to the Rohingyas was not just of documentary maker and subject, but one of blood: her grandmother is also a Rohingya. A journey that was started to discover her grandmother’s roots eventually blossomed into a curiosity to learn about the oppressed Muslim...

Human trafficking is a serious problem in our time when criminals are taking advantage of people who are trying to get out of a country that had seemingly failed them. Many are persecuted people who have been pushed out of their homes. They fancy that they will find a better place than the living hell that they had been living.  In our time, no people is worse suffering than the Rohingyas of Myanmar. They are victims of genocidal campaign by Myanmar's Buddhists, esp. those from the Rakhine state, who see their eviction as a way to claim their land and properties. Many Rohingyas are now becoming victims of criminal human traffickers who have no compassion.    Here below is a story of their plight as they are pushed to the see by the racist Buddhists of Myanmar. ==================== THE US State Department should assign Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Malaysia, and Bangladesh a tier-three ranking in its forthcoming Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report in order to encourag...

How is the life inside IDP (internally displaced person) camps in Akyab (now called Sittwe), the capital city of Arakan (Rakhine) state of Myanmar? S ome 140,000 Rohingya now live in segregated camps, which  have rightly been described as concentration camp like. Most Rohingya IDPs of Myanmar lost everything that they possessed - homes, business centers, shops, mosques and schools, which were burned down or destroyed in a series of genocidal campaigns by the Rakhine Buddhists plus government security forces, aided by local and central government politicians. The racist Rakhines don't want them to live inside Myanmar, let alone living side by side.  Here is a video that shows life inside such an IDP camp.

The news below is from the Sun Daily . LONDON : Relatives of 24 rubber-plantation workers killed in Malaysia in 1948 by British troops pressed their decades-old demand for a public inquiry in Britain's highest court on Wednesday. The Dec 12, 1948 incident, dubbed the "Batang Kali massacre", occurred during the so-called Malayan Emergency, when Commonwealth forces fought a communist-inspired revolt in the British colony. The case has potential ramifications for Britain's duty to investigate historical cases involving its troops, including during the Northern Irish conflict known as The Troubles. The Supreme Court case had its opening sitting on Wednesday and is being heard by five judges. It is being brought by four appellants against Britain's foreign and defence ministries. Lawyers for the families argue that Britain has a responsibility to commission an independent inquiry under the European Convention on Human Rights, even though the convention was s...

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT The Oslo Conference to End Myanmar’s Persecution of the Rohingyas Venues:  The Nobel Institute and Voksenaasen Oslo, Norway 26-28 May 2015 Refugees International (RI), Justice for All (USA), the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), Harvard Global Equality Initiative (HGEI), and International State Crime Initiative Queen Mary University of London (ISCI) and Den norske Burmakomité will be holding a 3-day international conference to discuss the plight of over 1-million Rohingyas of Myanmar (Burma) and explore concrete ways to end their decades-long persecution. George Soros who escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary sees a parallel between his experience of life under the Nazis in 1944 and the human conditions for the Rohingyas in Western Myanmar, which he witnessed first-hand during a recent visit to the country. At the conference, iconic leaders from diverse backgrounds including Soros, Nobel Peace laureates Mairead Maguire, Desmond Tutu,...

Before the Battle of Plassey, Bengal (today’s Bangladesh , and the states of West Bengal, Bihar, Tripura, Meghalaya , Assam and Odisha states of India ) was a very rich, prosperous province with enough for everyone to live a very decent life. As a matter of fact, the inhabitants of Bengal had a much better standard of living compared to most Europeans living at the time. But under the British rule, the tax burden became simply unbearable rising fivefold (from 10% in the Nawabi period to 50% of the value of the agricultural product) within a very short period of time. The agriculture sector was ruined by a faulty system, which encouraged cotton, opium poppy and indigo production over rice cultivation. Moreover, the East India Company (EIC) cared only about tax/revenue collection and nothing else. They did not do anything to improve the irrigation system. To make things worse, the EIC practiced an unfair trade practice by imposing a disproportionately heavy duty on goods i...

Here below is heart-breaking story of a Rohingya family shared in the PRI. Persecuted inside Myanmar for their ethnicity and religion, and forced to live in concentration camps as Internally Displaced People (IDPs), many are risking lives to find a better place. Sometimes, they could only send a loved one hoping that he or she will at least survive while they rot and die in the killing fields of Myanmar. But unfortunately, many times they fall prey to human traffickers who are not abusive, but don't mind murdering them, if they are not satisfied. You can also listen to the PRI report by clicking here. ================ It’s been 47 days since Abdul, a scrawny Rohingya male in his 40s, sent his 14-year-old daughter Dildar away from the Internally Displaced Persons camp where they’d been living in squalid conditions with little food or health care. Dildar left on a fishing boat crammed with other Rohingya Muslims escaping oppression in Rakhine state in the westernmost par...