New York police officials said on Monday that 19-year-old Trevor Bickford, charged with two counts of attempted murder and two counts of attempted assault for allegedly attacking police with a machete on New Year’s Eve, kept a diary in which he expressed a desire to join the Taliban and die as a “martyr” in the cause of Islamic extremism.
Facebook (now known as Meta) is facing new calls from Amnesty International to pay reparations to the Rohingya people for the company’s alleged role in inciting ethnic violence in Myanmar.
Unidentified gunmen on Wednesday shot and killed Mohib Ullah, a high-profile advocate for the Rohingya, at a refugee camp for the Muslim minority group in Bangladesh, local police confirmed to Reuters on Thursday.
A magistrate judge in Washington, D.C. on Thursday ordered social media giant Facebook to turn over records pertaining to accounts that were shuttered in 2018 because they were linked to violence committed against the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar.
The Bangladesh Navy on Tuesday shipped nearly 2,000 Rohingya refugees to a remote, flood-prone island that surfaced just 20 years ago in the Bay of Bengal.
Myanmar’s top general indirectly accused China of backing terrorist groups in the country in a recent interview with Russian state media, the Hindustan Times reported Thursday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping was conspicuously invisible during the worst periods of the coronavirus epidemic in January, earning him as much criticism as his authoritarian regime would allow from its subjects, who accused him of everything from poor leadership to cowardice. Xi’s travel plans during January took him to Myanmar, which he has been working to bring closer to China ever since the West recoiled in disappointment and horror from Myanmar’s abuse of the Rohingya Muslims.
Rohingya refugees living in the United States are “frustrated and distraught” over the prospect that President Trump may further reduce the number of refugees that are resettled every year, possibly even to zero.
The government of Bangladesh on Thursday cleared 3,450 Rohingya Muslim refugees to return to their homes in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, but not a single one of the 295 families approached by Bangladeshi and United Nations officials was willing to go. The Bangladeshis were left with a line of empty trucks and buses pointed at the Myanmar border.
June 2019 is an “especially menacing time” for Christians both on the domestic and international fronts, writes Christian persecution expert John L. Allen in a report Sunday.
Bangladesh last week again postponed plans to begin relocating 100,000 Rohingyas from refugee camps on the Burma (Myanmar) border to the remote island of Bhasan Char in the Sea of Bengal, about an hour’s boat trip from the mainland.
This month, Myanmar (Burma) signed a series of memos of understanding (MOUs) for joint construction with China to build the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet blasted China for its treatment of the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang province.
Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, detained in Myanmar since December, were sentenced to seven years in prison on Monday for “exposing state secrets” in their reporting on the massacre of Rohingya Muslims.
Contents: Genocide of Rohingyas in Burma (Myanmar) appears to be almost complete; Syria, Cameroon, Sudan Darfur genocides follow the same pattern
Around 2,000 people from the Christian ethnic Kachin community are in need of urgent medical attention after fleeing to the jungle in order to escape clashes between Kachin guerrillas and Myanmar’s security forces.
NYT lauds “act of mercy” by Tablighi Jamaat terrorist Akayed Ullah. The paper described the group as a “peaceful Muslim outreach” org
Israel reportedly offered humanitarian aid to Bangladesh to help the southeast Asian country cope with the hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya refugees that have been expelled from Myanmar.
Bangladesh’s Dhaka Tribune reported Thursday that Akayed Ullah, the jihadist responsible for a failed suicide bombing in New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, visited a Rohingya refugee camp during his last trip to the country to conduct charity work.
The Rohingya received very little sympathy from Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun of Syria, who said during an interview with Indian media that Rohingya refugees are a security threat to host countries such as India, while the government of Myanmar has been targeted by a propaganda campaign.
On Tuesday, the effective (but not official) leader of Myanmar, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, gave her first major speech on the Rohingya crisis. Reviews of the address from international observers have been mixed, with some applauding her for unambiguously condemning human rights violations, while others say she appeared to question whether the Rohingya are suffering such violations at the hands of her government.
U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Patrick Murphy is on his way to Myanmar, where he will meet with officials to discuss the government’s response to Rohingya insurgents and the resulting mass flight of Rohingya across the border into Bangladesh. He will not, however, be allowed to visit the conflict zone and see for himself how government forces have been treating civilian populations.
On Wednesday, the unofficial leader of Myanmar (formerly Burma) canceled a trip to the U.N. General Assembly, ostensibly because she is needed at home to deal with a terrorist insurgency. Most observers outside Myanmar believe the formerly celebrated, Nobel-winning Aung San Suu Kyi is hiding from the international community that once lauded her, because her government is conducting a campaign of repression – perhaps even ethnic cleansing or genocide – against the Rohingya Muslim minority.
The language of “dramatic increases” and “soaring crime rates” common to public policy discussions seems inadequate for the meth epidemic in Bangladesh, where drug seizures in rural Islamic communities have increased by eighty thousand percent over the past nine years.
Contents: Thousands flee from Myanmar into China to escape army clashes with ethnic militias; Myanmar faces an investigation for ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims
Contents: Trying to keep up in a world in a state of hysteria; Leading Muslim government advisor in Myanmar (Burma) is assassinated; Ethnic cleansing of Myanmar’s Rohingyas threatens regional stability
An armed insurgent group of oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority members in Myanmar who carried out a deadly attack against border guards in October is receiving support from diaspora members in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, reports the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG).
Contents: China puts army on high alert along border with Burma (Myanmar); Burma’s army appears to be exterminating Rakhine State Rohingyas
Contents: Communal violence grows in Myanmar (Burma) between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims; Syria and Russia resume bombings of women and children in Aleppo
Contents: Myanmar (Burma) signs partial, but not nationwide, peace agreement; Myanmar (Burma) peace agreements since 1989; Burma’s brutal problems with the Rohingya and Kokang continue
Contents: Burma (Myanmar) approves birth control law targeting Rohingya Muslims; Burma’s government vacillates between repression (stability) and reforms (human rights); Lessons learned from Ireland’s vote on gay marriage
Contents: Indonesia and Malaysia back down and accept stranded Rohingya migrants; Iran backs down and allows inspection of aid ship to Yemen;
Nearly 800 migrants from Burma and Bangladesh were rescued by local fishermen when their boat sank off the eastern coast of Indonesia. The migrants were brought to shore, given food and water, and placed in a warehouse.
