Myanmar General Discussion (non military)

[alaungphaya]

Myanmar’s Opposition Leader and Military Chief Hold Unprecedented Talks | The Diplomat

Myanmar's Opposition Leader and Military Chief Hold Unprecedented Talks
Myanmar’s prominent opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and its military chief held talks for the first time.

View attachment 139201
By Ankit Panda
October 31, 2014

In an unprecedented move, Myanmar’s reformist president, Thein Sein, flanked by several military leaders, including military chief Min Aung Hlaing, took part in talks with Myanmar’s opposition leader and prominent pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday. The talks were the first time Suu Kyi and Min Aung Hlaing met and represent a potential move towards deliberative democracy after years of military rule. The country will head to the polls in 2015 to elect a new government after years of gradual political reform under Thein Sein. Myanmar has been under direct rule by a military junta for nearly 50 years.

The meeting between Thein Sein and Suu Kyi comes on the heels of U.S. President Barack Obama calling for “inclusive and credible” elections in Myanmar during separate phone calls with the two politicians. Obama will visit Myanmar for the East Asia Summit in mid-November, and used his phone call with Thein Sein to stress the importance of addressing the deteriorating humanitarian situation facing Myanmar’s minority Muslims in the country’s western state of Rakhine. Myanmar’s Rakhine State has been gripped by communal violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, resulting in 200 deaths and over 14,000 internally displaced people.

So far, few details have been released about the substance of Thein Sein and Suu Kyi’s meeting, but they are likely to broadly focus on the country’s political reform process. Regardless, the mere fact that Suu Kyi is being included in talks with the current president before the election speaks to the extent to which the upcoming 2015 elections may represent the first mature democratic elections in Myanmar. During the last general election in 2010, there were widespread accusations of electoral fraud orchestrated by the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP, Thein Sein’s party). Suu Kyi was still under house arrest then, and her party — the National League for Democracy (NLD) — was excluded entirely.

Suu Kyi remains ineligible to run for the presidency due to a constitutional provision barring candidates with foreign spouses or children running for the presidency; her late husband and son are both British citizens. The NLD continues to seek a constitutional amendment to change this provision in the interest of having Suu Kyi contest the presidency. Suu Kyi has publicly declared her interest in running for the presidency. She will likely push the issue of a constitutional amendment with Thein Sein. Myanmar’s general election remains a year away and is expected to take place in late October or early November 2015.

Suu Kyi, who is a member of parliament after her party won a majority of the contested seats in the 2012 by-elections, will almost certainly play a major role in the post-election scenario in 2015. According to most predictions, the NLD is expected to win a significant number of seats in the legislature. Thein Sein himself confirmed late last year that he would not stand for election in 2015. Instead, Shwe Mann will run as the candidate for the USDP.

According to the Associated Press, critics of the talks claim that they represent an attempt by the government to put up appearances of democratic progress ahead of the East Asia Summit in less than a month. Details of what was covered in the talks are expected to emerge over the next day.

I don't think the elections will be outright rigged. Everything in between, though, seems to be fair game. I don't see how they can keep ASSK from running but for me she is not an automatic choice for my vote. It's a shame that Thein Sein has decided to step down as he has shown he is an intelligent and rational man, atleast. I am not so sure on his successor, Thura Shwe Mann, who is a career soldier (rather than career bureaucrat that Thein Sein was). Anyway, 2015 is a big litmus test and it's making the whole country very nervous.

 

[alaungphaya]

World Bank survey says reforms ‘urgent’
World Bank survey says reforms ‘urgent’
Written by Mizzima Published in Investment Read 174 times

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A new World Bank survey carried out in Myanmar says reforms of several sectors are urgent. Abdoulaye Seck, the World Bank country manager for Myanmar Photo: World Bank
Reforms of Myanmar’s investment climate are urgent across a number of areas, especially access to finance, land, electricity and skilled workers, according to new World Bank report just out.

The Enterprise Survey was carried out in the Spring of 2014, covering Yangon, Mandalay, Monywa, Taunggyi and Bago, according to a World Bank press release October 31.

The survey says addressing the key constraints of access to finance, land, electricity and skilled workers is critical to ensuring a fair and transparent business environment in which all private enterprises can grow and create jobs.

The survey of private sector firms in Myanmar included interviews from more than a thousand foreign and domestic non-agricultural businesses, in manufacturing, retail and other services. Some 23 percent of firms identified access to finance as the top barrier to their operations – just 30 percent of the surveyed firms have a bank account, by far the lowest figure in the region.

The survey comes out around the same time the World Bank issued their “Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency 2015” report that places Myanmar a dismal 177 out of 189 countries in terms of ease of carrying out business in the country.



“The findings from the survey offer not only a good snapshot of Myanmar’s current situation, but also allow comparison across countries, in order to assess the business environment and barriers facing firms doing business in Myanmar,” said Abdoulaye Seck, World Bank country manager in Myanmar.

He said the survey results and analysis will help inform government policy to create a level playing field that helps promote investment, productivity, growth and jobs.

More than a fifth of those surveyed indicated access to land as the main problem, while 17 percent and 9 percent cited access to electricity and access to skilled workers as their primary constraints, respectively.

The World Bank Group has conducted similar surveys in 130 countries with more than 130,000 firms across the globe.

The survey in Myanmar was supportedby the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, and has been carried out in close collaboration with the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development.

The financial system really, really needs an overhaul and we need to start tempting back he diaspora.

 

[TopCat]

UN Resolution Urges Myanmar to Drop Identity Plan

A new U.N. draft resolution takes aim at Myanmar's aggressive campaign to have its Rohingya Muslims identify as a term they reject, urging "access to full citizenship on an equal basis."
The European Union-drafted resolution, obtained Friday by The Associated Press, is one piece of international pressure on the Southeast Asian country to change its campaign, preferably before world leaders including President Barack Obama arrive for a regional summit in less than two weeks.
Myanmar's 1.3 million Rohingya have emerged as a sensitive issue as Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist state, tries to move away from decades of repressive military rule toward democracy.
The Rohingya have been denied citizenship and have almost no rights. Attacks by Buddhist mobs have left hundreds dead and 140,000 trapped in camps. Others are fleeing the country.
Authorities want to officially categorize the Rohingya as "Bengalis," implying they are illegal migrants from neighboring Bangladesh. The Rohingya counter that many of their families have been in Myanmar for generations. Effectively stateless, they are wanted by neither country and say the Myanmar government's campaign feels like an effort to have them systematically erased.
The vast majority of Rohingya live in the state of Rakhine. President Thein Sein, a former general, is considering a "Rakhine Action Plan" that would make people who identify themselves as Rohingya not only ineligible for citizenship but candidates for detainment and possible deportation.
The resolution now before the General Assembly's human rights committee is nonbinding, but a strong vote in its support would send a message that international opinion is not on Myanmar's side.

A Myanmar diplomat assigned to that committee, reached by telephone Friday for comment, said, "It's too early to say."
The resolution expresses "serious concern" about the Rohingya's status. It calls on the government to "allow freedom of movement and equal access to full citizenship for the Rohingya minority" and to "allow self-identification."
Myanmar's plan worries some in the Muslim world, and the Organization for Islamic Cooperation pushed for strong language in the resolution.
This week, Myanmar's ambassador to the United Nations, Tim Kyaw, told the General Assembly's human rights committee that his country is not "targeting a religion." He warned that "insisting on the right to self-identification will only impose obstacles to finding a lasting solution" to ethnic tensions.
Vijay Nambiar, the U.N. secretary-general's special adviser on Myanmar, told The Associated Press this week that Myanmar's government is facing increasing pressure to allow the Rohingya to identify as something other than Rohingya or Bengali.
But, Nambiar said, "In the immediate future, the government says that's not possible."


UN Resolution Urges Myanmar to Drop Identity Plan - ABC News

 

[TopCat]

Activists: Myanmar clinging to political prisoners

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar has freed more than a thousand political prisoners since former military rulers handed over power three years ago, a move that has smoothed the former pariah state's international rehabilitation. Now the government says the job is done. Human-rights activists and the U.S. say, not so fast.
President Thein Sein is preparing to disband a committee that determined which inmates were eligible for pardons and amnesties, even though its most outspoken member says more than two dozen prisoners still deserve to be released, including a monk who angered many fellow Buddhists and an air force pilot who complained about mistreatment.
As Myanmar prepares to host the Nov. 12-13 East Asian Summit, to be attended by President Barack Obama, the fate of the remaining prisoners is one of the nagging international concerns over what's proving a bumpy change to democracy, also troubled by sectarian violence against minority Muslims and the military's continuing grip on politics.
Meanwhile, jails are again filling up with hundreds of dissenters, including writers, peaceful protesters and farmers who stood up against land grabs by the rich and powerful.
One of them was in court Thursday: Htin Kyaw, who led a protest march criticizing the government earlier this year in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city. With the two-year sentence he received Thursday, he has now been convicted in each of the 12 townships he marched through; his lawyer said he will serve a total of 13 years and four months for disturbing public order.
The detentions are just part of the mixed human-rights record under Thein Sein, a former general who was elected in 2010 to end a half-century-long era of military dictatorship in the Southeast Asian country. Myanmar gained praise, and shed many international sanctions, as it lifted restrictions on speech and the press and set more than 1,300 political prisoners free. But crackdowns in recent months have revealed the limits of those changes.
View gallery

In this May 6, 2014 photo, activist Win Cho talks from a police truck upon arrival for his trial at …
Early last year, at the urging of the U.S., Myanmar set up a "scrutinizing committee" — consisting of government officials and representatives from civil society and political parties — to determine which prisoners should be released. Now it intends to replace the committee with a task force that would be controlled by the Home Ministry — the very institution that controls prisons.
One of the committee's members, Hla Maung Shwe, said the work of the panel is now complete. The government says only true criminals remain behind bars.
Bo Kyi, the committee's most outspoken member and a former political prisoner, disagrees. Since the late 1990s, he has compiled a list of political prisoners and supported the families of detainees. He said at least 28 are still held, and that the government has obstructed efforts to visit prisons and get information about inmates.
The U.S. State Department puts the number at around 30 to 40.
"Until these cases are resolved, I can't agree with the opinion of other committee members," Bo Kyi said. "We haven't finished our work. We cannot forget these men."
View gallery

In this Oct. 20, 2014 photo, Bo Kyi, a Myanmar former political prisoner, speaks during an interview …
He said the remaining junta-era inmates include:
—Moe Pyar Sayardaw, a 75-year-old monk arrested in 2010. He is serving 20 years in the Myitkyina prison in Kachin state for teaching a form of his faith that does not adhere to the official doctrine of the main government-controlled Buddhist body.
—Air force pilot Chit Ko, serving 10 years, after arguing he was technically eligible for discharge after a decade's service. When his request was refused, he took his complaints to the U.N. International Labor Organization and to the Internet, angering his superiors.
—Win Naing Kyaw, a former army captain accused of planning to leak military state secrets that were discovered on his laptop during a trip to Bangkok. He later claimed innocence, saying he only confessed after 42 days of being beaten, drugged and threatened.
—More than a dozen villagers from Shan, Kachin and Karen states. Myanmar's former military rulers claimed they were ethnic rebels, even though Bo Kyi said there was no evidence of that.
View gallery

In this Dec. 29, 2012 photo, activist Naw Ohn Hla argues with police officers during a protest march …
Bo Kyi said the government considers the outstanding cases sensitive and worries that, by releasing the prisoners, it would endure a backlash from military hardliners and increasingly politically powerful Buddhist extremists.
Minister of Information Ye Htut did not respond to questions from The Associated Press about remaining political prisoners. In the past he has said all of them have been freed.
But it's not just a legacy issue. New arrests and detentions continue into Thein Sein's third year in office.
Around 200 people have been detained in the last year, including peaceful protesters, journalists and activists, according to Dave Matthieson, senior Myanmar researcher for Human Rights Watch.
Bo Kyi says another 500 to 1,000 farmers are reportedly behind bars for working land they say was unlawfully seized by the army, private corporations or cronies.
View gallery

Activist Htin Kyaw shouts upon his arrival at a township court to face his trial Thursday, Oct 30, 2 …
"New political prisoner cases have continued to arise due to restrictive laws remaining on the books," said Chanan Weissman, spokesman in the U.S. State Department's bureau of democracy, human rights and labor.
Yanghee Lee, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, reported to the General Assembly this week that the application of outdated security laws and a new flawed law on peaceful assembly serves "to criminalize and impede the activities of civil society and the media." She said sentences imposed are "disproportionately high."
Lee cited the case of Dr. Tun Aung, a community leader arrested after being called in by authorities to try to help calm Rohingya Muslim crowds who were leading riots against Buddhists in northern Rakhine state in June 2012. Accused of inciting the violence, he was sentenced to 17 years in jail. Thanks to strong international pressure, Tun Aung is now scheduled to be released next year.
Ahead of Obama's visit, U.S. officials are urging Thein Sein to pardon four journalists from the journal Unity who were charged under a colonial-era security law for a story in January about an alleged chemical weapons factory. They are currently appealing their seven-year sentences in Myanmar's supreme court.
The outlook looks less favorable for the junta-era detainees, particularly if scrutiny of their cases diminishes.
Bo Kyi said he's been told by the government he won't be included in the new prisoner task force.
"I'm being sidelined," said Bo Kyi, who lives in Myanmar but still relies on the Czech travel documentation from his exile years. "They say it's because I'm not a citizen, but that's nonsense, it's just an excuse."

Activists: Myanmar clinging to political prisoners - Yahoo News

 

[somsak]

Are Muslim brothers? Is there any Muslim nation welcoming and hosting these Rohingya refugees? Isn't problem solved if there is a Muslim country willing to receive these people?

 

[TopCat]

Are Muslim brothers? Is there any Muslim nation welcoming and hosting these Rohingya refugees? Isn't problem solved if there is a Muslim country willing to receive these people?

Should all Buddhist and whores be dumped in Thailand?

 

[TopCat]

On Visit, Obama to Face a Backsliding Myanmar

WASHINGTON — When President Obama made his historic visit to Myanmar two years ago, he answered critics who charged that he was prematurely rewarding the country’s military-dominated rulers by saying, “If we waited to engage until they achieved a perfect democracy, my suspicion is we’d be waiting an awful long time.”

Prophetic words, it turns out, as the president returns to Myanmar again this month. The country, also known as Burma, has lost the reformist sheen it had in 2012, and its backsliding poses a challenge to Mr. Obama, for whom the opening to this exotic, tragic country will rank as one of the diplomatic achievements of his presidency.

Yet Mr. Obama is doggedly continuing to engage: On Thursday, he called President Thein Sein to press him on the pace of constitutional reforms and on the treatment of Muslims in remote western Myanmar, where thousands of people are languishing in internment camps after violent persecution by the Buddhist majority.
Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, summarizing the president’s message to Myanmar, “but if you do not take steps toward alleviating the humanitarian situation, that is going to have a profound effect on Burma’s standing and the perceptions of its progress.”

Mr. Obama is going to Myanmar now only because it is the host for two Asian regional summits, which the president — as part of his much-vaunted pivot to the region — has promised to attend. Under normal circumstances, he would not have been likely to visit the country again until after elections scheduled for 2015 that will be an obvious benchmark to judge Myanmar’s progress from reclusive military dictatorship to democracy.

Instead, Mr. Obama will visit during a messy period when the easy steps for the Myanmar government — like the release of political prisoners — are behind it, and the hardest parts of the transition loom ahead. They include reducing the military’s role in the political process, ending decades of civil war between the Buddhist majority and an array of ethnic minorities, and stopping the violence against the Muslims, known as Rohingya.

The recent death of a Burmese journalist, who was being held in custody by the military, has also aroused fears of a government crackdown on the press, which had become lively after Mr. Thein Sein lifted strict censorship rules and the blocking of Internet sites.

“There are so many elements that are going wrong,” said John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Once the Burmese sanctions were lifted, the reforms started to stall.”

Myanmar’s government appears to recognize the need to show progress before Mr. Obama’s visit. On Friday, Mr. Thein Sein met with the opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is ineligible to seek the presidency because of a provision in the Constitution that bars people with spouses or children who hold foreign citizenship from the top job. (Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s husband was British, as are her two children.)
A spokesman for the president said after the meeting that the government might amend the Constitution before the elections, in which Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, is expected to sweep to victory. She and the democrats have focused on eliminating the military’s veto over constitutional amendments, calculating that it will be easier to push through other changes after that.

In a separate phone call to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, Mr. Obama talked about “the need to ensure an inclusive and credible process for conducting the 2015 elections,” according to the White House. He plans to meet her in Yangon, Myanmar’s historic capital, after attending the East Asia Security summit in the new purpose-built capital, Naypyidaw.

While in Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon, administration officials said, Mr. Obama will also hold a town-hall-style meeting with young people, similar to one he held in Kuala Lumpur in April, where he spoke about Malaysia’s legacy of conflict between Muslims and Chinese and Indian minorities.

That will give him a platform to speak publicly about the need to accelerate political reform and to curb the violence against the Rohingya. But he will have to choose his words carefully: Even courageous figures like Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, have been loath to speak out too forcefully on the issue. The Rohingya are deeply resented in Myanmar, viewed by many as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.

“To help the Myanmar people get beyond this will require some sophisticated, thoughtful nudging,” said Lex Rieffel, an expert on Myanmar who is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “This cannot be solved from the bully pulpit.”

Mr. Rhodes, a close aide to Mr. Obama, has taken a special interest in Myanmar and traveled there last summer. He defended the administration’s decision to keep engaging Myanmar’s leaders because he said it offered the best way to keep its transformation on track. The economic sanctions, he noted, were suspended rather than revoked.

On Friday, the Treasury Department placed a senior Burmese official and member of the pro-military party on a blacklist for undermining the political transition and “perpetuating violence, oppression and corruption.” The official, Aung Thaung, had close ties to Than Shwe, the general who ran the junta before Mr. Thein Sein, according to American officials.

But having lifted the broader sanctions, Mr. Sifton said, the United States no longer had much leverage over Myanmar. The streets of Rangoon and Mandalay are filled with business people from Japan and South Korea; if the administration were to restore a ban on investment, Myanmar’s Asian neighbors would happily fill the void.

That Myanmar’s political transition would hit bumps was inevitable, administration officials said, given that the reforms threaten the vested interests of the military. Nor is it a cause for despair, they said.

“We are vigilant to potential threats to the reform process,” said Tom Malinowski, the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor. “Our job isn’t to measure progress; our job is to promote progress.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/01/w...contentCollection=Asia Pacific&pgtype=article

 

[somsak]

Should all Buddhist and whores be dumped in Thailand?

Bhuddists/ Bhudda never say Bhuddists are brothers. However, if you study Thai immigration history, it is basically yes. Thai King usually allow migrants of all religion to settle in Kingdom for refugee. Example, Vietnamese Christian who escaped Vietnamese King execuations.

 

[alaungphaya]

Are Muslim brothers? Is there any Muslim nation welcoming and hosting these Rohingya refugees? Isn't problem solved if there is a Muslim country willing to receive these people?

Yes. That would solve the problem completely. They want to leave, anyway, and good luck to them.

 

[alaungphaya]

Activists: Myanmar clinging to political prisoners

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar has freed more than a thousand political prisoners since former military rulers handed over power three years ago, a move that has smoothed the former pariah state's international rehabilitation. Now the government says the job is done. Human-rights activists and the U.S. say, not so fast.
President Thein Sein is preparing to disband a committee that determined which inmates were eligible for pardons and amnesties, even though its most outspoken member says more than two dozen prisoners still deserve to be released, including a monk who angered many fellow Buddhists and an air force pilot who complained about mistreatment.
As Myanmar prepares to host the Nov. 12-13 East Asian Summit, to be attended by President Barack Obama, the fate of the remaining prisoners is one of the nagging international concerns over what's proving a bumpy change to democracy, also troubled by sectarian violence against minority Muslims and the military's continuing grip on politics.
Meanwhile, jails are again filling up with hundreds of dissenters, including writers, peaceful protesters and farmers who stood up against land grabs by the rich and powerful.
One of them was in court Thursday: Htin Kyaw, who led a protest march criticizing the government earlier this year in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city. With the two-year sentence he received Thursday, he has now been convicted in each of the 12 townships he marched through; his lawyer said he will serve a total of 13 years and four months for disturbing public order.
The detentions are just part of the mixed human-rights record under Thein Sein, a former general who was elected in 2010 to end a half-century-long era of military dictatorship in the Southeast Asian country. Myanmar gained praise, and shed many international sanctions, as it lifted restrictions on speech and the press and set more than 1,300 political prisoners free. But crackdowns in recent months have revealed the limits of those changes.
View gallery
View attachment 141670
In this May 6, 2014 photo, activist Win Cho talks from a police truck upon arrival for his trial at …
Early last year, at the urging of the U.S., Myanmar set up a "scrutinizing committee" — consisting of government officials and representatives from civil society and political parties — to determine which prisoners should be released. Now it intends to replace the committee with a task force that would be controlled by the Home Ministry — the very institution that controls prisons.
One of the committee's members, Hla Maung Shwe, said the work of the panel is now complete. The government says only true criminals remain behind bars.
Bo Kyi, the committee's most outspoken member and a former political prisoner, disagrees. Since the late 1990s, he has compiled a list of political prisoners and supported the families of detainees. He said at least 28 are still held, and that the government has obstructed efforts to visit prisons and get information about inmates.
The U.S. State Department puts the number at around 30 to 40.
"Until these cases are resolved, I can't agree with the opinion of other committee members," Bo Kyi said. "We haven't finished our work. We cannot forget these men."
View gallery
View attachment 141671
In this Oct. 20, 2014 photo, Bo Kyi, a Myanmar former political prisoner, speaks during an interview …
He said the remaining junta-era inmates include:
—Moe Pyar Sayardaw, a 75-year-old monk arrested in 2010. He is serving 20 years in the Myitkyina prison in Kachin state for teaching a form of his faith that does not adhere to the official doctrine of the main government-controlled Buddhist body.
—Air force pilot Chit Ko, serving 10 years, after arguing he was technically eligible for discharge after a decade's service. When his request was refused, he took his complaints to the U.N. International Labor Organization and to the Internet, angering his superiors.
—Win Naing Kyaw, a former army captain accused of planning to leak military state secrets that were discovered on his laptop during a trip to Bangkok. He later claimed innocence, saying he only confessed after 42 days of being beaten, drugged and threatened.
—More than a dozen villagers from Shan, Kachin and Karen states. Myanmar's former military rulers claimed they were ethnic rebels, even though Bo Kyi said there was no evidence of that.
View gallery
View attachment 141672
In this Dec. 29, 2012 photo, activist Naw Ohn Hla argues with police officers during a protest march …
Bo Kyi said the government considers the outstanding cases sensitive and worries that, by releasing the prisoners, it would endure a backlash from military hardliners and increasingly politically powerful Buddhist extremists.
Minister of Information Ye Htut did not respond to questions from The Associated Press about remaining political prisoners. In the past he has said all of them have been freed.
But it's not just a legacy issue. New arrests and detentions continue into Thein Sein's third year in office.
Around 200 people have been detained in the last year, including peaceful protesters, journalists and activists, according to Dave Matthieson, senior Myanmar researcher for Human Rights Watch.
Bo Kyi says another 500 to 1,000 farmers are reportedly behind bars for working land they say was unlawfully seized by the army, private corporations or cronies.
View gallery
View attachment 141673
Activist Htin Kyaw shouts upon his arrival at a township court to face his trial Thursday, Oct 30, 2 …
"New political prisoner cases have continued to arise due to restrictive laws remaining on the books," said Chanan Weissman, spokesman in the U.S. State Department's bureau of democracy, human rights and labor.
Yanghee Lee, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, reported to the General Assembly this week that the application of outdated security laws and a new flawed law on peaceful assembly serves "to criminalize and impede the activities of civil society and the media." She said sentences imposed are "disproportionately high."
Lee cited the case of Dr. Tun Aung, a community leader arrested after being called in by authorities to try to help calm Rohingya Muslim crowds who were leading riots against Buddhists in northern Rakhine state in June 2012. Accused of inciting the violence, he was sentenced to 17 years in jail. Thanks to strong international pressure, Tun Aung is now scheduled to be released next year.
Ahead of Obama's visit, U.S. officials are urging Thein Sein to pardon four journalists from the journal Unity who were charged under a colonial-era security law for a story in January about an alleged chemical weapons factory. They are currently appealing their seven-year sentences in Myanmar's supreme court.
The outlook looks less favorable for the junta-era detainees, particularly if scrutiny of their cases diminishes.
Bo Kyi said he's been told by the government he won't be included in the new prisoner task force.
"I'm being sidelined," said Bo Kyi, who lives in Myanmar but still relies on the Czech travel documentation from his exile years. "They say it's because I'm not a citizen, but that's nonsense, it's just an excuse."

Activists: Myanmar clinging to political prisoners - Yahoo News

All political prisoners should be released BUT those journalists were very silly. They were really pushing the limits of press freedoms. Defence installations are a matter of national security - what do they expect to happen if they were poking around?


"Lee cited the case of Dr. Tun Aung, a community leader arrested after being called in by authorities to try to help calm Rohingya Muslim crowds who were leading riots against Buddhists in northern Rakhine state in June 2012. Accused of inciting the violence

Source: https://defence.pk/threads/myanmar-general-discussion-non-military.337134/page-15#ixzz3HtH8ugB7"

This is the kind of stuff that never gets reported.

 

[alaungphaya]

Bhuddists/ Bhudda never say Bhuddists are brothers. However, if you study Thai immigration history, it is basically yes. Thai King usually allow migrants of all religion to settle in Kingdom for refugee. Example, Vietnamese Christian who escaped Vietnamese King execuations.

The Burmese happily let in Buddhists from Bangladesh who want to leave because of the persecution they face there due to the current situation. You don't see anyone from Myanmar crying "Send them back to Bangladesh!"

You have to remember that all Muslims are part of the ummah as long as it's in their interests. There's no muslim unity. It's all a sham.

 

[INDIC]

@alaungphaya Can you tell me about the political history of Burma during British India years particularly between 1900-1937. Which political party was dominant in Burma during British India years and after separation in 1937.

 

[alaungphaya]

@alaungphaya Can you tell me about the political history of Burma during British India years particularly between 1900-1937. Which political party was dominant in Burma during British India years and after separation in 1937.

There were no political parties in British Burma. The separation between British Burma and the Raj was a grassroots movement led by students and a charismatic priest known as 'Sayar San'.

What would you like to know specifically?

Edit: Sayar San was after the separation. But I do know the separation was a grassroots movement and one of the key motivators was the arrival of workers and merchant class from British India.

Edit edit: Yes he was! I got my dates wrong. Sayar San was one of the first to rally for independent administration from the Raj. He was promptly executed by the British, though.

 

[TopCat]

The Burmese happily let in Buddhists from Bangladesh who want to leave because of the persecution they face there due to the current situation. You don't see anyone from Myanmar crying "Send them back to Bangladesh!"

You have to remember that all Muslims are part of the ummah as long as it's in their interests. There's no muslim unity. It's all a sham.

 

[TopCat]

Bhuddists/ Bhudda never say Bhuddists are brothers. However, if you study Thai immigration history, it is basically yes. Thai King usually allow migrants of all religion to settle in Kingdom for refugee. Example, Vietnamese Christian who escaped Vietnamese King execuations.

Read history of Rakhaine in Bangladesh and how they flee the persecution and found refuge in Bengal. Read half of Rohingyas who fled Myanmar and 1/2 of all of them found refuge in Bangladesh. You just cant push millions out of your country and expect a third country to accept them. 5/10000 can be done but millions or half of the population of Arakan??? You must be smoking something. We are already over burdened.

Besides its not only the finding refuge but those people have property in Myanmar. Will you leave all your life savings and your parental property only because some animal like neighbor want them for free?