Wed 4 Apr 2007
Two more boats carrying more than 150 Rohingya men from Burma, who said they left their homes because of political persecution by Burmese authorities, were detained on Tuesday off the western coast of South Thailand by marine police.
A boat carrying 93 men was detained around 1 p.m. and a boat carrying 68 men was detained a few hours later by the coast guard as the two boats approached Phang Nga Province in South Thailand, according to Grassroots Human Rights Education, which is providing the Rohingyas with food, clothing, and medicine and also helping Thai police with translation.
The Rohingyas were all men between age 15 to 42, the latest in a series of similar groups arrested in southern waters in the past six months.
Htoo Chit, the director of the GHRE who met with the Rohingyas, told The Irrawaddy the men were from Maungdaw and Buthidaung Townships in Arakan State, Burma. They each gave 10,000 to 15,000 kyat (US $8 -12) for the trip which took about 15 days. They went without food for five days, Htoo Chit said.
Htoo Chit said the men told him they left Burma because of the difficulties of survival due to discrimination and human rights violations, such as land confiscation and forced labor at the hands of Burmese authorities in their hometowns.
“They told us they knew they would be arrested in Thailand, but they came here because they wanted to escape from there,” Htoo Chit said. “I think the Burmese government has a responsibility to address this problem.”
If the Burmese junta doesn’t stop its abuse and solve the country’s political problems, the refugee and migration problems will continue, he said.
Htoo Chit said 161 Rohingyas are now living in an Immigration Center in Phang Nga Province, and they will most likely be deported to Burma after their cases are completed.
On Monday, a group of UN human rights experts, including special human rights rapporteur for Burma Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, called on the Burmese junta to stop discrimination against members of the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority concentrated in Arakan State.
A joint statement issued by six independent human rights experts said Burma’s 1982 Citizenship Law denied citizenship to the Muslim minority and “has seriously curtailed the full exercise of their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights and has led to various discriminatory practices,” the experts said. “As a consequence, thousands have fled to neighboring countries, in turn creating complex humanitarian situations in the region.”
The Rohingyas mostly reside in northern Arakan State which borders Bangladesh. About 40 boats carrying an estimated 2,000 Rohingyas have attempted to land on Thailand’s southern border since October 2006, according to the GHRE. The last boat, carrying 92 people, arrived in early February.
In previous cases, Thai authorities have deported Rohingyas to the Burmese border town of Myawaddy, where some of them re-enter Thailand to live illegally while others attempt to enter Malaysia illegally.