AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT

Thailand: Ensure access to justice and protection for Rohingya asylum-seekers

Thai authorities must ensure the investigation into the alleged rape of a Rohingya asylum- seeker from Myanmar is impartial and that all those involved, including the police, are held accountable in a trial that meets international standards of fairness. Thailand has a responsibility to ensure effective protection, both in law and practice, of asylum-seekers and migrants arriving at its shores and living within its borders. On 27 May 2013, three Rohingya women and two girls, aged 9 and 12, left a government shelter in Phang Nga province to join two men who promised to take them to Malaysia to reunite with their husbands and other relatives in exchange for payment. One of the men was later identified as a police officer stationed in Khao Lak, Phang Nga province and the other was an undocumented Rohingya man from Myanmar. Between 9 and 11 June 2013, the Rohingya man allegedly held one of the women in a secluded location and repeatedly raped her.

By Reuters

Muhammad Muslim, 52, fled Myanmar in 1988 when the junta brutally suppressed a pro-democracy movement in the country then known as Burma.

As a Rohingya from western Rakhine state, he had no passport. Myanmar’s government does not grant citizenship to the ethnic Muslims whom they consider illegal Bangladesh immigrants — even those whose families have been in the country since the colonial British brought them in during the late 19th century.

Muslim left Myanmar illegally, so he has no other papers that tie him to his home country. He spent 17 years in Malaysia as an illegal immigrant, waiting in vain for legal refugee status. And now he waits with his wife, two adult children and 23 other Rohingyas in a dank, no-star hotel near Jakarta’s grubby port, hoping to get that status with the UN refugee office in Indonesia.

By Agence France-Presse

Yangon. Activists on Tuesday urged Myanmar President Thein Sein to “turn his words into action” after the former general promised to free all political prisoners by the end of the year.

“I guarantee to you that by the end of this year there will be no prisoners of conscience in Myanmar,” Thein Sein said Monday during a visit to London.

Pro-democracy campaigners, however, have accused the former junta premier of using a series of headline-grabbing amnesties to secure foreign aid and investment.

“President Thein Sein is very good at PR but he needs to turn his words into action,” said Bo Kyi of the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), who estimates there are still more than 150 political prisoners behind bars.

By Reuters

Anti-trafficking campaigners have produced mounting evidence of the widespread use of slave labor from countries such as Myanmar on Thai fishing boats, which face an acute labor shortage.

Fishing companies buy Rohingya men for between 10,000 baht ($320) and 20,000 baht ($640), depending on age and strength, said the smuggler in Phang Nga in southern Thailand.

He recounted sales of Rohingya in the past year to Indonesian and Singapore fishing firms. This has made the industry a major source of US concern over Thailand’s record on human trafficking. About 8 percent of Thai seafood exports go to supermarkets and restaurants in the United States, the second biggest export market after Japan.

By Olivia Rondonuwu

Bogor. Indonesia’s president and Australia’s newly reinstated Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Friday backed talks with originating countries to try to stem a tide of asylum-seeker boats staging perilous journeys to Australia.

Barely a week after ousting Julia Gillard in a dramatic party coup, Rudd held talks with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Indonesia on an issue that looms large at upcoming elections in Australia.

As the leaders met, the problem was highlighted anew when a vessel carrying about 80 asylum-seekers ran into trouble in seas south of Indonesia.

Despite Canberra banishing asylum-seekers to remote Pacific islands for processing, thousands of would-be refugees continue to attempt the sea crossing to Australia every year, often from transit hubs in Indonesia.