‘Hundreds more’ Rohingya homes razed in Rakhine
Malaysia accused of ‘abuse of law’ over crackdown
MORE than 1,000 homes have been razed in Rohingya villages in northwest Myanmar during a military lockdown there, according to analysis of satellite images from Human Rights Watch released yesterday that fly in the face of government denials.
Troops have poured into a strip of land along the Bangladesh border, an area which is largely home to the stateless Muslim Rohingya minority, since a series of coordinated and deadly attacks on police border posts last month.
Up to 30,000 people have been displaced by the ensuing violence, according to the UN, half of them over a two-day period when dozens died after the military brought in helicopter gunships.
Security forces have killed almost 70 people and arrested some 400 since the lockdown began six weeks ago, according to state media reports, but activists say the number could be far higher.
Witnesses and activists have reported troops killing Rohingya, raping women and looting and burning their houses. The government has refused to allow in international observers to carry out a full investigation.
A Rohingya man named Salaman said he helped to bury the bodies of a man and a woman who were shot by soldiers in the village of Doetan on Saturday.
“Soldiers came in to Doetan village in the evening of the 19th about 5pm,” he said. “Most of the men from the village ran away because they are afraid of being arrested and tortured. Then they [the soldiers] started shooting and two were killed.”
Rights activist Chris Lewa, whose Arakan Project works in northern Rakhine, confirmed the account and said two babies were also swept away as villagers tried to flee across a river.
Independently verifying facts on the ground has been hampered, however evidence of widespread destruction to RIGHTS groups condemned Malaysia’s government yesterday for a crackdown on organisers of a weekend anti-government rally, including the arrest of the protest leader under a tough law aimed at terrorism.
Tens of thousands of people flooded Kuala Lumpur with the yellow colours of the reformist movement Saturday to demand Prime Minister Najib Razak resign and face justice over a massive corruption scandal.
Authorities arrested over a dozen people before, during and after the demonstration including Maria Chin Abdullah, the leader of the “Bersih” civil society alliance that staged the rally.
Most detainees have since been released but Chin remains in solitary confinement under a national security law that allows detention without charge for 28 villages is continuing to mount.
Human Rights Watch said yesterday that by using satellite imagery it had identified 820 more structures destroyed in five Rohingya villages between November 10-18. In total, the rights group said 1,250 buildings had been destroyed during the military lockdown.
Presidential spokesman Zaw Htay played down the latest satellite images.
“What we have seen on the ground is not that widespread,” he said.
“Both the government and the military have strongly prohibited any human rights violations, especially against women and children.” days and can bring a lengthy prison sentence.
Six Asian human rights organisations in a joint statement called the crackdown a grave breach of basic rights. “These arrests violate international human rights standards,” it said, calling for all those arrested to be freed and all charges dropped.
The statement was released by the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development, Fortify Rights, Human RightsWatch, the International Commission of Jurists and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance.
The groups said they were especially “alarmed” at Chin’s detention under a national security law introduced in 2012 by Najib with a promise it would not be used against political oppo- nents. “However, the authorities are instead using it to prevent the exercise of fundamental human rights, constituting an abuse of law,” the statement said.
The protest was the second in 15 months by Bersih to highlight allegations that billions of dollars were plundered from sovereign fund 1MDB, Najib’s pet investment project.
Najib, 63, and 1MDB deny wrongdoing. But the US Justice Department earlier this year detailed an audacious campaign of fraud and money-laundering by his family, associates and an unnamed “Malaysian Official 1” – an apparent thinly veiled reference to Najib.
Najib last year fired the attorney-general and shut down domestic investigations. His government has increasingly throttled the media and whistle- blowers to contain the scandal.
Bersih yesterday said Chin was being held in a tiny windowless cell with no mattress. Bersih is “shocked and outraged that the authorities have gone to such extreme lengths to silence their critics”, it said.
It called for international pressure on authorities and said nightly vigils would be held on her behalf at central Kuala Lumpur’s Independence Square.
Since the 1MDB scandal exploded last year, opponents accuse him of an outright lurch toward autocracy to suppress it.
Last week a leading opposition politician was convicted of releasing confidential documents on the scandal, and the chief editor of the country’s leading independent news website was charged over a 1MDB-related news video.