• Burma election: Rohingya Muslims look to sea not ballot box as new wave of Asian 'boat people' prepa
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[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/burmamyanmar/11942819/Burma-election-Rohingya-Muslims-look-to-sea-not-ballot-box-as-new-wave-of-Asian-boat-people-prepares-to-flee.html]Source[/url] [quote]Yasmin, a young mother-of-four, knows only too well the dangers that will imperil her family as she awaits the start of the new “sailing season” for the persecuted Rohingya Muslims of Burma. Even if the rickety overcrowded vessels do not sink in the waters of the Andaman Sea, there is the risk of death from starvation, disease and beatings during the voyage. And those who make it to land in Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia could then face the risk of another hellish ordeal, held for ransom at jungle camps by trafficker gangs or sold off as slave labour. But so desperate and pitiful are the conditions for the stateless Muslim minority, held in squalid internment camps in predominantly Buddhist Burma, that Yasmin is determined to join Asia’s next wave of “boat people”. In these sprawling holding centres strung along the cyclone-battered Bay of Bengal, the unpredictable experiment in democracy in the country also known as Myanmar is already a non-event. There are no rallies, no posters, not even any candidates, for Sunday’s landmark elections as the minority Muslim community here has been wiped from the voting lists by official decree under controversial citizenship rules. Rohingya may not be able to cast a ballot on Sunday, but they are still at the centre of an election campaign as the target of anti-Muslim sentiment stoked by Buddhist nationalist politicians and radical monks. And although Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party is expected to triumph, the former political prisoner who was detained for her battle for democracy and free speech has been strikingly silent about their plight. Indeed, at a press conference on Thursday, the Nobel laureate urged the international media not to “exaggerate” the suffering of the Rohingya, just days after international legal experts said the community was facing the early stages of possible genocide. In Sittwe, residents of the camps told The Telegraph that agents for the trafficking gangs are already actively recruiting with promises of new lives abroad as the monsoons end for the year and boats prepare to sail again. The dangers are highlighted in a new investigation by Amnesty International that reveals that hundreds, maybe thousands, more refugees and migrants perished at sea earlier this year than first estimated.[/quote] Watch as the world turns its eyes away
Why doesn't the UN step in for once and stop twiddling their thumbs up each others asses
[QUOTE=Billy-Bobfred;49058773]Why doesn't the UN step in for once and stop twiddling their thumbs up each others asses[/QUOTE] China and Russia have made it pretty clear, Asia is off limits to the UN, otherwise there wouldn't be nearly as many dictators, civil wars, and outright genocides there
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