By Salai Elaisa Vahnie
Chinland Guardian

February 27, 2007-New York: Cheery Zahau of Women League of Chinland ( WLC) spoke today at the United Nations held the panel discussion at its 51st Session of Commission on the Status of Women at the UN Headquarters building in New York. The panel discussion focused on discrimination and violence against women in Burma and Sudan. The panelists presented about rape and sexual violence in both countries where Mass Rape have been practiced as a State Sanctioned Weapon.

In her panel presentation, Cheery, coordinator of WLC, figured the total number of victims documented in several different sources of reports prepared by Women organizations in Burma to be as many as 1,859 girls and women.   more »

By Salai Za Uk Ling
www.chinlandguardian.net

23 February 2007 – Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian authorities on Wednesday detained a 2 week-old refugee baby and her Chin parents after the parents tried to register the child’s birth with the National Registration Department here in Kuala Lumpur.

The new-born child and both her parents were placed in custody yesterday afternoon when the parents tried to register the child as a person born in Malaysia. As of late this evening, they remain in detention at the National Registration Department office in Damansara. Under Malaysia’s immigration law, every child born in the country must be registered within 14 days of birth.

According to a relative who accompanied them to the office yesterday, both parents of the baby are unwell. The mother reportedly still hasn’t completely recovered from child birth and was still bleeding at the time of being detained. The father also had just been released only a few hours earlier from hospital where he was treated for temporary paralysis of the limbs when they were placed in immigration custody. “I was waiting outside of the office until the office closed only to find out that they had been detained inside,” the relative told Chinland Guardian.

Dawt Hlei Tial, the mother, is registered a principal with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as a Person of Concern to the office and is awaiting a final decision on her refugee status. According to the relative, the father has also been notified to appear for interview with UNHCR.

The detention came only a few weeks after Malaysian Home Affairs Minister made a public statement in which he threw criticism at UNHCR for “interfering” with law enforcement’s operations against “illegal immigrants” in the country. In his statement, the Minister further said that his government does not recognize the functions of UNHCR in Malaysia.

According to sources from the Home Ministry, Malaysia currently detains more than 2,000 persons from Burma alone of which a third of them are Chin asylum seekers and refugees. Last year, Home Minister Radzi Sheik Ahmad was quoted by the Malaysian newspaper as saying that his government would intensify crackdowns on “illegal immigrants” despite overcrowded detention centers. “If they [illegal immigrants] have to sleep on the floor next to each other, then so be it,” he was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times.

“We are constantly dealing with arrest and detention every single day,” says Salai San Aung, Secretary of Chin Refugee Committee. According to CRC records, the organization has so far secured the release of 78 Chin refugees in February alone from various police lock-ups and detention.

CHRO is deeply concerned and dismayed by the recent statements made by Malaysia’s Home Affairs Minister, Datuk Seri Radzi Sheikh Ahmad, regarding United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Malaysia. CHRO urges the Minister to consider the implications of his statements in conjunction with the realities of the refugee situation in Malaysia.

On 1 February 2007, the Minister reportedly criticized UNHCR for getting in the way of the operations of agencies such as RELA and the Immigration Department. The Minister further indicated that Malaysia “accepts UNHCR’s presence, but not their powers.”   more »

The Chinland Guardian has recently posted an interview with Benedict Rogers, the author of the recent report on religious persecution in Burma by Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

I should note that my previous post on the topic was a response to other blogger's reactions to the article and report rather than a response to the report itself or the author. The report hadn't even been released at that point in time. If you follow 'Burma' on the blogosphere, then like me, you noticed a significant increase in activity after The Independent article about this report was published. Most of those blog posts were either from Christian bloggers, or from non-religious bloggers who held it up as an example of why religion was bad. But, there were few bloggers who made the effort to acknowledge the bigger story of Burma or called for people to become more informed. I have to wonder if all the other Christian bloggers calling for prayer would have an equal amount of compassion for those Chin who don't go to church, who aren't the same denomination as them, or who aren't even Christian.

I've never closely followed Benedict Roger's work or his writing, but I was pleased to know that he shares an objective, universal view of human rights wherein religous freedom lies.

...I was always a little bit reluctant to highlight too much the issue of religious persecutions because I thought I took the view that everybody in Burma is suffering, although of course I always mentioned religious persecution alongside other human rights issues. But I didn’t want to single out Christians above other people. But when organisations and individuals who were approaching this issue, not from a Christian perspective, said to me, “Why don’t you do a report on this Christian persecution,” I couldn’t really ignore that. That’s the main prompting to do it.

What's unfortunate is that trying to publicise human rights abuses and situations like Burma's is such a minefield of public perception and politics. Those reporting and working on the issues from the a human rights perspective have to do their best to get the word out to a world where a basic understanding human rights is lacking.

The Chinland Guardian site seems to be down at the moment, so I'm including the full transcript of the interview after the cut.   more »