Rohingya say Myanmar targeted the educated in genocide

A Rohingya refugee boy holds his books as he leaves a makeshift school in a Mosque at Balukhali refugee camp near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. (File Photo: AP)
Updated 05 June 2018
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Rohingya say Myanmar targeted the educated in genocide

  • Soldiers targeted the educated, they said, so there would be no community leaders left willing to speak up against the pervasive abuse
  • An Amnesty International report from November documented a system of institutionalized discrimination and segregation of the Rohingya that was meant to erase their identity

BALUKHALI REFUGEE CAMP, Bangladesh: The last time Mohammed Hashim saw his brother alive, he begged for his life, his arms bound behind his back as soldiers marched the 35-year-old teacher away.
It was Aug. 26, the day after Rohingya Muslim separatist attacks on military outposts in the Rohingya homeland in western Myanmar. In their wake, Myanmar’s military and local Buddhists would respond with a campaign of rape, massacre and arson that has driven about 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh.
But more than a dozen Rohingya teachers, elders and religious leaders told The Associated Press that educated Rohingya — already subject to systematic and widespread harassment, arrests and torture — were singled out, part of Myanmar’s operation to drive the Muslim Rohingya from majority Buddhist Myanmar.
Soldiers targeted the educated, they said, so there would be no community leaders left willing to speak up against the pervasive abuse.
It’s an old tactic, according to those who study genocide — and often a precursor to killing.
“My brother apologized and pleaded with the military not to kill him; he showed them his ID card and said, ‘I’m a teacher, I’m a teacher.’ But the government had planned to kill our educated people, including my brother,” Hashim said.
He was interviewed at one of the teeming Bangladesh refugee camps that have sprung up along the hilly border with Myanmar since the Rohingya began fleeing in August. Hashim, who is also a teacher, ran for the hills and hid after the military surrounded his hamlet in northern Rakhine state, where most of the Rohingya lived. Others told similar accounts.
After the Aug. 25 attacks, soldiers in Maung Nu village, the site of a massacre, asked villagers: “Where are the teachers?“
Rahim, a 26-year old high school science and math teacher who was known to many soldiers because he taught their children at the local battalion school, saw the military coming and fled.
“I knew I was dead if I got caught. They were hunting me,” said Rahim, who, like some Rohingya, uses only one name. “They knew that I would always speak out for the people. They wanted to destroy us because they knew that without us they could do whatever they wanted to the rest of the Rohingya.”
Researchers see comparisons between what is happening in Myanmar and other genocides, including the Holocaust.
“Listening to these stories, it sounds so similar. First you take out the religious or the political leaders, and then you start going down to the civilian population and you start tightening things more and more,” said Karen Jungblut, research director at the USC Shoah Foundation, who has conducted interviews in the Bangladesh camps. “This was not just some random spurt of regional violence here and there because Myanmar felt it was being attacked by a ‘terrorist group.’ ... It felt way too organized.”
Thomas MacManus, a specialist in international state crimes at Queen Mary University of London who has researched the Rohingya since 2012, said: “The objective appears to be to destroy the Rohingya, and one way to do that is to destroy their culture and remove their history. It’s part of the genocide tactic.”
Interviews with about 65 refugees in a September report by the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner indicate that “the Myanmar security forces targeted teachers, the cultural and religious leadership, and other people of influence in the Rohingya community in an effort to diminish Rohingya history, culture and knowledge.”
This targeting was “well-organized, coordinated, and systematic ... thereby challenging the assertion that it was merely collateral damage of the military” operations after the August insurgent attacks.
The Buddhist majority has long reviled the Rohingya as “Bengali interlopers” in northern Rakhine state and suppressed their ability to maintain their culture and go to school.
“Literacy is not high with the Rohingya; it is difficult to get an education in the first place, so targeting the teachers is a similar path that you’ve seen and heard in other places that ended up in genocide,” said Jungblut.
An Amnesty International report from November documented a system of institutionalized discrimination and segregation of the Rohingya that was meant to erase their identity. Since an outbreak of Buddhist-Muslim violence in 2012, Rohingya children have been prevented from attending Buddhist schools, and official government teachers often refuse to come to Rohingya villages because of purported safety worries, the report said. That leaves the bulk of their education left to “local community schools staffed by untrained volunteer teachers.”
Teachers interviewed by AP said they were paid only by community donations, were banned from teaching the Rohingya language, history and culture, and could only speak Burmese; many said they were prohibited from using the word “Rohingya.”
“Teachers in school are their windows to the world,” Arif Hossein, 31, a former elementary school teacher from Khular Bil in Maungdaw Township. “They teach them the meaning of the word Rohingya. Who tells them about our history and about how long we have lived there as a community? Teachers do.”
In the months before Aug. 25, informers made it too dangerous to teach Rohingya language or culture, even in secret, according to a longtime headmaster at a middle school who spoke on condition of anonymity because of safety worries if he’s ever allowed to return home.
“I couldn’t speak out. Informers would follow me every day, every time I left the house. The government police would come at night and accuse me of giving the insurgents food, which was false, and my house was searched.”
After the 2012 violence, he said soldiers put him and 18 other elders and teachers face down on the ground, with their hands bound, laid a tarp over them and began stomping and beating them. He spent four years in prison, for allegedly burning homes, a charge he denies, and was released in 2016.
Four days before the Aug. 25 violence, he says about 300 soldiers surrounded his home. He was handcuffed with his son and brought to the school, where they saw other teachers and five mullahs. Soldiers confiscated anything they thought might have been used to help the insurgents. His son was kicked and beaten.
The headmaster fled to Bangladesh soon after the August killing began.
“There are some educated people left in my village, but they will never raise their voices,” he said, as another man wept silently, listening to him speak. “Things will get worse for the Rohingya because no one will speak out for them. They are too afraid. I think there will be no chance the Rohingya can stay in Myanmar. They all will come to Bangladesh.”
The penalty for speaking out can be harsh.
Months before the August crackdown, the military called a meeting in the village of Chein Kar Li to demand more money from villagers who wanted to fish the local rivers. Kafait Ullah, a 26-year-old primary school teacher, took a breath, steadied his shaking hands and rose to ask a question.
“Why do we need to give you so much money?” he asked.
He knew, with certainty, that he would be punished. “I was so scared that I was shaking, but I thought it was my responsibility to speak out for my community because they didn’t have money or education; they couldn’t talk for themselves,” Ullah recalled, in an interview at the refugee camp.
The retaliation began immediately.
He said he was fined and made to go every morning to a military camp and sign a piece of paper, so the soldiers could monitor his actions. They searched his home and threatened him with jail.
Others interviewed also described repression. They said the government monitored teachers, mullahs and other educated people, claiming they were working with outsiders to collect and send abroad information about human rights abuses meant to make Myanmar look bad.
“We are being targeted because people listen to us,” said Maulana Rahmat Ullah, 53, a mullah from Koe Fan Kauk/Khular Bil (in Maungdaw) village.
After Buddhist-Muslim violence broke out in October 2016, Ullah said that about 500 soldiers came to his village and gathered everyone in a clearing. The soldiers, who lived nearby and knew the villagers well, separated the mullahs and teachers and those with education from the group. Soldiers beat him unconscious with a heavy wooden club and kept him for two days in a crowded room, with no food or water. Ullah said the attack was because villagers had dared to speak about their oppression to visiting UN officials.
Tears streamed down Ullah’s face as he showed the torture scars on his arms and legs. “They knew I spoke up when others didn’t, and that I represented the uneducated, the people with no power.”
In the months before the Aug. 25 violence, the military again gathered the educated and ordered them not to talk with outsiders about what was happening to the Rohingya, Ullah said. Their homes were searched; their valuables were taken.
The rough treatment worked.
“They didn’t want us to speak out, and we didn’t. We couldn’t. I wanted to raise my voice, but they would have arrested me and tortured me,” Ullah said. “There are not enough people who know our history now to pass it down to the people. I am one of the last. We were under so much pressure for so long that it’s almost all gone. Who’s left to tell it?“


Tourist magnet Barcelona to cut cruise ship capacity

Updated 4 sec ago
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Tourist magnet Barcelona to cut cruise ship capacity

Spain’s second-largest city hosts one of the world’s busiest ports for cruise traffic
Cruise passenger numbers grew by 20 percent between 2018 and 2024

BARCELONA: Barcelona unveiled on Thursday a plan to reduce the number of cruise passengers arriving at its port, part of a wider trend to combat overtourism in Europe’s most popular destinations.

The city of Barcelona and the port authority signed an agreement to reduce the number of cruise ship terminals from seven to five by 2030, cutting traveler capacity from 37,000 to 31,000.

Spain’s second-largest city hosts one of the world’s busiest ports for cruise traffic, having received 3.65 million such passengers in 2024, according to Barcelona’s Tourism Observatory.

Cruise passenger numbers grew by 20 percent between 2018 and 2024, Barcelona’s Socialist mayor Jaume Collboni said in a statement.

“For the first time in history, limits are being set on the growth of cruise ships in the city,” Collboni added.

The demolition of three existing cruise terminals and the construction of a new one will cost 185 million euros ($215 million), adding to previous investments since a first protocol was signed in 2018.

Tourism has helped drive the dynamic Spanish economy, making it the world’s second most-visited country with a record 94 million foreign visitors last year.

But the boom has fueled anger about unaffordable housing and concern that mass visitor numbers are changing the fabric of neighborhoods, sparking protests in tourism hotspots.

With its Mediterranean beaches and world-famous cultural landmarks such as the Sagrada Familia basilica, Barcelona is on the front line of mass tourism, receiving millions of visitors every year.

It announced last year a plan to scrap around 10,000 tourist rental apartments by 2028 in an attempt to ease local discontent.

Elsewhere in Europe, the popular Italian city of Venice introduced a charge for day visitors last year, while Greece is implementing a tax on cruise ships docking at its islands.

Russia says Trump’s new weapons pledge a signal for Ukraine to abandon peace efforts

Updated 41 min 49 sec ago
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Russia says Trump’s new weapons pledge a signal for Ukraine to abandon peace efforts

  • Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, condemned the move
  • “It is obvious that the Kyiv regime consistently perceives such decisions by the collective West as a signal to continue the slaughter and abandon the peace process“

MOSCOW: US President Donald Trump’s decision to ramp up arms shipments to Ukraine is a signal to Kyiv to abandon peace efforts, Russia said on Thursday, vowing it would not accept the “blackmail” of Washington’s new sanctions ultimatum.

Trump announced a toughened stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine on Monday, setting a 50-day deadline for Moscow to reach a ceasefire or face sanctions. The US also promised more missiles and other weaponry for Kyiv.

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, condemned the move.

“It is obvious that the Kyiv regime consistently perceives such decisions by the collective West as a signal to continue the slaughter and abandon the peace process,” Zakharova told a news briefing in Moscow.

Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine in February, 2022, has led to Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War Two, with the United States estimating that 1.2 million people have been injured or killed.

Moscow says it was forced to launch the war to protect itself from an expanding NATO. Ukraine and most Western governments call Russia’s war a colonial-style land grab.

Russian forces now control around one fifth of Ukrainian territory and are slowly but steadily advancing across a vast frontline, sustaining what the US believes are heavy losses along the way.

Trump, who has made ending the conflict a priority of his administration, is threatening “100 percent tariffs on Russia” and secondary sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil if Moscow does not agree to a ceasefire deal by his 50-day deadline.

“An unprecedented number of sanctions and restrictions have been imposed on our country and our international partners. There are so many of them that we view the threat of new sanctions as mundane,” Zakharova said.

“The language of ultimatums, blackmail, and threats is unacceptable to us. We will take all necessary steps to ensure the security and protect the interests of our country.”

’PROXY WAR’
Both Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Trump have repeatedly cautioned over the escalatory risks of the conflict, which they cast as a proxy war between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.

US efforts to broker peace negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, however, have faced repeated setbacks.

Russia says it is ready to hold further talks, but has made it clear it wants all of the territory of four Ukrainian regions it has claimed as its own — terms which Ukraine say are unacceptable and would amount to a capitulation.

Moscow is also keen to revive its battered bilateral relationship with the United States if possible, though Trump’s latest moves on Ukraine have soured the atmosphere.

Trump said on Monday that he was “very unhappy” and “disappointed” with Putin and cast his decision to send more arms to Ukraine as intended to jolt Russia toward peace.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that Putin intends to keep fighting in Ukraine until the West engages on his terms for peace, unfazed by threats of tougher sanctions, and that his territorial demands may widen as Russian forces advance.

Earlier on Thursday, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia had no plans to attack NATO or Europe. But he said it should respond and, if necessary, launch preemptive strikes if it believed the West was escalating what he cast as its full-scale war against Russia.

“We need to act accordingly. To respond in full. And if necessary, launch preemptive strikes,” Medvedev was quoted as saying.

The remarks by Medvedev, reported in full by the TASS state news agency, indicate that Moscow sees the confrontation with the West over Ukraine escalating after Trump’s latest decisions.

“What is happening today is a proxy war, but in essence it is a full-scale war (launches of Western missiles, satellite intelligence, etc.), sanctions packages, loud statements about the militarization of Europe,” Medvedev said, according to TASS.


Slovenia bars two far-right Israeli ministers

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir (L) and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Updated 50 min 40 sec ago
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Slovenia bars two far-right Israeli ministers

  • Slovenian government accused the ministers of inciting “extreme violence and serious violations of the human rights of Palestinians” with “their genocidal statements”

LJUBLJANA: Slovenia announced on Thursday that it would ban two far-right Israeli ministers from entering in what authorities said was a first in the European Union.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich will be declared “persona non grata,” the Slovenian government said in a statement, accusing them of inciting “extreme violence and serious violations of the human rights of Palestinians” with “their genocidal statements.”
In June, Australia, Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Norway imposed similar sanctions on Smotrich and Ben Gvir, key coalition partners in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Ben Gvir and Smotrich have drawn international criticism for their hard-line stance on the Gaza war and comments about settlements in the occupied West Bank, the other Palestinian territory.
Smotrich, who lives in a West Bank settlement, has supported the expansion of settlements and has called for the territory’s annexation.
“This is the first measure of this nature in the EU,” Slovenia’s Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon said of the ban.
On May 21, President Natasa Pirc Musar in an address to the European parliament urged the EU to take stronger action, condemning “the genocide” in Gaza.
Slovenia was in May among six European countries to say that they “firmly reject any demographic or territorial change in Gaza” after Israel announced plans to expand its military offensive in the Palestinian territory.
Last year, Slovenia announced it was recognizing a Palestinian state after Ireland, Norway and Spain, in moves partly fueled by condemnation of Israel’s bombing of Gaza after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.
Nearly 150 countries recognize a Palestinian state.


Russia jails major general for six years over fraud at military theme park

Updated 17 July 2025
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Russia jails major general for six years over fraud at military theme park

  • Major General Vladimir Shesterov was detained last August for his role in the scheme at the Patriot Park
  • The scandal at Patriot Park is one in a slew of criminal cases against former top officials

MOSCOW: A senior Russian Defense Ministry official was sentenced to six years in prison on Thursday after being found guilty of fraud and forgery in relation to an embezzlement scheme at a military theme park, the RIA state news agency reported.

Major General Vladimir Shesterov was detained last August for his role in the scheme at the Patriot Park, a war-themed tourist attraction outside Moscow. Two other men, including Pavel Popov, a former deputy defense minister, are also facing prosecution.

RIA, citing the investigation materials, said Shesterov and the ex-director of the park, Vyacheslav Akhmedov, who is also in custody, forged documents related to completed construction work at the park in the amount of some 26 million roubles ($332,000).

The scandal at Patriot Park is one in a slew of criminal cases against former top officials that have engulfed the Russian army in recent months.

Shesterov fully admitted guilt, but insisted he had not received any material benefit from the scheme.

“I am to blame, I don’t whitewash myself, I sincerely repent,” he said in court, according to RIA.

Akhmedov has also entered a guilty plea in his trial.

The case against Popov, the former deputy defense minister, is ongoing. RIA reported that Popov had instructed Shesterov and Akhmedov to build him a two-story house, a guest house with a sauna, and a two-story garage on land Popov owned in the Moscow region — with the Defense Ministry footing the bill.

Popov has previously denied wrongdoing. Reuters was unable to contact his lawyer on Thursday.

Patriot Park displays a vast collection of Russian and Soviet weaponry, and offers visitors the chance to clamber on tanks and take part in combat simulations. On its website, it also features a photo gallery of “heroes of the special military operation” — Russia’s official term for its war in Ukraine.


Saudi Arabia’s NCNP drives non-profit growth, global ties at World Expo

Updated 17 July 2025
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Saudi Arabia’s NCNP drives non-profit growth, global ties at World Expo

  • NCNP hosted the panel session — The Future of Non-Profits — at the Saudi Pavilion
  • The panel demonstrated the NCNP’s goal of activating the Kingdom’s SDGs through innovation, collaboration, and strategic partnerships

OSAKA: Saudi Arabia’s National Center for Non-Profit Sector (NCNP) is expanding at a rapid pace with the number of registered NPOs surpassing 5,700 last year.

In a bid to capitalize on the situation and position Saudi Arabia as a global leader in the sector, the NCNP brought together leading voices from the Kingdom’s non-profit organizations (NPOs) for a high-profile panel discussion and for a separate U-Table meeting at the World Expo in Osaka.

NCNP hosted the panel session — The Future of Non-Profits — at the Saudi Pavilion to highlight how the Kingdom has advanced the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through non-profit entities.

The panel demonstrated the NCNP’s goal of activating the Kingdom’s SDGs through innovation, collaboration, and strategic partnerships.

The panel featured HRH Princess Luluah Bint Nawaf Al Saud, President of the Board at Mawaddah Association for Family Stability (MAFS), Reem Abukhayal, Media and PR Manager of Alwaleed Philanthropies, and Dr. Abdullah AlMuhanna, Vice President of Sector Empowerment at National Developmental Housing Foundation (Sakan).

NCNP’s International Communication lead, Alaa Alghamdi addressed the successful models and initiatives led by Saudi NPOs and the challenges and opportunities in scaling impact through innovation, partnerships, and sustainability.

“We were very excited to highlight how NCNP is building a sustainable future through non-profit innovation during our informative panel discussion,” Mishari Alturaif, GM of Government Outsourcing at NCNP, said.

“The Future of Non-Profits discussion underscores the ambitious efforts that NCNP is putting into supporting innovation across the local and global non-profit sector through constructive dialogue and engagement.”

NCNP also hosted a U-Table meeting with leading Saudi and international NPO’s that introduced NCNP and its international collaboration goals.

Participants from the Saudi nonprofit sector included Bunyan Charity, the National Developmental Housing Foundation (Sakan), Saudi Food Bank, and Alwdad Orphanage Care.

The participants exchanged best practices in non-profit governance and public-civil partnerships and identified areas for future collaboration aligned with national priorities and SDGS.

They also discussed the importance of shifting the mindset in the non-profit sector from one that focuses on charity to one of development, allowing for social innovation and entrepreneurship to support economic growth.

“At the U-Table, we had the opportunity to learn about how NCNP is partnering globally to advance non-profit solutions for a better world, solutions that support economic growth and innovation,” Sadakazu Ikawa, co-founder and Executive Director at the Trust Based Philanthropy Japan and Manager at the AVPN.

“We look forward to working with NCNP to activate solutions that help achieve sustainable development worldwide.”

In Osaka, the NCNP team also met with the Japan Foundation to explore opportunities for collaboration with Japanese entities and to exchange international expertise and best practices in the non-profit sector.

Under NCNP’s leadership, Saudi Arabia’s non-profit ecosystem has expanded rapidly. The number of registered NPOs surpassed 5,700 last year, with over 6,000 fundraising licenses issued and more than 2,000 active civil associations. Volunteerism has surged from just under 23,000 in 2015 to 1.2 million in 2024.

Thirty government entities now contribute to non-profit development, showing their rising national importance. Thus, NCNP continues to serve as the Kingdom’s catalyst for non-profit growth, linking local action with global collaboration to unlock sustainable impact.