BRINGING HARMONY TO ALL THE COMMUNITIES
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Volume 12 Issue 315 Ramadan 7, 1433 AH / July 27 2012 - $1
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Spate of deadly attacks across Iraq
Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingyas being targeted as violence continues in west Communal violence is grinding on in western Myanmar six weeks after the government declared a state of emergency there, and Muslim Rohingyas are increasingly being hit with targeted attacks that have included killings, rape and physical abuse, Amnesty International said. A government spokesman for coastal Rakhine state, which was engulfed by a wave of bloody unrest in June, called the allegations made Friday groundless and biased. Amnesty’s claims are “totally opposite of what is happening on the ground,” spokesman Win Myaing said, adding that the region was calm. Also Friday, the new U.S. ambassador to Myanmar announced a donation of $3 million in food aid to northern areas of the country affected by fighting between government troops and ethnic militias. Amnesty International accused both security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists of carrying out new attacks against Rohingyas, who are seen as foreigners by the ethnic majority and denied citizenship by the government because it considers them illegal settlers from neighbouring Bangladesh. Not many international organisations are taking action and urging their governments to put pressure on the Burmese government to stop the massacre of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The world’s major media corporations also seem to be indifferent to the recent events in Myanmar, where thousands of the Rohingya Muslims have been massacred in the Arakan region in a few days. According to The Platform, a UK-based human rights organisation, 6,000
homes belonging to Rohingya Muslims were burned during the unrest. A group of UK-based NGOs have indicated that 650 Rohingya Muslims were killed from June 10 to 28 of this year and 1,200 went missing, while more than 80,000 others became displaced as a result of rioting, arson and rape. The London-based Equal Rights Trust reported that the Burmese army and police also play a leading role in the recent arbitrary violence against Rohingya Muslims. The UN listed them as one of the most persecuted minorities of the world. The country, for years, suffered from the lack of investment, the standards of intellectual property and the predictability of sustainable growth. Burma is also one of the world’s most corrupt countries. Burma has refused to grant visas to Pakistani human rights advocate Asnar Burney and a colleague, who wanted to come to Burma on a fact-finding mission regarding reports of Rohingya Muslims arbitrarily arrested and killed in Arakan State. The Burmese embassy in London informed Burney, who heads the Ansar Burney Trust International, a nonprofit human rights group, in London that they would not allow any journalists and human rights activist to come to the country on a fact-finding mission.“The embassy has told me that they are not allowing journalists and human rights activists in the country. I am completely gutted. This action proves that Burma has something to hide from the world,” said Asnar Burney, according to reports. The former Pakistani Federal Minister for Human Rights and secretary of the Pakistan Press Club (UK) on July 19 applied for visa to visit Burma. On Tuesday, he was told the visa would
A series of gun and bomb attacks has wracked Iraq for the second straight day, with unidentified gunmen targeting a military base and car bombs exploding in Baghdad, Kirkuk and elsewhere. More than 100 people are reported to have been killed and 180 injured in at least 19 separate explosions and attacks on Monday morning, officials said. At least 15 Iraqi soldiers were killed and four others injured after gunmen attacked a military base in Salah Din province, an army official told reporters The attack took place early on Monday morning, while the soldiers were still asleep, in a base east of Dhuluiyah township, about 90km north of Baghdad. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. A car bomb in the city of Taji, north of Baghdad, targeted a residential compound. Initial reports suggested that more than 18 people had been killed, and dozens wounded. That attack involved a secondary explosion, which targeted rescue personnel who had rushed to the scene. In the northern oil town of Kirkuk, police were targeted by four synchronised car bombs, killing five people, including three civilians. Nineteen people were injured in those blasts. In Baghdad, car bombs targeted an interior ministry office that issues ID cards to residents of the city’s mainly Shia Sadr City neighbourhood. At least 16 people were killed in that attack. “It was a thunderous explosion,” said Mohammed Munim, 35, who was working at the office. “The only thing I remember was the smoke and fire, which was everywhere,” he added from his bed in the emergency room at Sadr City hospital. In the city of Touz Khurmato, 140km north of Baghdad, a car bomb targeted a local market, killing at least one person and wounding three others. A separate explosion in that city killed one person and wounded 35 others. In the eastern town of Muqdadiyah, near Baquba, two civilians were killed and 13 injured after a motorcycle bomb went off on a main street. South of the capital, in Mahmoudiya, a series of three bombs targeted civilians. Initial reports from police said that the death toll in that attack was at least 10, with as many as 38 wounded. Meanwhile, two members of a tribal coalition aimed at maintaining security were killed by unidentified gunmen in central Samarra city, 120km north of Baghdad. In Dujail, 75km north of the capital, a bomb went off near a Shia mosque, killing a woman and injuring four others. In the town of Ba’aaj, near Mosul, two policemen were killed when a suicide bomber targeted a police station, while in a separate explosion west of Mosul, a car bomb killed three army soldiers and wounded six civilians. In Dewaniyah province, 180km south of Baghdad, an improvised explosive device attack hit a vegetable market, killing three people and injuring at least 20 others. In central Balad township, about 80km north of Baghdad, a parked car exploded outside the home of a local political leader, Al Radhee Mohammed. That blast did not result in any casualties. A second car explosion, apparently targeting labourers, also went off in Balad on Monday morning, but there was no immediate confirmation of casualties. Police say they had identified a third bomb in the same area and had the situation under control. Source :Al-Jazeera
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