Myanmar’s military cracked down on Muslim Rohingya from Rakhine State following August 25 Rohingya militant attacks on an army base and police posts. He is the first high-level military officer to be named in the sanctions for overseeing the campaign of atrocities against the Rohingya.
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The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on a Myanmar general who led the military’s brutal crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in the country’s violence-ridden northern Rakhine state. Major General Maung Maung Soe, head of the Myanmar Army’s Western Command during the military operation that has now driven more than 650,000 Rohingya across the border to …
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A skinny finger of water separates Bangladesh from Myanmar, and the other night a group of men sat on the Bangladeshi side, peering into the darkness, wondering what was left for them. For these men, ethnic Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar, there is certainly nothing back across the water. Home doesn’t exist anymore. Myanmar’s army wiped …
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I have been haunted for weeks by a photo of a Rohingya woman mourning her dead baby on the shores of Bangladesh. This photo appeared in The Huffington Post in late September, and I’ve seen dozens of similarly disturbing images on the Internet every day. This mother and child were among the more than half …
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New York, NY – American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the leading international Jewish human rights organization and a funder of 26 human rights organizations in Mexico, today issued a strong demand for Mexican authorities to resume their investigation into the disappearance and possible murder of 43 student activists, who went missing in Iguala, Guerrero State, in September 2014 on their way to a protest against government violence.
Read MoreSitting in the dusty courtyard of Challenging Heights, in Sangor, Ghana, surrounded by children rescued from slavery, I realized I was not truly present. It was 2012, and I was on an AJWS rabbinical delegation intended to inspire American clergy to deepen our commitment to global justice by connecting with people in the Global South whom we seek to help.
Read MoreA shocking and inspiring episode in Parashat Pinchas occurs when the five daughters of Zelophechad stand up to Moses, Aaron and Elazar and demand to inherit their father’s property, in the absence of any sons. This courageous act, which challenges the assumption that tribal land can be passed on only from fathers to sons, seems to leave Moses speechless and moved, and he takes their claim to God.
Read MoreTo the Burmese government, the Rohingya Muslims do not exist. This group of approximately 1.2 million people living in western Burma has been referred to by the United Nations as “one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.” The Rohingya consider themselves a distinct ethnic minority, but the Burmese government disputes this claim. In addition to refusing to recognize the group’s identity, the government has also inflicted widespread human rights violations against the Rohingya, including restricting marriage and child-bearing, depriving them of freedom of movement, and forcing them to live in deplorable conditions in internally displaced persons camps. The human rights organization, Fortify Rights, argues that the government intends “to make life so intolerable that they [the Rohingya] will leave the country.”
Read MoreIn Parashat Chukkat, we read about the Israelites in a moment of desperation. Forty years into their journey through the desert, they once again find themselves in a new place without any water.[1] The people are distraught, but rather than voicing their fears in a calm, rational manner, the Israelites pick a fight. They approach …
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