Illegal Immigrants: Italy calls for reform to stop further tragedy

Italian officials are pressing for steps to prevent a repeat of the tragedy involving hundreds of migrants from Africa who are missing and believed to have drowned in the Mediterranean over the weekend. The migrants were cramped in un-seaworthy vessels which left Libya for Italy. Italy's Interior Minister is hopeful that these crossings will come to an end in mid-May.

The problem of illegal immigrants reaching Malta from Libya could be resolved if a declaration made by Italian Home Affairs Minister Roberto Maroni is put in place.

The most common route for these desperate people is from Libya to the southern Italian islands of Lampedusa, Pianosa and Sicily. Italian authorities have been pressing Libya to crack down on illegal migrants.

Minister Maroni says an agreement is in place with Libya that envisages the start of joint Italian-Libyan patrols in front of the Libyan coast on May 15. He added that on that day he expects the flow of migrants coming to Italy from Libya will stop and the problem will be resolved.

The exact death toll from this weekend's incident may never be known but twenty have been confirmed dead and just 23 of the African migrants were rescued. At least 200 are still missing after departing from the Libyan coast and sailing into stormy seas and strong winds.

According to officials of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Libyan police officials, one vessel capsized last Friday. It had a capacity for 50 people but was carrying 250 and there was no life-saving equipment on board. Those on board were too far from the coast to even attempt to swim to the shore.

Maroni said that unfortunately what took place was a tragedy of enormous proportions that was beyond Italy's knowledge and ability to intervene.

Like tens of thousands of every year, the migrants were attempting a risky journey across the Mediterranean from the Libyan coastline in the hope of reaching Italy and a new life.

Many never make it across and this part of the Mediterranean has come to be known "a cemetery without tombstones". Over 13,000 bodies have been recovered in the last decade.

More than 30,000 migrants are believed to have crossed the Mediterranean in 2008, a 75 percent increase on 2007. The majority end up in detention centers, and are eventually deported. In Libya, there are between 1 million and 1.5 million African irregular migrants, drawn by the need for unskilled labor and hoping to move on to Europe.

The joint patrols form part of a historic friendship accord reached between Rome and Tripoli and signed in August 2008.

By Sabina Castelfranco
Published with the permission of Voice of America

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Sri Lanka: Top LTTE official Madivalahan, killed by security forces

LTTE's technical wing chief S. Kirupakaran alias Madivalahan was confirmed killed following a confrontation with Sri Lankan security forces at the Mullaittivu battlefront recently, defence sources said citing intercepted LTTE communication.

According to available information, LTTE has offered the self-styled 'Lt.Colonel' status to the slain terrorist on Tuesday (March 31), who was said to be the mastermind and chief coordinator of the LTTE's satellite cum radio communication network.

Madivalahan was born in Jaffna and has reportedly spent most of his time at Trincomalee before joining the terrorist organization as a full time activist. "This is what to be expected in the coming days as more senior tigers will be exposed to direct military attacks" a defence observer said adding that the loss of Madivalahan also underscores the probable end game for the LTTE.

The death of Madivalahan has triggered tension and drawn heavy critics against the present LTTE leadership, amongst the hell bent LTTE diaspora circles in Toronto and London, the observer further stated.

Source: Ministry of Defence, Public Security, Law & Order - Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka

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Kashmir: Top Kashmir leader set free - then rearrested

IRNA - Shabbir Ahmad Shah (photo), top leader of Hurriyat Conference, who was set free Tuesday after a detention of nearly seven months, was rearrested by the police soon afterwards and whisked off to frontier town of Uri.

Though the police has claimed that Shah was arrested on August 22 in connection with the killing of senior Hurriyat leader, Sheikh Abdul Aziz, the state government revoked the charges against him on Monday, but took him into custody again when he stepped out of the central jail this morning.

He was rearrested by a large posse of policemen in the presence of hundreds of supporters who had come to receive him outside the jail.

Reports said that Shah’s supporters tried to resist his re-arrest but the police forced him into a vehicle and whisked him off to Uri.

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Kazakhstan: Two years on, the journalist who asked questions is still missing

By Merhat Sharipzhan - RFE/RL

Copyright (c) 2009. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

It is now two years since Oralghaisha Omarshanova, a journalist with the Astana-based weekly newspaper "Zakon i pravosudie" (Law and Justice), disappeared. She had just published an article focusing on a violent clash two weeks earlier between Chechens and Kazakhs in the villages of Malovodnoye and Kazatkom in southern Kazakhstan.

On March 17, 2007, hundreds of angry Kazakhs in Malovodnoye and Kazatkom killed three members of the Makmakhanov family and literally tore apart their property. According to the official version of what happened, hundreds of young Kazakhs surrounded the Makmakhanov family home on March 17 demanding an explanation for a quarrel the previous evening between Tahir, the youngest Makmakhanov brother, and a young Kazakh in which Makmakhanov allegedly shot the Kazakh in the leg.

The Makmakhanov brothers refused to come out of the house and opened fire from the windows, killing two Kazakhs and wounding nine more. The angry Kazakhs then attacked the house and killed three of the Makmakhanov brothers, then set fire to the building.

Most Kazakh media coverage of the incident focused primarily on the fact that the violence pitted one ethnic group against another. Omarshanova was the first journalist to ask a different set of questions: How did a fourth brother, Vitta Makmakhanov, come to be in the house at the time of the attack, and why was he not killed too? Vitta Makmakhanov was being held under investigation for murder in Zhezqazghan, over 700 kilometers away: why, and on whose say-so, was he released and allowed to return to his family home?

Moreover, the standoff outside the Makmakhanovs' house lasted for several hours, and it would have been impossible for local police not to notice the hundreds of Kazakhs and not to hear the gunshots and shouting. Why then did the police not intervene to protect the Chechens, who were chased around the village and then beaten to death, or fight the fire before the building burned to ashes? Was somebody hoping that Vitta Makmakhanov would also be killed, because he knew too much?

More Than Meets The Eye

That latter question was particularly sensitive insofar as Vitta Makmakhanov was a suspect in the killing of Sagit Shokputov, a Kazakh businessman who was very influential in Zhezqazghan. A former top manager at KazakhMys, Kazakhstan's copper-producing giant, the 36-year-old Shokputov was shot dead near his home in Zhezqazghan on November 28, 2006. Zhezqazghan police arrested Vitta Makmakhanov as a suspect the same day.

Omarshanova had written about Shokputov's assassination and knew the name of the main suspect. On February 28 and March 7, 2007, shortly before the bloodbath in Malovodnoye and Kazatkom, she published two articles in "Zakon i pravosudie" outlining her own theory on why Shokputov was killed. She focused on the fact that state-controlled media began incriminating Shokputov in criminal activities shortly before he was killed, and asked why all of a sudden a man who had for years controlled KazakhMys's output had been branded a "bad guy."

On March 26, she published a further article giving her own interpretation of the events in Malovodnoye, and for the first time highlighted the fact that one of the members of the Chechen family that was attacked was a suspect in Shokputov's killing.

Omarshanova also noted in that article that one of the Makmakhanov brothers, Amir, had direct ties with KazakhMys. She further pointed out that the eldest Makmakhanov brother, Khadzhimurat, was a high-ranking member of Kazakhstan's Board of Judges; that Shamil Makmakhanov was involved in the oil business; and that Nadhzmitdin Makmakhanov worked for Almaty City Prosecutor's Office.

Omarshanova's colleague Mukhit Iskakov told a press conference in Almaty on April 20, 2007, three weeks after she vanished, that she began receiving telephone threats after that final article, and bought a gun for self-protection. On March 28, Iskakov traveled with Omarshanova from Astana to Almaty, where they planned to continue the investigation. He saw her for the last time on March 30.

Omarshanova's relatives and colleagues believe that she was most probably killed because of her investigation into developments connected with KazakhMys, or the Makmakhanov clan, or both.

Merhat Sharipzhan is senior editor of Headline News at RFE/RL and the former head of RFE/RL's Kazakh Service

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NATO: Croatia and Albania NATO's newest members

Croatia and Albania are set to formally join NATO today after the two countries have filed documents with the U.S. Department of State endorsing the two countries as Alliance's members, Makfax informed.

Consequently, the two countries, as NATO members, will participate in the forthcoming NATO summit in Strasbourg and Cologne.

On Monday, NATO Secretary General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer issued official invitations to Croatia and Albania to join NATO.

Source: FOCUS Information Agency

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Yemen: Yemen's Jewish community “suffering terribly”

Members of the tiny Jewish community in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, say they have not received their monthly food rations or any government financial assistance for the past three months.

Rabbi Yahya Yusuf, leader of the 65-member community, told IRIN the Jews had been “suffering terribly” of late; many had been finding it very difficult to even feed their children.

“We have sold everything we possess to buy food for our families. We even sold our women’s gold rings. We have run out of money,” he said.

Yusuf said that two weeks ago they had staged a protest outside government headquarters to demand action.

“Prime Minister Ali Mujawwar has ordered payment of our monthly allowances and so has the minister of finance. But so far we have not received anything,” Yusuf said.

The community has been living in the Sanaa suburb of Tourist City.

The assistance they had been getting was 58,000 riyals (US$290), as well as 40kg of sugar, 50kg of wheat, and 40kg of rice per family, according to Yusuf. Most families had 12-18 members.

Yusuf said the cut in aid could be used as a pretext to remove them from the city.

“When we first lived here [in 2007], we got good food rations plus the financial assistance. But gradually the assistance has been reduced,” he said.

Appeal

“We appeal to aid organisations and benevolent contributors to assist us,” said Yusuf.

Habbob Salem, 27, is a member of the community in Sanaa. He said he and his 18 family members lived in a small apartment with only three rooms.

“We have never gone through this hardship. We have no source of income to rely on and now we have run out of money. This is really very harsh for us,” he told IRIN.

The community was moved to Sanaa in 2007 after a number of Shia rebels in Saada Governorate, northern Yemen, threatened to kill them if they did not leave the area within 10 days.

Yusuf said their property in Saada had been seized by the rebels, though the rebels have denied this. “We have not received any compensation.”

Disclaimer:This material comes to you via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its Member States.

Photo: Copyright IRIN

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Aerospace: NASA gives old moon images digital makeover

NASA is currently engaged in a strenuous scientific effort, of giving some of the oldest pictures of the surface of the Moon, taken in the late 1960s, a digital makeover. The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) initiative works on enhancing the properties of each of the images sent back by the series of space probes the American space agency sent to Earth's satellite in an attempt to find a suitable spot for the landing of the manned missions to the Moon.

At the time, the probes that NASA sent were able to take high-resolution images of the lunar surface and to chart potential landing sites.

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Ghana: Life's sweet after Cadbury’s sign fair-trade cocoa deal with Ghanaian cooperative

By Francis Kokutse - IPS

Republished permission Inter Press Service (IPS ) copyright Inter Press Service (IPS)
www.ipsnewsasia.net and www.ipsnews.net

ACCRA, Mar 31 (IPS) - The initiative linking British chocolate giant Cadbury’s with a Ghanaian cooperative representing 40,000 cocoa farmers is set to grow further and enhance the livelihoods of more farmers.

Cadbury’s announced at the beginning of this month that it would henceforth source fair-trade cocoa from Ghana based on a deal with non-profit organisation Fairtrade Foundation, the UK member of Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International. The foundation licenses use of the fair-trade mark in the UK in line with internationally agreed faire-trade standards.

The UK’s most popular chocolate brand has decided to buy its cocoa from the Kuapa Kooko cooperative, which will add 750,000 dollars per annum to about 40,000 farmers’ existing income from sales to the statutory regulator, the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD).

‘‘This means an extra income for the farmers. We will also be able to go on with the extension services that have already been initiated by Cadbury’s under its cocoa partnership service in Ghana,’’ explained Kuapa Kooko chief executive Kwabena Ohemeng Tinayase.

‘‘What we have seen under our partnership with Cadbury’s, through Fairtrade, is an arrangement that is going to sustain the cocoa sector as well as boost production.’’

Through its affiliations with Fairtrade, the cooperative is able to pay a guaranteed premium price to the farmers - higher than what the government is paying.

Cadbury’s involvement with Kuapa Kooko will eventually triple the amount of Fairtrade-certified cocoa from Ghana - from 5,000 to 15,000 tons per year.

As well as ensuring minimum prices, cocoa farmers’ organisations will receive Fairtrade premiums of 1.5 million dollars in the first year alone for investment by local communities.

‘‘We will also be working alongside local organisations to help organise more groups of cocoa farmers into co-operatives and work with them to achieve Fairtrade standards,’’ said Alex Cole, corporate affairs director for Cadbury’s, in a statement.

‘‘We hope that by combining the expertise and standards of Fairtrade with work being done in the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, this move will lead to a more sustainable future for tens of thousands of cocoa farmers, their families and villages,’’ he added.

The Ghanaian government cannot be said to be sitting back either. The authorities have long realised that the cocoa sector is in a crisis and have tried various means to improve the earning of the farmers so that cocoa farming could become attractive for young people. Most of the present generation of farmers are getting old.

Presenting his 2009 budget earlier this month, minister for finance and economic planning Kwabena Duffuor stated that the cocoa farmers housing scheme, which seeks to provide affordable houses for cocoa farmers, ‘‘has taken off’’.

The department of rural housing has completed houses in the Western Region and will extend the project to the Central, Ashanti and the Brong Ahafo Regions. All these efforts are aimed at lifting the living standards of cocoa farmers.

One such farmer is 70-year-old Kwasi Gyan from Nankese outside Accra: ‘‘What we get (from government) is normally not enough. Most of us turn to money lenders to raise money when the need arises and they charge so much interest.’’

Talking to him reveals what may still prevent some cocoa farmers from pushing to be included in the new deal. When IPS asked him if he had heard of Kuapa Kooko cooperative that is offering a guaranteed price to its members, he replied in the affirmative.

‘‘There is even such a group near where I farm. I have heard of the good things they do for their members but I do not sell my cocoa to them. My family sells to another company,’’ Gyan said.

Tinayase is not surprised by Gyan’s attitude: ‘‘Old family affiliations to other buying companies over the years have prevented some farmers from getting involved with Kuapa Kooko Limited.’’

Hopefully, in time, Gyan will join the 40,000 farmers of the Kuapa Kooka cooperative. He told IPS: ‘‘When I have carefully studied and understood what they really stand for, I may change my mind to be part of that family.’’

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Israel: Israeli gunboats attack Palestinian fishing boats

KUNA reports Israeli gunboats opened machinegun fire early on Wednesday at Palestinian fishing boats sailing in the Gaza sea, according to local radio stations.

They added a number of the boats were damaged, forcing the fishermen to head to shore.

Israeli gunboats daily target Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Sea, preventing them from exceeding three miles (five kilometers), claiming they can use boats to smuggle weapons into the Strip.

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Russia: Russia claims to have proof Ukrainian nationalist groups cooperated with Nazis

Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry published an extensive list of archive documents which prove that Ukrainian nationalist groups cooperated with Nazis during WWII.

The documents from the State Archive are dated of 1944-1945. They particularly include numerous “Acts of atrocities and malefaction of fascist invaders and their associates among Ukrainian nationalists” in various settlements in Western Ukraine .

The lists of documents also include testimonies of violence against civilians, acts about the extermination of Jews and Ukrainians committed by German fascists and Ukrainians, about the enslavement of civilians, acts of malefaction against the Poles, etc.

The Ukrainian government approves the honoring of nationalist leaders of different years. The national authorities glorify them as devotees of the motherland. As for WWII nationalists, President Viktor Yushchenko said once that they were standing against both Nazis and Communists.

Kiev has been trying to call Russia to account for Holodomor (Famine Genocide) of the 1930s in Ukraine , claiming that the then-Soviet administration deliberately organized the national famine to exterminate the Ukrainian nation.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated in response that Ukraine was distorting history. At the end of 2008, Dmitry Medvedev sent a message to his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yushchenko in which he harshly criticized his approach to famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933. Medvedev also refused to participate in the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Holodomor. The Ukrainian administration believes that the Soviet Union deliberately provoked famine in the country to exterminate the Ukrainian nation.

The Russian administration realizes that the subject of Holodomor has become one of the key issues of Ukraine’s foreign politics during the recent years. “We believe that a part of the political elite and administration of Ukraine intends to use the attitude to this issue as a test for patriotism and loyalty,” Itar-Tass quoted Medvedev.

Medvedev wrote that President Yushchenko urged to clear history of the ideological layering. “I definitely share such an approach. However, Ukraine uses the tragic events of the 1930s as a tool to achieve certain political goals,” the Russian president wrote.

Pravda

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Genocide: Inside the Khmer Rouge - a cadre tells his story

Him Huy was a farmer before he joined the Khmer Rouge as a young revolutionary.

He became a guard at S-21, the Phnom Penh prison where thousands were detained and tortured. But when the Khmer Rouge began eradicating its own members he began having second thoughts.

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Corruption: Kuwait - senior female official facing arrest flees country

The Arab Times reports a senior female official working for an unidentified investment company has reportedly fled the country for fear of being arrested in a case filed by the Dubai Capital Company, reports Al-Shahid daily.

According to reliable sources the woman is involved in money swindling and that she is a member of a board on an economic team headed by the Governor of the Central Bank of Kuwait.

Earlier former MP Musallam Al-Barrak had disclosed one of the members of the economic team headed by the CBK Governor was wanted by law, but it was denied by the Governor.

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Crime: US - black males imprisoned 6.6 times the rate of white males

As of June 30, 2008, state and federal correctional authorities had jurisdiction or legal authority over 1,610,584 prisoners. Additionally, 785,556 inmates were held in custody in local jails, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, announced today.

During the six months ending June 30, 2008, the prison population increased by 0.8 percent, compared to 1.6 percent during the same period in 2007. The local jail population increased by 0.7 percent during the 12-month period ending June 30, 2008, accounting for the slowest growth in 27 years.

Sixteen states reported decreases in their prison populations. California (down 962 prisoners) and Kentucky (down 847) reported the largest decreases since yearend 2007.

While the prison populations in the remaining 34 states increased, growth slowed in 18 of these states. For these 18 states, prison populations increased by 1.6 percent in the first half of 2008 as compared to the increase of 3.1 percent in the first half of 2007. Minnesota experienced the largest growth rate (up 5.2 percent) in the first six months of 2008, followed by Maine (up 4.6 percent) and Rhode Island and South Carolina (both up 4.3 percent).

The federal prison system added 1,524 prisoners in the first six months of 2008, reaching a total of 201,142 prisoners. The 0.8 percent growth represented the smallest increase in the first six months since 1993 (when BJS began collecting data at midyear).

State and federal prisoners in private facilities increased 6.8 percent during the 12-month period, reaching 126,249 at midyear 2008. The federal system (32,712), Texas (19,851), and Florida (9,026) reported the largest number of prisoners in private facilities.

As of June 30, 2008, over 2.3 million inmates, or one in every 131 U.S. residents, were held in custody in state or federal prisons or in local jails, regardless of sentence length or conviction status. Since yearend 2000, the nation's prison and jail custody populations have increased by 373,502 inmates (or 19 percent).

Over one-third of inmates held in custody at midyear 2008 were in local jails. More than half (52 percent) were housed in the 180 largest jail facilities, with average daily populations of 1,000 inmates or more. Overall, an estimated 13.6 million inmates were admitted to local jails during the 12-month period ending June 30, 2008.

Local jails operated at about 95 percent of their rated capacity as of June 30, 2008. During the preceding 12 months, the nation's jail capacity increased by 14,911 beds, while the number of inmates increased by 5,382 persons.

Almost two-thirds (63 percent) of all jail inmates were awaiting court action or had not been convicted of their current charge, up from 56 percent in 2000. Based on jail jurisdictions that reported data, non-U.S. citizens made up 9.0 percent of their total jail population in 2008, up from 7.7 percent in 2007 and 6.1 percent in 2000.

Among inmates held in custody in prisons or jails, black males were incarcerated at 6.6 times the rate of white males. One in 21 black males was incarcerated at midyear 2008, compared to one in 138 white males. At midyear 2008, black males (846,000) outnumbered white males (712,500) and Hispanic males (427,000) among inmates in prisons and jails. About 37 percent of all male inmates at midyear 2008 were black, down 41 percent from midyear 2000.

Female incarceration rates were substantially lower than male incarceration rates at every age. Black females (with an incarceration rate of 349 per 100,000) were more than twice as likely as Hispanic females (147 per 100,000) and over 3.5 times more likely than white females (93 per 100,000) to have been in prison or jail on June 30, 2008. An estimated 207,700 women were held in prison or jails at midyear 2008, up 33 percent since midyear 2000.

Source: Office of Justice Programs - US Department of Justice

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International Development: Ex New Zealand PM named UN development chief

The General Assembly today confirmed the appointment of former Prime Minister Helen Clark of New Zealand as the new head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

UNDP is the largest of the independently funded UN agencies and, under its special General Assembly mandate, leads the world body’s work on eradicating extreme poverty and promoting good governance in the developing world.

Miss Clark’s nomination for UNDP Administrator was forwarded by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the Assembly after an extensive selection process, which included the establishment of a senior appointments panel chaired by the Deputy Secretary-General and consisting of senior UN officials as well as two outside experts in financial and developmental economics.

She replaces Kemal Dervis of Turkey, who had been in the post since 2005 and stepped down on 1 March for family and personal reasons.

Miss Clark had been a member of the New Zealand Parliament since 1981, and was Prime Minister from 1999 to 2008, while concurrently holding a number of other portfolios including Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage.

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Environment: San Francisco passes first US "do not mail" register

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors today passed a resolution calling on California to create a Do Not Mail Registry giving its citizens the choice to stop receiving unwanted junk mail.

Though non-binding, the resolution represents the first time American lawmakers have withstood pressure from the direct mail industry and the U.S. Postal Service to side with the majority of Americans.

Sponsored by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, the board approved the resolution by a 9-2 vote.

"Until now, junk mailers have stifled all efforts to give Americans what they want: an enforceable, comprehensive solution to junk mail's waste and annoyance" said ForestEthics Executive Director Todd Paglia. "San Francisco is the first city in the United States to take political action against junk mail, marking the beginning of a long-awaited government intervention to protect citizens from relentless and predatory junk mailers."

Bills calling for Do Not Mail Registries have failed in more than 20 states, despite widespread frustration with junk mail. A 2007 Zogby poll revealed that 89% of Americans support the creation of a national registry.

"Reducing junk mail is in keeping with our nation's efforts to reduce our carbon footprint and lead more sustainable lifestyles," said Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, upon passage of his Do Not Mail Resolution. "Just as Do Not Call overcame industry opposition to become the most popular consumer rights bill in history, I hope that this resolution will empower our representatives on the state and federal level to represent their constituents on this issue."

Supervisor Mirkarimi has a record of trailblazing leadership on a variety of issues and policies, including the nation's first municipal ban on plastic bags, and commuter benefits requirements for San Francisco businesses.

More than 93,000 Americans have signed ForestEthics' petition at donotmail.org calling for the creation of a national Do Not Mail Registry.

Every year 100 million trees are logged to produce the 100 billion pieces of junk mail Americans receive. Junk mail's production generates the carbon emissions of over 9 million cars. U.S. junk mail accounts for 30% of all the mail delivered in the world, though 44% of it goes to landfills unopened.

Source: ForestEthics

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Burma: Activists call for end to oppression and killing of Rohingya people

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Chittagong, Bangladesh: Activists of the Neeti Gobeshona Kendra on Monday (March 30) demanded ceasing the oppression and killing of Rohingya people by the Burmese Government, as well as a permanent solution to the boat-people crisis, according to our correspondent.

The activists formed a human chain in front of the Chittagong Press Club, ahead of the Asian Summit and declared that the Rohingya crisis was not only a problem between Burma and Bangladesh, but it now had international ramifications. Frequent killings and oppression of the Rohingya people by the Burmese government, over the last few decades, had compelled them to flee to neighboring countries.

Recently, the Rohingya were trying to move to the countries of South and Southeast Asia, as the military government of Burma, had increased its degree of repression on them, the activists said.

The Burmese government has been trying to define the crisis as having arisen from human trafficking, but in reality its aim was to exterminate the minority Rohingya group in Burma, they added.

Mahbubul Haq, Director of the organization, Najimuddin Shyamol, General Secretary of the Chittagong Reporters Union and Rohingya leader Ayub (alias) Tin Maungng were present during the demonstration.

Over 100 people participated in the demonstration holding banners.

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