Thai authorities have arrested two men charged with human trafficking, police said on Tuesday, following the discovery of 134 suspected victims in southern Thailand at a time when the military government is under international pressure to tackle the crime. The two Thais were charged in relation to a group of 53 men found on Saturday at a rubber plantation - 38 from Bangladesh and 15 Rohingya, a mostly stateless Muslim minority from western Myanmar. "The two men have been charged with trafficking and bringing foreign labor into the country illegally," a senior police official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters. … [Read more...] about Two Thais arrested for trafficking of Bangladeshis, Rohingya
Rohingya human rights watch
Thailand to deport 400 Rohingya migrants after raid
Around 400 Rohingya migrants discovered in a raid on a camp hidden in a remote rubber plantation in southern Thailand will be deported back to Myanmar, Thai police said on Friday. The group, 378 men, 11 women and 12 children, were found in a makeshift shelter in the plantation in Songkhla province where they had languished for three months waiting to be trafficked to a "third country", local police said. Acting on a tip-off officials stormed the shelter on Thursday and found the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group not recognised as citizens in Myanmar who have fled sectarian unrest in their thousands to Thailand and other countries. "They are now waiting for deportation which will be done by Thailand's immigration police," Lieutenant Colonel Katika Jitbanjong of Padang Besar local police told AFP. "They told officials that they had volunteered to come (to Thailand)," he said, adding police were seeking an arrest warrant for the Thai landowner on charges of human trafficking and … [Read more...] about Thailand to deport 400 Rohingya migrants after raid
Rights of migrant children violated in Thai detention
Muslim Rohingha asylum seekers standing inside a cell at the Thai immigration detention centre in Phangnga, southern Thailand. … [Read more...] about Rights of migrant children violated in Thai detention
Myanmar rights under the microscope at ASEAN meeting
Myanmar faces being called to account for stalling reforms when it hosts a top global diplomats at a security forum later this week, with religious clashes and curbs on press freedom taking the sheen off its emergence from military-rule. … [Read more...] about Myanmar rights under the microscope at ASEAN meeting
Muslim, Buddhist mob violence threatens new Myanmar image
Northwest Myanmar was tense on Monday after sectarian violence engulfed its largest city at the weekend, with Reuters witnessing rival mobs of Muslims and Buddhists torching houses and police firing into the air to disperse crowds. At least eight people were killed and many wounded, authorities say, in the worst communal violence since a reformist government replaced a junta last year and vowed to forge unity in one of Asia's most ethnically diverse countries. The fighting erupted on Friday in the Rakhine State town of Maungdaw, but has spread to the capital Sittwe and nearby villages, prompting the government to declare a state of emergency late on Sunday and impose a dawn-to-dusk curfew. Foreign aid workers have begun pulling out, aid sources said. Plumes of black smoke rose over parts of Sittwe, a port town of mainly wooden houses where Buddhists and Muslims have long lived in uneasy proximity. Some Buddhists were seen carrying bamboo stakes and other makeshift weapons. "We … [Read more...] about Muslim, Buddhist mob violence threatens new Myanmar image