FROM THE LIMBO OF AUSTRALIAN DETENTION CENTER…

THIS IS THE LIFE STORY OF A BOAT PEOPLE

“FIRST, THEY ERASED OUR NAME”

THE EXCLUSIVE LIFE TESTIMONY OF A ROHINGYA

Written with French journalist Sophie Ansel, who followed Habib’s journey from 2006 in Malaysia until 2012 in an Australian detention center.

WITH THE SUPPORT OF REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS

Dec 2009, Australian Waters

A small boat is tossed mercilessly in violent high seas. In the boat, eleven men from Burma say their final prayers

Among them is Habib. His short life of 33 years is about to shipwreck in the dark, angry waters. Luckily, an Australian helicopter identifies the troubled boat.

The condemned men are rescued and sent to Christmas Island For the first time in their lives, Habib and his compatriots feel hope for a brighter future.

To the Australian authorities, Habib is just another refugee among the boat people. But Habib carries with him a tragic and heroic past

He thought the life-long torture he had suffered was almost over, and he would soon be able to rescue the family left behind in Burma.

But the worst was yet to come… for Habib, and a million of his people. June 2012

An ethnic cleansing campaign targets his surviving family. From the depths of Darwin Detention Center in Australia, where he is kept indefinitely,

Habib receives the pleas of people beggin for help, villagers threatened by massive gangs, about to slaughtered by the thousands in Burma.

From the confines of his cell, he cries out to a deaf world. A million of Habib’s people are targeted while the World turns a blind eye and

celebrates a long-dreamed-of democracy in Burma. This is Habib’s story. Beginning when was 3 years old, when they first erased his people’s name…

all the way to 2012 and the massive campaign of ethnic cleansing in Burma. Soon, the Rohingya will no longer exist…

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IN THE NEWS ROHINGYAS ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BURMA

ACTS PROMOTING HATRED BUDDHISM EXTREMISM AND CRIMINAL IMPUNITY

Monday april 22, 2013 The Burmese authorities and members of Arakanese groups have committed crimes against humanity in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State since June 2012, Human Rights Watch said in a new report..

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ETHNIC CLEANSING & APARTHEID Human Rights Watch accuses

Monday April 22, the European Union has decided to lift all sanctions against Burma. A decision denounced by NGOs, including Catholic Relief Services. The foreign ministers of the European Union decided on 22 April to lift all political and economic sanctions imposed on Burma since the 1990s, with the exception of the embargo on arms sales. This decision comes as serious violations of human rights are taking place in the country, especially against the Rohingya minority, "the most persecuted people in the world" according to the UN.

EU LIFTS ECONOMIC SANCTIONS DESPITE HUMAN RIGHTS CONCERNS

Buddhist « BIN LADEN »: A monk who spreads hatred against a persecuted Muslim minority in Burma. Ashin Wirathu, the self-proclaimed "bin Laden of Burma" makes international observers doubt that Burma is on the right path to democracy.

EXCLUSIVE TESTIMONY

“FIRST THEY ERASED OUR NAME” THE CASUALTIES OF A BURMESE DEMOCRACY

HOT NEWS

«If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have already chosen the side of the oppressor.»

Desmond Tutu, Peace Nobel Price

THE EXCLUSIVE LIFE TESTIMONY OF

A ROHINGYA In 1982, the Rohingyas are stripped of their citizenship. “Rohingyas” no longer exist. Even the word “Rohingya” has become a word no one can utter aloud. 3-year-old Habib becomes stateless. Hunted by the whims of an all-powerful regime, Habib’s life, like the lives of more than two million Rohingyas around the world, is an overwhelming odyssey vacillating between segregation, extortion, escape, exile and underground modern slavery. Always on the run, Habib crosses Asia in search of freedom and equality, until he ends up a fugitive, lost among the boat people when he finally arrives in Australia in December 2009. As he fights for his release from an endless detention in Darwin Detention Center, the demons of racial hatred against his people in Burma reawaken in June 2012. From the depths of his prison cell, Habib becomes a spokesperson for the voiceless Rohingyas left in Burma.

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IN THE NEWS ROHINGYAS ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BURMA

HUNTING “OGRES” IN BURMA “they are not an ethnic of Myanmar. They are as ugly as ogres“ Ye Mying Aung , consul of Burma in Hong Kong (2009)

Imagine that your very breath is criminal,

that every step you take is illegal. That your nation programs an ethnic cleansing to rid itself of your brothers, your sisters, your mother, your father, your cousins… your people.

Your people are the exception in a nation, an exception that must disappear.

One by one, day after day, your houses burn, your people disappear, while hunger gnaws at your belly…

Imagine the world closes its eyes to the eradication of your family, forgets your existence, and is indifferent to the killings and arrests around you.

Imagine that Justice does not exist for your people.

Imagine that all this is real and it is happening now ...

When the world turns its back on you, should you give in to fate and escape, leaving your people to be trampled and destroyed in a massive ethnic cleansing? Or, should you risk your life and claim the freedom that has been stolen from you and your people ?

Discover the story of a young Rohingya man who, like many, has journeyed over land and sea, across Asia, until he reaches a new life in Australia… only to be detained in a prison cell for three years.

In June 2012, from the depths of his cell, Habib is the impotent witness of a nightmare worse than any he had seen or imagined.

Habib receives and records cell phone calls from his people left in Burma, crying out for help and survival. Along with his fellow Rohingyas in exile, Habib relays the information to the world at large. All in vain.

IMAGINE…

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IN THE NEWS ROHINGYAS ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BURMA

BURMA – THE SHADOWS OF THE OPENING

IN THE NEWS ROHINGYAS ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BURMA

Excerpts “First they erased our name” translated from “Nous les Innommables, un tabou birman” Habiburahman with Sophie Ansel , ed. Steinkis

Tear-choked telephone calls. Cries for help. Words tossed into the phone like bottles into the sea... Maung Kyaw Nu in Thailand, Sayed recently released, Shiraz and Abu in Malaysia, me still confined in the detention center… We collect their tears and terror while they face a hell of flames and blades which hunt them, but our voices are unheard and scatter in the noise of a busy world. From the heart of the Burmese blaze, they howl to Australia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Thailand, England, United States ... They scream, and we can do nothing.

We are connected to the world, to the journalists, we organize ourselves in order to transcribe the calls we receive, to report the information sent by our families and friends who take the risk to inform, to call us with the few phones they hide. We send emails, we blog, we compare our sources. But our speech does not reach far because we are self-taught, without status, without credibility, confined like criminals. And yet we are the only ones to which the call for help are sent.

The ogres hunt has been launched, and we are the ogres. Those whose name cannot be spoken and could never be spoken without anyone really knowing why. The whim of a dictator became the truth of a nation. Because there cannot be possibly any Burmese Muslim ethnic group in Arakan, we are the story that must be erased.

Burma, a land of purity stuck with this old rumour… Our race does not exist for the Burmese, whose brains were washed by decades of harsh dictatorship and hate towards our people. Disunite in order to control. The rumor is repeated in chorus: "The Rohingya do not exist. "

Pronounce our name and you recognize our existence. We are the thieves, the terrorists, the dogs. The damn generals who have conditioned their people’s minds with the weapons of hatred and xenophobia. The damned generals who made us scapegoats to get the people of Burma to forget their past crimes. Our name, that no visitor in the Land of Smiles shall ever pronounce. Say "Rohingya" and that smile twitches, a discontent sets in, and with a dark glare, you ‘ll be rewarded with: kalars, gooks, Bengali, illegal aliens, pests, animals, invaders, terrorists ... But certainly not Burmese. Never Burmese, for Rohingyas do not exist. How to fight ignorance fueled with hatred and armed with swords and guns? Tears are not enough to bring people to reason and compassion – not even those who have promised to never kill anything, even an insect. Hatred, racism and ignorance were quick to destroy the finest principles. My country is like a garden full of the flowers of all colors and the Burmese junta has made us the unacceptable weed. On behalf of a national identity that exists only through the supremacy of its majority in a country of minorities and differences, the dictatorship has poisoned the story by feeding its people with lies: we have become the aliens.

IN THE NEWS ROHINGYAS ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BURMA

CONTACT CO-AUTHOR Sophie Ansel +33 6 88 15 53 22 anselsophie@gmail.com twitter @sophieansel www.sophie-ansel.com www.lunesbirmanes.com skype: sophieansel

HABIBURAHMAN Habib was born in 1979 in Burma. His life is representative of those of all Rohingyas: Statelessness, escapes, extortion, torture, arbitrary detention and crimes, poverty, exile, underground hazards and risks ... His extraordinary thirst for knowledge, freedom and justice forced him to rise against the fatality of a cursed tribe. A fugitive his whole life, he chose to risk his life once more in order to reach Australia, his last chance to ever have a taste of democracy and freedom. Confined in a detention center in Australia for three years, he fought to mobilize the world against the massacre of his family and his people. Today he is based in Melbourne, where he works hard to raise money to hopefully save his family. He is in weekly contact with Burma and continues to inform journalists and humanitarians on the situation. SOPHIE ANSEL Sophie Ansel is journalist, filmmaker and scriptwriter, and a specialist of Burma, South East Asia and Australia. She directed several films for French television about Burma and its refugees. She has also written several travel books, the latest being a 200-page guidebook to Sydney. She also wrote the text for the 210-page graphic novel “Burmese Moons,” that depicts the life story of the Burmese from a Christian tribe (the Zomi). She has follow Habib and his plight since 2006 when she first investigated Burmese refugees living in Malaysia. In 2010, a few days after he was detained on Christmas Island, Habib called Sophie. Sophie decided to write his story in a book published in french. She has visited Habib several times at the detention center in Australia to interview Habib. “First they erase our name” is the translated title of “Nous les innommables, un tabou birman” published by French publisher: STEINKIS. After "Forbidden tears" and "Burmese Moons", "First they erased our name" is her third book.

IN THE NEWS ROHINGYAS ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BURMA

PRESS REVIEWS The book has been released in France in October 2012. “Rohingyas” has since become a hot topic with the release of Human Rights reports on ethnic cleansing, and also with the wide spread anti-Muslim violence in Burma. Habib has also been classified as a member of the “Boat People” and has remained almost 3 years in detention center in Australia – andother very hot topic for Australian media. Habib’s story is the rare testimony depicting the life of the Rohingya in 370 pages, from childhood and early adulthood in Burma to his escape throughout Asia and finally his detention in Australia. FRENCH TELEVISION :

TV5:http://www.tv5.org/cms/chaine-francophone/info/Les-dossiers-de-la-redaction/birmanie-aung-san-suu-kyi-liberation-novembre2010/p-23351-Ouest-de-la-Birmanie-une-poudriere-ethnique.htm

France 24

http://www.france24.com/fr/20130305-debat-partie2-birmanie-junte-aung-san-suu-kyi-thein-sein?page=1

FRENCH RADIO:

Europe 1

http://www.europe1.fr/MediaCenter/Emissions/Carnets-du-monde/Sons/Les-carnets-du-monde-04-05-13-1505703/

France Inter:

http://www.franceinter.fr/emission-partout-ailleurs-de-sittwe-a-la-paz-de-dublin-a-gaza

FRENCH NATIONAL MAGAZINE

PARIS MATCH

http://www.parismatch.com/Actu/International/Birmanie-Le-massacre-sans-fin-des-Rohingyas-159600

LE MONDE

http://www.lemonde.fr/asie-pacifique/article/2013/05/16/les-rohingya-de-birmanie-preferent-affronter-un-cyclone-plutot-que-de-faire-confiance-aux-autorites_3267173_3216.html