Category: Rohingya Reports

Utah: Trial begins for Burmese Muslim who killed fellow refugee girl

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a horrible case we reported from the time it happened in 2008.  I’ll bet you won’t hear about it even on Fox News!

Yesterday, jury selection began in the murder trial of Esar Met who was arrested shortly after the murder of a Hser Ner Moo  a 7-year-old Burmese Karen Christian girl who had been resettled in the same apartment building with Met.

In the camp, where they both lived prior to the US State Department contractors (which was it?  Catholic Charities?) sending them to Utah, they lived in separate parts of the camp since Muslims and Christians in Burma have had a long and tense history (it is not just the Buddhists who find the Rohingya Muslims a problem).

I speculated from the outset that Met was a Muslim, but didn’t learn until 2012 (a reader sent me an old story on the case) that one reporter did have the guts to find out.  Here is the post I wrote in June 2012.   This is the lengthy Salt Lake Tribune feature piece which includes these telling lines (emphasis mine):

Rage flashed through the muddy lanes where Hser Ner Moo had once skipped rope and played hide-and-seek. In the camp, tension lingers between the Karen and Muslims, and some choose to live apart. Hser Ner Moo and Esar had lived in separate sections of Mae La.

America had made them neighbors.

Here is the news yesterday at the Salt Lake Tribune as jury selection began in Met’s murder trial:

Jury selection began Monday for a Burmese refugee accused of kidnapping, raping and killing a young girl at the South Salt Lake apartment complex where they both lived in 2008.

Opening statements and evidence in Esar Met’s three-week-long trial are scheduled to begin Tuesday.

Met, 27, is charged in 3rd District Court with first-degree felony counts of aggravated murder and child kidnapping in connection with the March 2008 slaying of 7-year-old Hser Ner Moo.

Hser Ner Moo disappeared on March 31, 2008, prompting hundreds of volunteers to search for her before police found her body in Met’s basement apartment the next night. Her family lived in the same complex, and the girl was acquainted with Met.

She was found face down in Met’s shower, still in the pink shirt, pink skirt and pink coat she was wearing the day before. Police have said the girl was likely dead within an hour of leaving her family’s nearby apartment.

Defense argued to have gruesome photos withheld from the jury:

The defense also petitioned the court to have prosecutors use diagrams instead of certain graphic photos that, the defense argued, are “too gruesome” for jurors.

Prosecutors called the photos relevant, saying they show the brutality with which the child was killed and the injuries she suffered.

“The person who did this, who dragged her into the shower and left her, intended her to die,” prosecutor Robert Parrish said. “They are not gruesome photographs in and of themselves.”

Atherton later ruled that only two photos — one depicting the 7-year-old girl crumpled inside a bathroom stall; the other, a photo of the girl’s bruised and damaged genitals — could be used at trial.

No death penalty!  The taxpayers of the state of Utah will be paying for this guy for life (if he is found guilty)! 

Maybe the resettlement agency that in its infinite wisdom placed the two in the same building should take up a collection for his care in prison.   In fact, in a lot of these crime cases involving refugees, I think there should be some financial responsibility on the US State Department and the resettlement contractors when one of their refugees gets in trouble with the law.  Maybe they will be more selective next time.

To move the case along, prosecutors decided to forgo seeking the death penalty against Met. Instead, Met could face life without the possibility of parole or 20 years to life in prison, if found guilty of aggravated murder.

Read the whole article, there is a problem coming in this case regarding interpreters.  One thing few “welcoming” communities consider is the cost and availability of competent interpreters when refugees end up in police custody or in court, or even need medical treatment.  Federal law requires the local community to find and pay the interpreter.  We have learned in some immigrant-rich counties the cost can run into millions of dollars.

Washington Post takes a whack at Burmese human rights “icon”

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

But, Aung San Suu Kyi rejects the label!

“Icon” was a label imposed on me by others. I’m the leader of a political party. (Aung San Suu Kyi)

Readers, we have been writing about the situation in Burma (aka Myanmar) for over 5 years now and I believe we may have the most extensive archive (163 previous posts) on the conflict there between the Rohingya Muslims and the ruling Buddhists. 

The mainstream media, shilling for the human rights industrial complex, has been building a massive PR campaign to get the West to believe that the Rohingya “victims” were just going about their business of living when they were put-upon by the Buddhists, but we have reported on many occasions where Rohingya agitators (and outside Muslim agitators) have been stirring the controversy as well.  And, not just in Burma!

Our major concern is that federal refugee contractors are lobbying the US State Department to bring more Rohingya to America.

So here is the Washington Post doing its ‘hit’ on Aung San Suu Kyi who ‘gets it’ about the growing Islamic influence around the world.  Emphasis is mine.

RANGOON, Burma — When it comes to human rights, few names carry quite as much weight as Aung San Suu Kyi’s.

In more than two decades of facing down Burma’s former military junta, the opposition leader earned reverence at home and admiration across the globe — not to mention the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. Her release from years of house arrest in 2010 and her election to Burma’s parliament last year helped persuade Western nations to relax sanctions on the current, civilian-led government.

So to some of Suu Kyi’s admirers in the West, and ethnic and religious minorities here in Burma, the past few months have been disconcerting.

That’s because “the lady,” as she is known, has been resisting calls to wield her moral authority on behalf of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group that faces state-sponsored discrimination and has suffered attacks by extremist Buddhists in western Burma.

Suu Kyi, however, is making no apologies for sounding less like a human rights icon and more like a politician playing to the country’s Buddhist majority.

“Please don’t forget that I started out as the leader of a political party. I cannot think of anything more political than that,” Suu Kyi said at a Dec. 6 news conference in Rangoon. “Icon was a depiction that was imposed on me by other people.”

Suu Kyi:  there is “a perception that global Muslim power is very great.”

Many Rohingya have lived in Burma — also known as Myanmar — for generations, but their national origins remain a subject of bitter contention. The government considers them illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. Hundreds died last year in riots, which left tens of thousands of Rohingya in squalid camps.   [Many Buddhists died in the rioting too, but that doesn’t fit the story line for the Washington Post—ed]

In an October interview with the BBC, Suu Kyi rejected charges that the Rohingya situation amounts to “ethnic cleansing.” She said that both Buddhists and Muslims have fears about each other, noting that there is “a perception that global Muslim power is very great.”

Photo is from this 2012 BBC story about how she chose house arrest instead of leaving the country with her British husband and children.

University of Wisconsin hosts conference on discrimination against Muslim Rohingya

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Nigerian woman carried from church which had been attacked by Muslims

And, they claim the Rohingya of Burma are the “most persecuted people in our time.” 

I suspect the Christians of the Middle East (Syria, Iraq) and Africa (Egypt, Nigeria, Central African Republic) might beg to differ.

Here is the story at Eurasia Review:

The first international conference in the USA on the plight of the Rohingya people of Myanmar – “Stop Genocide and Restore Rohingya’s Citizenship Rights in Myanmar” – was held in the campus of University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee on December 14, 2013. It was jointly hosted by the Burmese Rohingya American Friendship Association (BRAFA) and the Rohingya Concern International (RCI). The conference opened with a welcome speech from BRAFA’s chairman – Mr. Shaukhat Kyaw Soe Aung (MSK Jilani) and Dr. Chia Vang of the Ethnic Studies program at the university. The program was conducted by Mr. Mohiuddin Yosuf, President of the RCI and Chief Coordinator of the conference organizing committee. I was invited as a speaker. Amongst others, the speakers included – Professor Greg Stanton of the Genocide Watch (George Mason University), Mr. Nurul Islam of ARNO (UK), Sheikh Ziad Hamdan of Islamic Society of Milwaukee….

[….]

The Rohingya people, who mostly live in the western Rakhine state of Myanmar, are the most persecuted people in our time.

The conference called upon the government of Burma (aka Myanmar) to do the following:

 The Government of Myanmar to stop persecution, discrimination and dehumanizing of Muslims, including repealing laws and policies that enact or contribute to the persecution of Muslims and other targeted groups within Myanmar.

The Government of Myanmar to crack down on anti-Muslim violence against Rohingya and other Muslims.

I sure hope the University’s ethnic studies department will soon host a program on Muslim violence toward Christians on several continents!

For new readers who might ask why do we follow the Rohingya issue so closely?   We have been following the drum beat (the PR campaign!) for over five years now as we have watched the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and other of the federal resettlement contractors pushing to resettle Rohingya in your towns and cities.  So far the number is small, and we only know from news accounts that Muslim Burmese are mixed in with the thousands of other religious groups from Burma.   The US State Department does not release to the public the religious breakdown of refugees resettled in the US, although they do track those statistics.

See our extensive Rohingya Reports category, here.

Photo is posted at ACT for America Houston, some other photos are more gruesome.

Utah: After nearly six years trial to begin in case of Burmese refugee who allegedly raped and murdered 7-year-old

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Alleged child rapist/murderer, Esar Met, photographed in court in December 2012.
Al Hartmann | The Salt Lake Tribune

Wow!  I wondered what had happened to this case we reported back in 2008, and just tonight up pops the news that the trial will begin in January for Esar Met who we learned in 2012 is a Burmese Muslim (a Rohingya?).   The victim, Hser Ner Moo, was a Christian and both had been resettled in the same apartment complex in Salt Lake City.

Here is what a news report in 2008 said (I didn’t see it until 2012):

Rage flashed through the muddy lanes where Hser Ner Moo had once skipped rope and played hide-and-seek. In the camp, tension lingers between the Karen and Muslims, and some choose to live apart. Hser Ner Moo and Esar had lived in separate sections of Mae La.

America had made them neighbors.

Not America!—the resettlement contractors in Salt Lake City! and the US State Department! who have some naive notion that generations of “tensions” between Christians and Muslims can simply be erased by dropping people into America’s magical (mythical!) melting pot!

This is the news this evening from The Salt Lake Tribune (emphasis mine):

Prosecutors and defense attorneys still have much to do before a Burmese refugee accused of kidnapping and killing a young girl at the South Salt Lake apartment complex where they both lived in 2008 is brought to trial.

But Senior Judge Judith Atherton said Wednesday she doesn’t want to postpone the case any longer.

After nearly six years of delays, Esar Met’s three-week trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 6.

Met, 26, is charged in 3rd District Court with first-degree felony counts of aggravated murder and child kidnapping in connection with the March 2008 slaying of 7-year-old Hser Ner Moo.

On Wednesday, defense attorneys asked the judge to suppress evidence in the case they said was collected using illegal or unethical methods and petitioned the court to have prosecutors use diagrams instead of certain graphic photos that, the defense argued, are “too gruesome” for jurors.

Prosecutors called the photos relevant, saying they show the brutality with which the child was killed and the injuries she suffered.

[…..]

Atherton will issue a decision next week on whether or not a jury will be allowed to view the photos, which depict the 7-year-old girl crumpled inside a bathroom stall, bloodied and naked from the waist down, with obviously broken bones and bruised and damaged genitals.

[…..]

Hser Ner Moo disappeared on March 31, 2008, prompting hundreds of volunteers to search for her before police found her body in Met’s apartment the next night. Her family lived in the same complex, and the girl was acquainted with Met.

Read the whole article, there will be legal wrangling over whether proper interpreters interviewed the alleged killer.

All of our mentions of this Utah murder case may be found here.

The OIC does not need an office in Burma (Myanmar)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
No OIC! No Sharia Law! Take Foreign Bengalis to your country! Monks protest in Sittwe last Friday

But, they sure would like one. 

It is my view that it would serve no purpose other than to create a political agitation foothold in the largely Buddhist country.  If the rich countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation want to send humanitarian aid (food and supplies) to their fellow Muslims, let them do it through established international channels!

My alerts this morning are filled with Ihsanoglu crying stories, but here is a surprisingly (slightly) more balanced story written by Nizam Ahmed at The Financial Express (emphasis is mine):

US Ambassador Derek Mitchell was hanging around during the OIC visit according to The Financial Express.

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) urged Myanmar to allow opening a country office in Naypyitaw so that the organisation could cooperate and contribute to socio-economic development programmes in the Buddhist-majority country, diplomatic sources said in Dhaka Saturday.

The call was made during official level talks between an OIC delegation and Myanmar officials in the capital of the Southeast Asian country Thursday, the second day of a four-day visit.

The delegation led by OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu concluded the visit Saturday after assessing the level of human rights abuse against minority Muslim Rohingyas, the sources said.

However the delegation while visiting camps of homeless people, mostly Rohingya Muslims, displaced during the communal riots in western Rakhine state over the past one year, met noisy protests of ethnic Buddhists in Sittwe, the capital of the state Thursday.

About 3,000 Buddhists led by monks staged the protest when the OIC delegation visited different camps of displaced Rohingyas and met local officials in the Rakhine state (formerly Arakan), bordering Bangladesh.

However Rohinygas welcomed the delegation comprising senior officials of the respective foreign ministries of seven member countries namely Bangladesh, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, who visited the camps, said a senior official at the ministry of foreign affairs in Dhaka.

The ethnic Buddhists staged the protest as they feel that the international aid groups are biased for Muslims in Myanmar, he said. [yes they are!—ed]

Now this is unbelievable!  For the first time in a very long time someone actually mentions that the latest upheaval resulted from the rapes and murders of  Buddhist girls by Muslims!

Rakhine state was the scene of communal clashes between Muslims and ethnic Buddhists last year that left some 200 mostly Rohingya Muslims dead and 140,000 others displaced.   [Rarely does anyone mention that Buddhists died in the clashes too!  Some Muslims were killers as well, but you would never know it from western media reports!—-ed]

The riot that erupted last year over alleged rape of two women by Muslims, opened up an old wound of sectarian animosity and hatred between the two communities.

Here is one more point of fact rarely mentioned these days.  Buddhists claim the Rohingya are largely illegal migrants who have come over from Bangladesh in modern times.

Myanmar Buddhists consider Rohingya Muslims illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh, brought over by the British when they ruled over colonial India and Myanmar, also known as Burma. The Rohingyas say, in response, that they have lived in the country for generations.

The protest photo is from this story.   I loved the banner telling the OIC to take the ‘Bengalis’ (Rohingya) to their countries.  That is exactly what I’ve been saying!

As I said yesterday:

Editors note:  Pay attention!  This is not some faraway problem—it will be yours in the West when they start pushing in a big way for the resettlement of Rohingya to your towns!

This past May the US Conference of Catholic Bishops implored the US State Department to bring MORE Rohingya to America.

Anyone want to write a book?  See our previous 160 posts in our Rohingya Reports category.  LOL!  We have your research done!