Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. has asked Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo to relay to visiting Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya the country’s protest of Bangkok’s recent "brutal" treatment of refugees from Burma.

"Secretary Romulo should protest to the visiting Thai foreign minister the brutal act of the Thai government in sending adrift 200 Rohinga refugees from Burma on a boat without a motor and without food days ago," Pimentel said in a text message to reporters.

"The way the Thai government treated the refugees, especially the removal of the motor of the boat, was tantamount to a death sentence," Pimentel said.

Interviewed by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Pimentel said the Philippine government should raise the "humanitarian issue" with Kasit.

The Philippines, being a "freedom loving country,” should speak out against the blatant abuse of the rights of the refugees, he said.

Thailand is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which the Philippines also belongs to.

Pimentel raised the issue on the Senate floor on Monday night, expressing concern for the plight of the Rohinga refugees.

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Prague: The Czech Republic will receive another group of 16 refugees from Burma who will arrive in Prague on Thursday and will be granted asylum right afterwards, the Interior Ministry told CTK today.

The ministry organised the arrival of the first, 23-member group of Burmese refugees last year.

The fresh group of refugees will after arrival move to an asylum centre to prepare over a period of several months for life in the Czech Republic.

The Burmese refugees now stay in Malaysia where there are thousands of them and where their status is problematic.

Malaysia is not a signatory of the convention on the legal status of refugees and therefore their rights are not guaranteed.

The refugees moving to the Czech Republic have been chosen by Czech clerks.

"The Czech Republic joins the solution to global problems of refugees not only on the national, but also international level," the ministry said.

Help to refugees is offered by Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, among others.

The Czech Interior Ministry organised in the past similar projects for expatriates from the countries of the former Soviet Union. Last year it accepted a group of Cuban refugees.

Czech diplomacy has for long criticised the hard military regime in Burma.

Czech Happenings (Czech Republic)

IDI RAYEUK, Indonesia: Members of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority recently found drifting in boats off the Indonesian island of Sumatra are causing a headache for nearby countries over whether to accept them.

After fleeing their homeland, the Rohingya reportedly were rounded up by the Thai military and treated harshly before being set adrift.

The Indonesian government would not grant them refugee status, arguing that they fled predominantly Buddhist Myanmar for economic reasons.

But calls to protect the Rohingya have been mounting, both in Indonesia and other countries.

At a camp in the Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam Province, one of the Rohingya boat people said angrily, "I hate both Myanmar and Thailand."

According to this man and others, about 1,200 Rohingya migrants, including some from Bangladesh, fled Myanmar in December and were detained by the Thai military before being cast adrift.

"The Thai military treated us terribly," he said. "We were set adrift on a boat after being given only a small amount of rice and water."

The boat, carrying 220 people, drifted for about three weeks before being discovered by an Indonesian fishing boat on Feb. 2. Twenty-two people died from thirst and hunger while the remaining 198 survived by drinking seawater.

Another group of 193 Rohingya boat people was detained in a different camp in the province. They also complained about violence at the hands of the Thai military. But the Thai government denied allegations of mistreatment, saying it had dealt with the Rohingya humanely, but would not allow them to stay in the country illegally.

The Rohingya are seeking permission to work and stay in Indonesia or Australia. But the Indonesian government is sticking to its position, arguing that the Rohingya did not cite political persecution as a reason for seeking refugee status.

Amnesty International, an international organization to protect human rights, has asked the countries concerned not to send the Rohingya back to Myanmar, saying they are not recognized as citizens by the Myanmar junta, but treated as "stateless persons" whose activities are restricted.

In a desperate effort to resolve the issue, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda on Friday announced a policy to discuss the issue within a multinational framework.

The matter is likely to be taken up during a meeting with Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, who was due to visit Indonesia on Tuesday.

Hideaki Hayashi Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

The top mainstream Islamic foundation in Thailand on Monday demanded that the government treat Rohingya migrants better, including issuing them with work papers.

The Foundation of Islamic Centre of Thailand said the Burmese were illegal aliens, and posed no more threat to the country than an estimated one million other migrants from Burma, Laos and Cambodia.

"The truth is there are already about 20,000 Rohingya illegal immigrants now living on Thai soil," said a statement by the Foundation, which is run by the National Mosque in Bangkok.

"Most had entered Thailand through the Burmese-Thai border in Mae Sot district (of Tak province in the North), and then migrated to other parts of Thailand," said the group.

Several Rohingya appeared with the Thai Muslim group, and suggested that the Thai government should prepare the Muslim illegal migrants for moving to a third country instead of returning them to Burma.

Bangkok Post

The Shan State Army - an insurgent group in north-east Burma - has opposed the junta's planned general election in 2010, joining a growing number of ethnic minority groups determined to upset the polls, media reports and analysts said Sunday. Shan State Army leader Colonel Yod Serk said the SSA was one of at least ten ethnic minority rebel groups that have come out against the 2010 general election, the Bangkok Post reported.

"The junta announced the upcoming election, but never let the opposing parties run in the race," Yod Serk told the newspaper.

The rebel leader claimed even the United Wa State Army, a close ally of the Burmese junta, was opposed to the upcoming election.

Growing opposition to the planned general election may force ruling junta to delay the polls, analysts said Sunday.

"Besides the SSA, the New Mon State Party and Kachin Independence Organization have also come out against the polls," said Aung Din, executive director for the US Campaign for Burma.

Burma's military regime has fought more than a dozen ethnic minority-based insurgencies in its hinterlands for decades, although cease-fire agreements have been signed with most of them.

The ruling junta included representatives of the ethnic minorities, representing almost half the population, in its constitution-drafting process, which took 14 years, but ignored their demands to establish a federation in a post-election period that would have granted states such as the Karen, Kachin, Shan, Arakan and Chin a measure of autonomy.

Instead, under the new constitution, all rebels groups will be required to give up their arms and submit to the central government.

"This is their last chance," Aung Din said. "If they allow the election to be held there will not be another chance for them to claim autonomy."

"Without satisfying the ethnic groups I don't think the junta will be able to hold the election," he said.

Besides the ethnic minority groups, Burma's chief opposition party - the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by imprisoned Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi - has demanded amendments to the constitution before it considers contesting the 2010 polls.

The NLD won the 1990 polls by a landslide, but was denied power by the junta on the claim that a new constitution was needed before civilian rule was possible. NLD leader Suu Ski has spent 13 of the past 19 years under house arrest.

The new constitution of 2008 has been written in such a way as to cement the military's control over a post-election government.

Burma has been under military rule since 1962, when a coup led by General Ne Win ended the country's first post-independence elected government under Prime Minister U Nu.

DPA