KUALA LUMPUR – “We are the voice of the voiceless. This is our slogan,” said Ajmeer Omar, a reporter and anchor for Rohingya Vision TV.
It is a well-worn maxim among journalists the world over, but for Ajmeer and his colleagues, it may be especially true.
In 2012, Rohingya Vision TV, R-Vision for short, became the first news broadcaster both for and by the Rohingya, a stateless Muslim group that claims a distinct ethnic identity rejected by the government of Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship even after generations of putting down root
Regarded as among the most persecuted people in the world, more than 1 million Rohingya now live in teeming refugee camps in eastern Bangladesh, driven from their homes in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state by a series of deadly communal clashes and military-backed raids. Many of those still in Rakhine are cut off from each other and from local markets, hospitals and schools.