March 15, 2025

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Announcement of New Website: Rohingya Today (RohingyaToday.Com) Dear Readers, From 1st January 2019 onward, the Rohingya News Portal 'Rohingya Blogger' will be renamed and upgraded as 'Rohingya Today'. Due to this transition to a new name, our website will be available at www.rohing...

Rohingya News @ Int'l Media

Maung Zarni, leader of the Free Rohingya Coalition, speaks at a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo on Thursday. | CHISATO TANAKA By Chisato Tanaka, Published by The Japan Times on October 25, 2018 A leader of a global network of activists for Rohingya Mu...

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By Sena Güler | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 1, 2018 Maung Zarni says he will boycott Beijing-sponsored events until the country reverses its 'troubling path' ANKARA -- A human rights activist and intellectual said he withdrew from a Beijing-sponsored forum in London to pro...

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Oskar Butcher RB Article October 6, 2018 Every night in an unassuming shop space located in Mandalay’s 39thStreet, Lu Maw and Lu Zaw – the remaining members of the Burma’s most famous comedy trio, the Moustache Brothers – present their show: a curious combination of comedy, political sa...

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A demonstration over identity cards at a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh in April, 2018. Image: NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images. By Natalie Brinham | Published by Open Democracy on October 21, 2018 Wary of the past, Rohingya have frustrated the UN’s attempts to provide them with documenta...

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By M.S. Anwar | Opinion & Analysis The Burmese (Myanmar) quasi-civilian government unleashed a large-scale violence against the minority Rohingya in the western Myanmar state of Arakan in 2012. The violence, which some wrongly frame as ‘Communal’, was carried out by the Burmese armed forces...

Analysis @ Int'l Media

By Maung Zarni, Natalie Brinham | Published by Middle East Institute on November 20, 2018 “It is an ongoing genocide (in Myanmar),” said Mr. Marzuki Darusman, the head of the UN Human Rights Council-mandated Independent International Fact-Finding Mission at the official briefing at ...

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Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar wait to be let through by Bangladeshi border guards after crossing the border in Palang Khali, Bangladesh October 9, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj MS Anwar RB Opinion November 12, 2018 Some may differ. But I believe the government of Bangladesh is ...

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By Maung Zarni | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 15, 2018 US will not intercede, and Myanmar's neighbors see it through economic lens, so international coalition for Rohingya needed LONDON -- The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday overwhelmingly passed a resolution ca...

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Aman Ullah  RB History August 25, 2016 The ethnic Rohingya is one of the many nationalities of the union of Burma. And they are one of the two major communities of Arakan; the other is Rakhine and Buddhist. The Muslims (Rohingyas) and Buddhists (Rakhines) peacefully co-existed in the A...

Rohingya History by Scholars

Dr. Maung Zarni's Remark: The best research on Rohingya history: British Orientalism which created the pseudo-scientific biological notion of "Taiyinthar" or "real natives" of #Myanmar caused that country's post-colonial cancer of official & popular genocidal Racism.  This co...

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(Photo: Soe Zeya Tun, Reuters) RB News  October 5, 2013  Thandwe, Arakan – Rakhinese mob in Thandwe started attacking Kaman Muslims on September 28, 2013. As a result, 5 Kaman Muslims were mercilessly killed and 1 was died in heart attack while escaping the attack. 781 Kaman Mus...

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Rohingya families arrive at a UNHCR transit centre near the village of Anjuman Para, Cox’s Bazar, south-east Bangladesh after spending four days stranded at the Myanmar border with some 6,800 refugees. (Photo: UNHCR/Roger Arnold) By UN News May 11, 2018 Late last year, as violent repressi...

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(Photo: Reuters) Joint Statement: Rohingya Groups Call on U.S. Government to Ensure International Accountability for Myanmar Military-Planned Genocide December 17, 2018  We, the undersigned Rohingya organizations worldwide, call for accountability for genocide and crimes against...

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Editorial by Int'l Media

By Dhaka Tribune Editorial November 5, 2017 How can we answer to our conscience knowing full-well what the Myanmar military is doing to the innocent Rohingya minority -- not even sparing children or pregnant women? Despite the on-going humanitarian crisis involving Rohingya refugees ...

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Q&A - Why statelessness destroys lives – expert

Source: alertnet // Emma Batha
Stateless Rohingya children attend an English class in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur, August 16, 2011. Rohingyas are an ethnic minority originating from Myanmar, but in 1982 Myanmar passed a law which made it impossible for them to get full citizenship. Many have fled to other Asian countries. Some live as refugees, others as illegal migrants. REUTERS/Bazuki Muhammad
This story is part of an AlertNet special report on statelessness
LONDON (AlertNet) - Tuesday marks the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Maureen Lynch, an expert on statelessness, explains the plight faced by people who have no country to call home.

What does being stateless mean?
Stateless individuals live and die as almost invisible people. According to the 1954 Convention, a stateless person is someone who has no legal tie to any government, which means they don’t have any of the protection or rights associated with citizenship.  It affects most rights we take for granted – an identity, basic education, access to health, freedom of movement, the right to own property, even something like a cell phone. It affects people across their entire life span.
Why has there been so little attention paid to stateless people?
It’s very hard to paint a mental image of statelessness. When you say the word ‘refugee’ we can picture it in our minds. But when you say the word ‘stateless,’ until you’ve met someone who is stateless, and even afterwards, it’s hard to get your mind around the concept and how it impacts a person’s life. And statelessness can be complicated. Many cases are just not so simple to solve. There may be elements of deeply ingrained discrimination, whether racial, religious or ethnic.
What stands out among the stateless people you have met?
One of the most painful things to witness in the case of statelessness is the way it denies a person the chance to develop. I’ve met people with untapped talents and amazing potential who want to help the country where they believe they are citizens. Being denied the ability to contribute, and seeing their life going to waste is one of the most disturbing things. It’s heart-wrenching actually because they could do so much for the global good.
One story that comes to mind is the denationalised Kurds in Syria.  One highly educated man I met hauls refrigerators on his back. A trained lawyer was selling tea on the street.  And a promising young athlete was forced to borrow a friend’s name and ID to compete.
What is available to protect them?
Each context is slightly different, but generally speaking there are not a lot of protections.
One of the challenges with statelessness is that these people don’t have a voice – particularly a political voice – because they are afraid of making their situation even worse. So they can’t even speak for themselves in a way we would find among other marginalised populations.
We saw in the case of Bangladesh, for example, that it took well into the third decade of the Bihari, or the Urdu speaking population, for the young people to be able to say, ‘this is where I was born, this is the language I learned to speak and this is my country.’ And they were able to find someone to represent them in court.
But in so many cases you can’t take nationality issues to the courts. That is the problem in Kuwait for the bedouns (stateless Arabs).
Which countries are you watching right now?
The UNHCR (U.N. refugee agency) is closely monitoring developments in Sudan to guard against a stateless situation arising following South Sudan’s independence.
The United States is also paying very close attention to this. The main concern is for individuals from the South living in the North. It could be that the North says, ‘you have your own country now, we’re not going to let you be nationals of this country.’
There’s also more attention being paid to statelessness in the United Kingdom because of what’s happening with failed asylum seekers who can’t be returned to the country they came from – either because that country refuses them as a national or for other reasons – so they are left de facto stateless.
What should governments be doing?
Governments must uphold the nationality rights of everyone – to recognise citizenship in cases where it should be recognised, and at least as a minimum to evaluate cases where it is unclear.
They must also work towards gender equality in nationality laws – that’s another huge one. In many countries women can’t pass on their nationality to their children. Governments must also ensure birth registration of all children. That not only reduces statelessness, it’s also a means of prevention.
What else must be done?
Governments must ensure access to education for all people, including stateless people.
We should also pay particular attention to trafficking. People can either be trafficked because they are stateless, or become stateless because they are trafficked.
Detention is another issue that is often overlooked. People who are stateless and detained are doubly invisible. They have even less of a voice. Very little is known about their situation. I don’t think anyone has an estimate as to how many are behind bars. That’s part of the problem. And there is almost no one focusing on that.
Which cases of statelessness are the most pressing?
It’s very difficult to put one group in front of another. Because statelessness affects different populations in different ways, it’s very hard to compare. Large stateless groups such as the Rohinyga certainly warrant special attention, as do groups like the Kuwaiti bedoun who can’t take their case to the court. We have an extra responsibility to work on their behalf.
As told to Emma Batha.
Maureen Lynch is affiliated to the International Observatory on Statelessness. Previously she was Senior Advocate for Statelessness Initiatives at Refugees International.

Link:   :http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/qa-why-statelessness-destroys-lives-expert

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