March 17, 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...

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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...

Press Release

(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...

Rohingya Orgs Activities

RB News December 6, 2017 Tokyo, Japan -- Legislators from all parties, along with Human Rights Now, Human Rights Watch, and Save the Children, came together to host the emergency parliament in-house event “The Rohingya Human Rights Crisis and Japanese Diplomacy” on December 4th. The eve...

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By Wyston Lawrence RB Petition October 15, 2017 There is one petition has been going on Change.org to remove Ven. Wira Thu from Facebook. He has been known as Buddhist Bin Laden. Time magazine published his image on their cover with the title of The Face of Buddhist Terror. The petitio...

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A human rights activist and genocide scholar from Burma Dr. Maung Zarni visits Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi Extermination Camp and calls on European governments - Britain, France, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Denmark, Hungary and Germany not to collaborate with the Evil - like they did with Hitler 75 ye...

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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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Buddhist Monks In Myanmar: Driving Religious Intolerance And Hindering Reform – Analysis

(Photo: Racoles)

By Eliane Coates
December 4, 2013

TWO HUNDRED Buddhist monks took to the streets of Yangon on 12 November 2013 to protest the visit of a high-level delegation of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The delegation, comprising the OIC Secretary-General and senior ministers of seven member states – Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Djibouti and Egypt – were met by demonstrations against the world’s largest Islamic bloc. Echoing those of 2012, the demonstrations were led by Buddhist monks demanding that the OIC not get involved in Myanmar’s internal affairs.

The delegation, which was to review the situation of Muslims in Myanmar, came almost 18 months after violence broke out in the western Rakhine state between Muslim Rohingya and Buddhists in June 2012, which developed into widespread clashes all over Myanmar, resulting in the death of 240 persons and the displacement of 240,000 people – the majority being Rohingya Muslims.

History of Burman-Buddhist nationalism

The anti-Muslim animosity among Burman Buddhists has its roots in the lingering resentment of colonial history 80 years ago. British colonisation of the Indian sub-continent and Myanmar and the erasing of historical boundaries in the 19th century led to an open immigration policy which enabled an influx of Bengali Muslim labourers into Myanmar.

Buddhist monks claim that the Rohingya are the descendants of the Bengali migrant population, citing the 1982 Burman Citizenship Law which refused to recognise the Rohingya as an ethnic group of Myanmar, and thus essentially legitimised discrimination against Rohingya.

Indeed Buddhist monks led the riots in the 1930s during the Great Depression which resulted in the emergence of the Doh Bama (We Burma) movement. This subsequently saw the rise of Burman-Buddhist nationalism and the beginning of nation-wide anti-Indian sentiment, which later evolved into anti-Muslim attitudes.

Today a section of Burman Buddhist monks led by Ashin Wirathu is re-igniting that sentiment by preaching hatred and sowing fear which drives religious divisions in society. A senior abbot in the Mandalay Buddhist monastery, Wirathu is the founder of the ‘969’ economic-nationalist campaign which encourages Buddhists to shop only at Buddhist stores.
Two narratives

Two narratives are salient underlying the anti-Rohingya drive.

The first is the ‘Islamic encroachment’ idea that runs deep in Burman Buddhist society. There is fear of a demographic explosion of Muslims that would disrupt Myanmar’s Buddhist identity. These concerns stem from the fact many Rohingya fail to assimilate Burmese local customs and way of life. Despite criticism from Aung San Suu Kyi – the opposition leader and spokesperson for human rights – as well as the international community, several cities began in May this year to impose a discriminatory two-child policy on Rohingya families to slow their population growth.

According to the Rakhine State government spokesperson the Rohingya “are trying to Islamise [Buddhists] through their terrible birth rate,” citing that the Rohingya population growth is ten times that of native Buddhists. However economists at Harvard’s Ash Centre for Democratic Governance and Innovation argue that there is no evidence of an increasing Rohingya birth rate. Instead, they find there has been a net outflow of the Rohingya, mostly to Bangladesh, since 1950.

The second narrative being disseminated is that ‘the Rohingya started it’, that this minority Muslim group has been taking over the Buddhist lands of Myanmar. After Myanmar’s Independence in 1948, the Rohingya formed a guerilla-fighting Mujahideen which launched a 13-year rebellion for a separate Islamic State or to join the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

While this movement was defeated, lingering resentment remains amongst Buddhists as the rebellion was seen as a great betrayal and threat to Myanmar’s new found sovereignty. The Rohingya too were blamed for igniting the recent ethnic clashes after the alleged rape of a Buddhist woman in May 2012 which soon led to retaliatory attacks by local Buddhists.

Ironically, however, efforts by Buddhist monks to propagate these narratives have been facilitated by Myanmar’s reforms. Whereas during the period of the military junta ethnic tensions and separatism were held at bay by (and justified) strict military rule, new found freedom of speech permits Buddhist monks, such as Wirathu, to spread ideas of religious intolerance and fan the flames of Islamophobia.

Embracing diversity and ASEAN Chairmanship

While in the past Burmese nationhood has been fundamentally linked to Buddhism, now is time for a more concerted effort by Myanmar, and in particular its senior Buddhist monks, to embrace multiculturalism, condemn hate speech, and find strength in ethnic diversity. No doubt Myanmar has undergone rapid economic and political transitions since 2011 – it has held elections, lifted censorship laws, and freed hundreds of political prisoners.

Yet reform should not only touch on the hardware of development, but also the software, including both national identity and character building. After decades of civil war between ethnic nationalities and lingering anti-Muslim prejudice, it is clear that denying the ethnic diversity of Myanmar has only caused harm to the country and its people. As United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in July this year: “There is a dangerous polarisation taking place within Myanmar” and “if it is not addressed urgently and firmly, underlying tensions could provoke more upheaval, undermining the reform process and triggering negative regional repercussions”. Change could begin with constitutional reform to repeal the 1982 Burma Citizenship Law.

This choice is important now more than ever as Myanmar has recently become the chairman of ASEAN for 2014. It has to demonstrate that this is not a premature move given the growing climate of insecurity for minorities within its borders. There is a lot at stake for both ASEAN and Myanmar. Both parties want Myanmar to normalise its international standing and increase the much-needed political legitimacy for the regime in Naypyidaw.

More so, Myanmar wants to show off its reforms, and in doing so, portray a positive image of itself internationally. Yet, this image is reliant on public confidence as to how Myanmar treats its own society, including its minority population.

Eliane Coates is a Senior Analyst at the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.

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