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...

Myanmar News

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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Article @ RB

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...

Article @ Int'l Media

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...

Analysis @ RB

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 ...

Opinion @ RB

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 ...

Opinion @ Int'l Media

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...

History @ RB

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...

Report @ RB

(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...

Report by Media/Org

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...

Petition

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...

Campaign

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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Myanmar / UN - Appeal against choice of Myanmar leader Suu Kyi to head anti-discrimination campaign

December 8, 2013

UNAIDS appoints Aung San Suu Kyi as Zero Discrimination Global Advocate

Contents

1. Action Required
2. Summary
3. Background
4. Sample Letter

1. Action Required

Please write to UNAIDS and express your concern about choosing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Mynamar opposition leader as UNAIDS Global Advocate for Zero Discrimination heading the ‘zero discrimination’ campaign in light of her lack of concern for the extreme suffering – include hate based violent expulsion and exclusion - of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar.

2. Summary

UNAIDS have chosen Myanmar opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to front a campaign against discrimination when she has failed to address violent hatred against Rohingya in particular and Muslims in general in Myanmar. 

3. Background

Nobel Peace Prize winner, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, being an influential leader of Myanmar’s National League of Democracy, was sadly heard in an interview playing down the horrific atrocities suffered by the Rohingya community. 

She was recently chosen as UNAIDS Global Advocate to front a ‘zerodiscrimination’ campaign under the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and was recorded as saying, “I believe in a world where everyone can flower and blossom. We can all make a difference by reaching out and letting people lead a life of dignity irrespective of who they are,” said Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. “I invite everyone to Open up, Reach out and end discrimination.”

Her above-mentioned statement is in sharp contrast to her unconcerned attitude towards the plight of the Rohingya minority which was made apparent in the recent interview. She avoided direct condemnation of the Rohingya persecution and tried changing the subject to avoid certain controversial questions. In one response she stated, 

“Yes, Muslims have been targeted, but also Buddhists have been subjected to violence. But there’s fear on both sides and this is what is leading to all these troubles and we would like the world to understand: that the reaction of the Buddhists is also based on fear.”

When asked to accept that 140,000 Muslims that have been displaced because of persecution, she generalized and avoided answering the question by stating, “I think there are many, many Buddhists who have also left the country for various reasons. This is a result of our sufferings under a dictatorial regime.”

Her words of condemnation were so general they were empty of any empathy or understanding of the intensity of the Rohingya suffering. When asked “Do you condemn the anti-Muslim violence?” Suu Kyi replied, “I condemn any movement that is based on hatred and extremism.”

Her equivocal attitude towards the mass-scale genocidal acts against Muslims in Myanmar in particular the Ronhingya is very shocking and in sharp contrast to the anti-discrimination campaigns she supports and the peace titles she has been awarded.

Please write to UNAIDS and express your concern about their choice of Global Advocate.

4. Sample Letters

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Sample letters are given below for your convenience. Please note that model letters can be sent directly or adjusted as necessary to include further details. If you receive a reply to the letter you send, we request you to send a copy of the letter you send and the reply you received, to IHRC. This is very important as it helps IHRC to monitor the situation with regards to our campaigns and to improve upon the current model letters.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michel Sidibé
UNAIDS Executive Director
UNAIDS Secretariat
20, Avenue Appia
CH-1211 Geneva 27
Switzerland
Fax: +41 22 791 4187

[Your Name]
[Your address]

Date

Dear Michel Sidibé

Re: Appeal against choosing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to front anti-discrimination campaign

I am deeply concerned about your recent appointment of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as the UNAIDS Global Advocate for the Zero Discrimination campaign.

Ms Suu Kyi’s ambivalence towards the situation of Ronhingya has been interpreted as lack of concern and an apparently indifferent attitude towards the mass displacement and persecution of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar.

Given her failure to address this issue, I feel her choice as Global Advocate is a very poor one, and I am very disappointed in UNAIDS. UNAIDS has inadvertently endorsed the racist and anti-Muslim sentiment that is rife in Myanmar right now, and I hope you will now use this as an opportunity to either ask Ms. Suu Kyi to make clear statements of support for persecuted minorities in Myanmar and against the violent racism they have been facing.

If she does not, I urge you to revoke her appointment as UNAIDS Global Advocate for the Zero Discrimination campaign as her lack of empathy and absence of immediate action to resolve the plight of her own people proves is at best deeply problematic.

It can do the Zero Discrimination campaign little good to have an advocate who does not condemn discrimination at her own door.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours sincerely

[Signature]
[Name]

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