March 03, 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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MSF, Human Rights Commission at Odds Over Maungdaw Violence

The headquarters of the former Nasaka border guard security force is seen in Maungdaw Township, Arakan State. (Photo: JPaing / The Irrawaddy)

By Simon Roughneen 
February 17, 2014

RANGOON — Burma’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the medical aid organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are at odds over the latter’s statement that it treated 22 people injured during clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in Arakan State’s Maungdaw Township, near the Burma-Bangladesh border.

MSF, sometimes called Doctors Without Borders, said in January that it “treated at least 22 patients, including several wounded, that are believed to be victims of the violence that erupted in Du Char Yar Tan village, in southern Maungdaw Township.”

But in its newly published account of a recent investigation into the alleged Jan. 9-13 killings of 48 Muslim Rohingya, as well as a policeman said to have been killed by Rohingya, the NHRC said “it was learned from 2 doctors of the MSF that their clinics did not treat any such patients.”

MSF Burma Head of Mission Peter-Paul de Groote, however, told The Irrawaddy on Monday that “MSF is not in a position to comment on the findings of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission, however we can confirm that our staff treated 22 patients in the area near Du Char Yar Tan village from a variety of violence-related injuries in the days after January 14.”

The United Nations has said it gathered “credible evidence” that between 40 and 50 Rohingya were killed either side of the disappearance of the policeman on Jan. 13. The Burma government has repeatedly denied that any massacre took place, scolding news organizations for reporting claims of a massacre, while Burma’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested that Islamic militants were involved in the disappearance of the policeman.

An NHRC delegation visited the site of the alleged murders between Jan. 30 and Feb. 3, where the commission said that it met with local police, state officials, UN representatives, as well as Arakanese and Rohingya living in and around Du Char Yar Tan, saying the various statements it obtained “contained no information that substantiate the alleged news of killings,” and later noted what it termed “discrepancies” with regard to “the news of the alleged killings of Bengalis.”

Burmese government bodies use the term “Bengali” to refer to Rohingya, who are regarded by many Burmese as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh—though people will be allowed register as “Rohingya” in Burma’s census, which is scheduled for the end of March.

The NHRC said it “urged Bengali religious leaders and women to frankly come forth with their views,” but said no proof was forthcoming to back up the allegations of a massacre.

The NHRC was set up in September 2011 and is headed by Win Mra, an Arakanese former diplomat. It is due to be replaced by a new Parliament-approved human rights commission that proponents say will be more in step with international standards for national human rights commissions, known as “The Paris Principles.”

The NHRC report comes as a separate government investigation into the Maungdaw violence gets underway in the affected region. Arriving on Feb. 15 for a six-day visit and headed by Dr. Tha Hla Shwe, chairman of the Myanmar Red Cross Society, the delegation “will tour Bengali villages, Rakhine [Arakanese] national villages and the suspected places reported by some international news agencies and organizations, and meet with responsible persons of UN agencies and those of foreign and local social organizations.”

The commission, said to be accompanied by “a team of legal and forensic experts,” is focusing on the disappearance of a policeman on Jan. 9 and makes no mention of investigating the alleged Rohingya deaths. The Burma government set up the commission after dismissing calls for an independent international inquest into the alleged massacre, though it did permit a delegation of European ambassadors to visit Maungdaw.

Tomás Ojea Quintana, the UN “special rapporteur” on human rights issues in Burma, was followed by Arakanese protestors after arriving in the regional capital Sittwe late last week, where he later met with local politicians and people affected by sectarian violence that has plagued Arakan State since mid-2012.

Arakanese regard Quintana—who is making his final visit to Burma as UN rapporteur—as biased toward Muslims, a view that also seems to color local perceptions of foreign aid organizations such as MSF. Around 3,000 Arakanese protested in Sittwe on Feb. 3, calling for MSF and other aid groups to cease operations in the region.

MSF’s De Groote countered that his organization gives assistance based on medical needs. “Our clinics and services are open to anyone to that needs them, regardless of ethnicity or religion,” he said.

Arakan State has seen several bouts of violence between Muslims and Buddhists since June 2012, mostly pitting Arakanese against Rohingya, though other Muslim groups have been attacked. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) says that 138,800 people are in camps in Arakan State, according to figures provided to The Irrawaddy. Of that total, around 5,000 are Arakanese, the rest Rohingya.

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