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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...

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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...

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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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Burma: Ongoing human rights violations warrant the renewal of the UN Special Rapporteur’s mandate



By FIDH
March 17, 2014

Paris, Bangkok -- The UN Human Rights Council must renew the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Burma with full monitoring and reporting powers, FIDH and its member organization, the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma (ALTSEAN-Burma), said today.

The situation in Burma calls for more human rights monitoring, not less,” said FIDH President Karim Lahidji. “The Human Rights Council needs a UN Special Rapporteur who can regularly monitor and report on the situation of human rights in Burma if it wants to play a positive role in the country’s fragile transition to democracy,” he added. 

FIDH and ALTSEAN-Burma regret that Burma has ignored many of the recommendations that UN Special Rapporteur Tomás Ojea Quintana made over the course of his mandate. The government and military-dominated Parliament have disregarded key recommendations to amend or repeal draconian laws not in line with international standards; reform the country’s judiciary and armed forces; and establish accountability for widespread and systematic human rights violations. 

At the start of his mandate, Mr. Ojea Quintana set very specific benchmarks to measure Burma’s human rights performance. Despite the new civilian government’s hype about the reform process, the overwhelming majority of those benchmarks have not been met,” said ALTSEAN-Burma Coordinator and FIDH Secretary-General Debbie Stothard. 

Since first convening in January 2011, Parliament has repealed only one of the numerous laws identified by the Special Rapporteur as not in line with international standards. Burma’s military, which has enjoyed an 88% budget increase over the past three years, continues to carry out military offensives and abuses against civilians in many ethnic minority areas. The country’s judiciary remains a tool of the executive branch to repress dissent. Despite President Thein Sein’s promise to release all political prisoners by the end of 2013, the government has failed to do so. At least 30 political prisoners remain behind bars. To compound the situation, authorities have arbitrarily arrested or detained at least 26 people since 1 January. Those arrested or detained include journalists, human rights defenders, peaceful protestors, and farmers. Scores of activists still face criminal charges under the very laws that the UN Special Rapporteur identified as not in conformity with international standards. 

Since President Thein Sein took office in February 2011, the government has consistently refused to take effective legislative and judicial measures to address impunity,” said Ms. Stothard. “Despite the establishment of a National Human Rights Commission and the appointment of various investigative commissions, no state actor been has been held accountable for committing serious human rights violations, be it abuses against civilians in ethnic areas, the crackdown against anti-Letpadaung protestors, or the serious crimes committed against Kachin and Rohingya,” added Ms. Stothard. 

The Burmese government’s unwillingness to undertake a genuine investigation of the most recent allegations of the killing of 48 Rohingya in early January in Du Chee Yar Tan Village, Maungdaw Township, Arakan State, is the most recent in a series of failures to investigate human rights violations perpetrated against Rohingya. 

In the absence of an effective international monitoring mechanism such as the Special Rapporteur, the Human Rights Council risks giving the government and its armed forces free rein to commit human rights abuses with total impunity,” concluded Ms. Stothard. 

Press contacts 

Debbie Stothard (English) - Tel: +66 81 6861652 (Bangkok)
Arthur Manet (French, English, Spanish) - Tel: +33 6 72 28 42 94 (Paris)
Audrey Couprie (French, English, Spanish) - Tel: +33 6 48 05 91 57 (Paris)

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