March 19, 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...

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...

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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...

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...

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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Burmese journalist beseeches brethren: Stop with the Muslim hate speech

A man stands in front of a mosque as it burns in Meikhtila, in March 21, 2013. Deadly clashes erupted in Meikhtila, 540 km (336 miles) north of Yangon, after an argument between a Buddhist couple and the Muslim owners of a gold shop escalated into a riot involving hundreds of people, police said. (Photo: REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun)

By Thin Lei Win
March 14, 2014

The slight, soft-spoken woman onstage called on the media and the rest of the country to let go of narrow-minded nationalism.

“This is a time to fight for democratisation. We have to respect each and every ethnic (group) as a human being,” beseeched Mon Mon Myat, whose meek bearing veils her ferocity as a powerful freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker.

It was refreshing to hear these words in a public forum in Myanmar because - let’s face it - such sentiments have been sorely lacking.

Since religious conflict erupted June 2012, killing at least 240 people and displacing more than 140,000, mostly Muslims, Myanmar has been engulfed in hate speech.

Vitriolic and inflammatory comments targeting Muslims, who make up a small fraction of the country, have become worryingly common on blogs, web forums and Facebook pages. Internet access is low - some estimates say only 0.2 percent of the population is online - but young people, as well as a large Burmese diaspora worldwide, are increasingly using social media to share news and opinions.

Besieged by a fear that Muslims will take over Myanmar, Buddhist nationalists as well as some monks have urged people to boycott Muslim-owned businesses and successfully lobbied the government to draft controversial laws, including one that will restrict Buddhist women from marrying Muslim men. No similar restrictions are being planned for Buddhist men.

“The two strongest institutions in our country - the military and monk organisations - are driven by men, and promote nationalism and religion. That influences our media coverage,” Mon Mon Myat said on Tuesday at the second day of an international media conference organised by Hawaii-based East-West Center.

“I found that in the local media coverage, there are few voices on Muslims’ view. I think some owners worry their circulation may decrease if they are seen as sympathetic to the Muslims.” 

RESCUED FROM HATE-FUELLED CONFLICT

Three years after a quasi-civilian government took office in Myanmar and introduced democratic reforms that have won near-universal praise, the issue of violence against Muslims is casting a long shadow on the country’s future. 

Mon Mon Myat, who wrote an investigative report in 2013 on how social media posts and websites were stirring up hatred, said her analysis of two bouts of conflicts in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state and in central Meikhtila showed there are four steps to the process.

“The first step is that whatever happened, whether it was a rape or a quarrel, it is put on social media and (hatred is) stirred up through it,” she said.

Then the print media pique nationalism, influenced by nationalist editors, businessmen and religious leaders. When it becomes an ethno-religious conflict, the military steps in for the sake of people’s security, she said.

“This scenario creates the military as an essential institution for the country’s stability,” she added.

“First it is an ethnic conflict, later it becomes a religious issue and now even the president has handed over (the drafting of controversial laws) to the government so the president is showing he’s taking the side of the Buddhists,” she later told Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“It’s not good for our nation because (nationalism) is a tool politicians use to control the people and to sustain their power.”

As the 2015 elections draw near, she fears nationalism will be used even more to create conflict between different ethnic groups and religions. 

“The most important thing for the media is they shouldn’t be used (by) the government, opposition or religious groups. They have to be independent and neutral,” she said.

“We’re far beyond the colonial period. We have to wake up from that very narrow-minded nationalist view. Everyone has equal rights and equal dignity and are equal human beings.”

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