March 19, 2025

News @ RB

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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Fears, Tension and Looming Health Crisis for Rohingya Muslims as Myanmar Census Begins



By Richard Potter
March 31, 2014

After much ambiguity and tension it was officially announced by Myanmar’s presidential spokesman, Ye Htut, that Rohingya would not be permitted to identify as Rohingya during the census. This news comes shortly after several NGO offices were attacked in the Rakhine State’s capitol Sittwe, and almost all NGO workers were forced to evacuate. As a result the Rohingya in Sittwe face harsh uncertainty of how they will obtain any of their basic needs, including food rations. Abdul, a resident in the Sittwe IDP (Internally Displaced People) camps, said, “WFP (World Food Program) distributes food for one month here and tomorrow was supposed to be when they distribute, but the Rakhine broke down all the NGO offices in Sittwe. One of our leaders was in contact with WFP staff and they told him they cannot distribute food after attack. Right now all the IDP’s are wondering where they will get food from. Who will help?” The offices were attacked by mobs of the state’s ethnic majority Rakhine, whose political parties have stated that NGO’s favor Rohingya when providing aid. Similarly Rakhine State authorities and the Myanmar Government forced the organization Doctors Without Borders out of Rakhine state last month, effectively cutting off Rohingya from the vast majority of what little medical treatment was available to them. San is a Rohingya woman living in Sittwe’s Aung Minglar Quarter, which is the last remaining Muslim quarter in the city after riots in 2012 displaced Rohingya from the rest of the city into the camps. Aung Minglar quarter is under police and military guard and Rohingya are not allowed to leave without permission and escort from police. San said in regards to Aung Minglar, “MSF (Doctors Without Borders) was here three times a day before they left. Now there are 5,000 people here without them.”

Noor, a man also in Aung Minglar said, “The Government now sends a doctor once a week for four hours. Only the very sick can see him and only on that day. If an emergency happens we will raise money together to have police escort the sick person to Sittwe Hospital, but sometimes there are monks who patrol the hospital and look for Muslims to make them leave.” The expelling of Doctors Without Borders has been decried as an inhumane government policy which was implemented knowingly that it would result in vast numbers of deaths among the Rohingya in the state. On top of withdrawal of aid and medical care Rohingya are also facing tremendous fears over what may happen during the upcoming census. Rakhine have organized protests during the past month over whether Rohingya will be able to self identify in the census. The Rakhine argue that Rohingya are immigrants from Bangladesh and will not acknowledge the term ‘Rohingya’, while Rohingya argue that they are indigenous and they have been in Rakhine State for centuries. There is a strong sentiment that Rohingya do not belong in Rakhine State and should be deported to neighboring Bangladesh.

While protests grew so have reports of intimidation, threats, and harassment by police and Rakhine Authorities against Rohingya to complete the census as ‘Bengali’. On this issue Abdul from the Sittwe camps said “Police contacted the Rohingya in our village, they said you must sign the census as Bengali. When the Rohingya said they would sign their own ethnicity the police said they will be attacked if they do not sign as Bengali.”

Similar reports have been echoed all over the state. Various accounts from the SIttwe camp state that the majority of police in the camps have been replaced or reinforced with Burmese Military. Their willingness or responsibility to protect the camps remains unclear, and has been cause for increased fear among the Rohingya living there.

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