March 17, 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...

Event

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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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Book Shelf

Doctors Beyond Our Borders - Is Australia Turning A Blind Eye To Human Rights Abuses In Burma?

(Photo: Jonathan Saruk)

By Monique Hurley
June 30, 2014

There has been renewed interest in Burma of late. In 2012, Australia lifted its targeted travel and financial sanctions on the country; in 2013, we hosted visits from Burma’s President Thein Sein and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and, earlier this year, re-established a resident Defence Attaché in the Burmese capital. President Thein Sein has been complemented by the likes of Barack Obama and former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard for the ”extraordinary” progress he has made in moving Burma “down a path of both political and economic reform.”

Australia, it seems, is keen to be involved. The 2014/2015 Budget Estimate proposed a $90 million aid contribution focusing on, among other things, improving access to health care in Burma.

The expulsion of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) from Rakhine state in western Burma suggests, however, that Burma is a long way still from the universal recognition of human rights for all ethnic groups that live within Burma’s borders, particularly the Rohingya people of Rakhine state.

This raises the question: should Australia call Burma out on decisions like this, which jeopardise the healthcare of hundreds and thousands of people? Or should Australia play the less critical role of a supportive observer while Burma struggles down the long and winding road towards democracy?

The expulsion

On 27 February 2014, Doctors without Borders was ordered to cease all operations in Burma by the Burmese government. After discussions with the government the following day, Doctors without Borders was permitted to resume its operations in the Kachin, Shan and Yangon regions. Clinics in Rakhine state remain closed.

The Rohingya people

Rakhine state in Burma is home to the Rohingya people. The Rohingya people are a mostly Muslim minority group who have been the victims of systemic discrimination, violent attacks and targeted rape campaigns at the hands of the state’s mostly Buddhist Rakhine majority. Many Rohingya people live in displacement camps (both in Rakhine state and neighbouring Bangladesh) because, under the 1982 Burma Citizenship Law, Rohingya people are not entitled to Burmese citizenship.

The location of the camps, the inability to obtain citizenship and local regulations make it almost impossible for Rohingya people to access state-run medical clinics.

The Burmese government says it ousted Doctors without Borders because the organisation was favouring Rohingya Muslims over Rakhine Buddhists. Doctors without Borders deny this. It has been widely reported that the real reason the organisation was expelled was because they provided treatment to Rohingya people after the massacre of a number of Rohingya people by Rakhine Buddhists in January this year. The Burmese government deny that any deaths occurred.

On the right side of the road?

The Australian government did not comment on the forced withdrawal of Doctors without Borders, despite the fact that the organisation was the main provider of reproductive healthcare and treatment for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in the region.

After the expulsion of Doctors without Borders, unrelated outbreaks of violence targeted the offices of, and homes of staff working at, the United Nations and other international NGOs. These attacks had the flow-on effect of restricting the operations of those organisations, a number of which provided health care and related services, with almost all non-essential personnel evacuated from the region.

While the Australian and American governments expressed ”deep concern” about the violence and its flow-on effects, little has been done to address the unfolding medical crisis, with Rohingya people left with next to no access to any form of health care.

It has been suggested by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Tomás Ojea Quintana, that ”the pattern of widespread and systematic human rights violations in Rakhine State may constitute crimes against humanity”. It could even be said that the Burmese government’s refusal to provide, and decision to actively prevent NGOs from providing, health care services to the Rohingya people could be characterised as a form of ”slow burning genocide” within the meaning of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, by virtue of imposing conditions of life calculated to bring about the Rohingya people’s destruction.

As a country with renewed interest in Burma, and as a current member of the United Nations Security Council, Australia should hold Burma accountable for its treatment of the Rohingya people. As Elaine Pearson, Australian Director of Human Rights Watch, has pointed out:

…what counts most is sustained public pressure that raises the costs of human rights violations. Abusive governments will often be forced to think twice about committing abuses when international actors raise concerns with public statements or by documenting state responsibility for violations.

The Australian government should therefore be placing sustained, public pressure on the Burmese government to allow Doctors without Borders (and other NGOs) back into Rakhine state. Further, the Australian government should hold the Burmese government responsible for the safety of staff working for those organisations. Such pressure could be the first, small step towards ensuring the survival of the Rohingya people and, potentially, the recognition of basic human rights for the Rohingya people living in Burma. It could also help nudge Burma a little further down the road towards democracy, ahead of the country’s elections scheduled for 2015.
Monique Hurley is a Melbourne lawyer. She has volunteered with the Homeless Persons’ Legal Clinic and interned with Justice Connect and the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law.

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