March 16, 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...

Video News

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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 ...

Interview

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BMA Statement On Anti Muslims Violence In Mandalay



Statement on anti Muslims violence in Mandalay

July 4, 2014

Burmese Muslims Association strongly condemns anti-Muslim violence that has erupted in recent days in Mandalay, the second largest city in Burma. The violence that has occurred is not simply a result of sectarian conflicts. It is without doubt a well-planned operation, carried out by a group of well-trained thugs--which has tacit impunity and free license from the Thein Sein's government--not only to cause a great deal of physical harm and injury against Muslims, a helpless minority group in Burma, but also to instil immense psychological terror and mental anguish, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The promise given by President Thein Sein to the world for zero tolerance against anti-Muslim violent activities has once again proven to be completely hollow and empty.

Since 1st July 2014, a van and a group of about 30 motorbikes, carrying mobs armed with machetes and lethal weapons, were roaming around the city of Mandalay and targeting various Muslims, shops and businesses owned by Muslims, and a number of Islamic religious institutions and premises. Shockingly, the police stood by and watched the mobs attack the Muslims and their properties, without intervening. In the past, the police have used excessive force and power to crackdown on farmers protesting and land grabbing, no doubt to protect the interests of the generals and their cronies. This hypocritical and contradictory behaviour of the police is clearly because they must not have received orders from the top authorities to stop the mobs and to prevent harm perpetrated against Muslims in Mandalay. We have documented that whenever there are public demands to amend the 2008 constitution, and whenever there are public protests against the Chinese projects in Burma, anti-Muslim violence was fomented and created by letting loose groups of well-trained mobs in order to divert the public’s attention. Unfortunately, the odious culture of using Muslims as political scapegoats is long anchored in Burmese politics; Muslims have been the victims of various power struggles in Burmese history.

Recent violence in Mandalay was triggered based on a rumour published by a news blogger by the name of Thit Htoo Lwin. Instigators of anti-Muslim violence are now once again active in the arena of social media. Moreover, U Wirathu is also posting inflammatory comments on his Facebook page and spreading more unfounded rumours. Therefore, it is very worrisome that the attacks on Muslims could spread to other parts of Burma in the coming days.

Authorities in Mandalay have declared martial law, starting on 3rd July 2014, from 9pm to 5am. Muslims in Mandalay are now very much panic stricken, because, ironically, declaring martial law could mean more deadly attacks against the Muslims. In 2013, Muslims populated areas in Meikhtilar city was burned down to ashes soon after martial law was declared. Under martial law in Meiktilar, police only intervened when Muslims were trying to defend their lives, but stood by and watched the mobs when they targeted against the Muslims.

Regrettably, it is also a failure of the worldwide international community, that not enough pressure was exerted on Thein Sein’s government to protect the vulnerable Muslim minority, by preventing hate and vulgar speech spewing forth by the militants, and to arrest perpetrators who were instigating and causing harm and mayhem. In a sense, Burmese Muslims are the unfortunate and unintended victims of excessive optimism that the international community have on the on-going democratic reforms unfolding in Burma. 

The international community should be proactive, and also react immediately before several Muslims could be slaughtered once again, as it happened in the city of Meikhtilar in the year 2013. On behalf of all the Muslims in Burma, the BMA urgently and in strongest terms, request, implore and demand the international community to send security observers to Burma, and to use effective pressure on the Thein Sein’s government to stop using Muslims as political scapegoats and worthless pawns.

In addition, the Rohingya Muslims in Arakan state should also be given adequate health care and security, and allowed to return to their former homes and places. Also, it is imperative to effectively eliminate corrupt and biased authorities and their judicial proceedings, which are one-sidedly against Muslims, and turning a blind eye and providing immunity to the perpetrators of violent criminal activities, which will be seen again in Mandalay. At the same time, the international community should seriously consider to investigate and hold tribunals for crimes against humanity that the Burmese generals have been committing throughout history.

Burmese Muslims Association 

Media contacts:
Kyaw Win +44-740 345 2378 (UK) kyawwin78@gmail.com
Ms. Yasmin +1 408 250 6227 (USA) yasnohana@sbcglobal.net
Umar Ye Htun +2 011 158 222 53 (Egypt) umaryehtun@gmail.com
Min Than Win + 65 90 277 379 (Singapore) minthanwin@gmail.com

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