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...

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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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Myanmar Begins Controversial Citizenship Verification Process

Rohingya Muslims sit on the ground at Da Paing camp for Muslim refugees in north of Sittwe, Rakhine State, western Myanmar, April 2, 2014.

By Gabrielle Paluch
July 7, 2014

BANGKOK — The Muslim stateless residents of northern Rakhine state have long identified themselves as “Rohingya,” a term recognized by the United Nations, and foreign nations, including the United States.

But not by Myanmar’s government. Instead, authorities are asking them to register as “Bengalis.”

Myanmar's immigration department plans to carry out a controversial citizenship verification process in Rakhine state where there have been deadly ethnic and religious clashes since 2012.

The government said the process is aimed at determining who qualifies to become a naturalized citizen. But many of those being asked to participate express concern it will classify them as illegal immigrants.

Shwe Maung, an ethnic Rohingya member of parliament, said those being asked to register are hesitant to do so because they fear registering as Bengali will negatively impact their chances for full citizenship.

He said there is no trust in the process, which he said could officially classify more than 1 million people as stateless, some of whom have been living in Myanmar for generations.

"If they are 'Bengali,' the process will be as for foreigners, according to the 1982 law, I think therefore, Myanmar border police want, as with the census, the people to write themselves in as Bengali," Maung said.

Shwe Maung said he has raised concerns about partial citizenship rights in parliament, but the issue is pending.

Registration with the immigration department begins the citizenship verification process, after which a government committee is sent to weigh evidence of each individual's eligibility for citizenship.

Because most Rohingya do not have government-issued identification, the committees will largely rely on the testimonies of village elders.

Many Rohingyas are skeptical that a government that already classifies them as Bengalis will grant them citizenship based on the testimonies of village elders.

Washington has, in the past, pressured the Myanmar government on the 1982 Citizenship Law. And in its 2014 report on religious freedom, called on authorities to promote the rights of Rohingya Muslims and provide “durable solutions” for refugees outside the country.

Matthew Smith, director of the international human rights group Fortify Rights, says giving Rohingya equal access to citizenship rights is crucial to preventing the conflict in the future. He says foreign nations should press the government more on the issue.

"The fact that the immigration department is handling this issue is indicative of the perception that all Rohingya come from Bangladesh," Smith said. "Immigration is an issue on all of Myanmar's borders, but the wholesale denial of Rohingya citizenship, Rohingya ethnicity, has contributed to these abuses that we've been documenting now for two years."

So far, Rakhine political leaders like Aye Maung, a member of the newly formed Arakan National Party, have been supportive of the citizenship verification process.

In the past, Rohingyas have registered with the government and received "white cards," which conferred the right to vote, but few other significant citizenship rights.

But according to Aye Maung, the Arakan National Party has submitted a bill to parliament that would disallow even national registration card, or "white card" holders to vote in 2015.

"We also accept this process we also demand all Bengali to go with this existing citizenship law for their status, and some percentage will get registration card," said Aye Maung.

So far this year, an estimated 80,000 Rohingyas have fled Myanmar by boat to neighboring Southeast Asian countries.

Since 2012, violence between Muslims and Buddhists have flared up across the country, killing hundreds, and displacing hundreds of thousands living in prison-like conditions in camps.

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