March 18, 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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The key issue for us is citizenship, says UN deputy chief



By Alex Bookbinder
September 14, 2014

Restoring citizenship rights for more than 800,000 stateless people in Arakan State is the “key issue” the United Nations wants resolved, the UN’s Assistant Secretary-General Haoliang Xu told DVB in an interview on Friday.

“In my view, the question is, what’s the best way to ensure that people in IDP camps – and [the] majority of the Muslim population outside the camps – have secure citizenship?” Xu said. “At the end of the day, this is what will move the situation forward, and everybody can focus on development. Developing a better life, developing a better country. This, to us, is key.”

Most Rohingya were stripped of their citizenship under Burma’s 1982 Citizenship Law, despite the fact that many claim roots in Burma that date back generations. Roughly 140,000 live in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) around the state, and most – both inside and outside the camps – are subject to significant restrictions on their freedom of movement.

Xu, who is also the assistant administrator for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and its director for the Asia-Pacific region, concluded a week-long visit to Burma on Friday. Along with John Ging, the director of the Coordination and Response Division of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Xu met with senior officials in Naypyidaw and spent two days in Arakan, where the pair met with state government officials and local leaders.

In late June, the government launched a pilot “citizenship verification” project in Myebon Township, part of its “Rakhine [Arakan] Action Plan” – currently a work in progress – which is intended to address issues surrounding refugee resettlement, development and humanitarian assistance.

But those seeking citizenship have been told that they must declare themselves “Bengalis” in lieu of “Rohingya”, denying them the right to self-identification. In a July speech, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Yanghee Lee, deemed this to be a violation of international human rights law and “not in line with international standards”.

But Xu cautioned against focusing on terminology while the pressing issues of statelessness, humanitarian access and development go unaddressed. He claimed that doing so runs the risk of fuelling tensions. “The [term] ‘Rohingya’ has been used in UN documents … there is even a UN General Assembly resolution that uses this terminology,” Xu said. “But we have to recognise the impact the terminology can have, and not necessarily as a facilitator, but as probably an impediment to focus on the real issue that is citizenship.

“We want to focus on the issue of … a solution. How can people get the rights [they] need. That’s really our focus.”

Arakan is the second-poorest state in Burma, and the development needs of both Buddhist and Muslim communities are profound. In recent years, UN agencies and international NGOs have come under intense criticism for a perceived bias towards Muslim communities in the state. In late February, relief agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was forced to suspend its operations, which provided life-saving front-line care to hundreds of thousands. This week, MSF signed a new memorandum of understanding with the government, but has not as yet resumed normal operations.

“The … international community has been geared towards supporting the Muslim groups, and I think that, over the last 20 years, the majority of support has been geared towards [providing for] their basic needs,” Xu said. “That helps to create emotions among the Rakhine community that the international community is biased. This is one issue that needs to be addressed; you need to address the emotions when you try to address such a difficult humanitarian situation.”

Xu believes that development plays a crucial role in bridging the divide between the two sides, and that many of their grievances are the same.

“This point came out very loud and clear in discussions throughout our trip. [Both sides] know that humanitarian action is not a long-term solution … to reduce the perceived inequality between the two communities,” Xu said. “The state government supports this view: they would like us to work on humanitarian issues, but also really scale up our development efforts.”

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