March 15, 2025

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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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AP Exclusive: Myanmar aiding Rohingya trafficking

In this Nov. 29, 2013 photo, a Rohingya boy wades through the water carrying a basket of fish at The’ Chaung refugee camp, on the outskirts of Sittwe, Myanmar. The small wooden boats leave the shores of western Myanmar nearly every day, overloaded with desperate Rohingya Muslims who are part of one the largest boat exoduses in Asia since the Vietnam War. Helping them on their way: Myanmar’s own security forces, who are profiting off the mass departure of one of the world’s most persecuted minorities by extracting payments from those fleeing. A report to be released Friday, Nov. 7, 2014, by the Bangkok-based advocacy group Fortify Rights, and reporting by The Associated Press, indicate the practice is far more widespread and organized than previously thought, with Myanmar naval boats going so far as to escort asylum seekers out sea, where larger ships operated by transnational criminal networks wait to pick them up. (Kaung Htet/Associated Press)

November 6, 2014

MYIN HLUT, Myanmar — The small wooden boats leave the shores of western Myanmar nearly every day, overloaded with desperate Rohingya Muslims who are part of one the largest boat exoduses in Asia since the Vietnam War. 

Helping them on their way: Myanmar’s own security forces, who are profiting off the mass departure of one of the world’s most persecuted minorities by extracting payments from those fleeing. A report to be released Friday by the Bangkok-based advocacy group Fortify Rights, and reporting by The Associated Press, indicate the practice is far more widespread and organized than previously thought, with Myanmar naval boats going so far as to escort asylum seekers out to sea, where larger ships operated by transnational criminal networks wait to pick them up. 

“Myanmar authorities are not only making life so intolerable for Rohingya that they have to flee, but they’re also complicit in the process — they’re taking payments and profiting off their exodus,” said Matthew Smith, director of Fortify Rights. 

Rakhine state spokesman Win Myaing dismissed the allegations as “rumors,” saying he has not “heard of anything happening like that.” He said any naval boats approaching such vessels were likely aiming to help fishermen in need.

More than 100,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar’s western shores by boat since Buddhist-Muslim violence erupted in Rakhine state two years ago, according to estimates provided by experts tracking their movements. 

Chris Lewa, director of the advocacy group Arakan Project, said increasing desperation is behind a huge surge since Oct. 15, with an average of 900 people per day piling into cargo ships parked offshore. In Rakhine state, an aggressive campaign by authorities over the last few months to register family members and officially categorize them as “Bengalis” — implying they are illegal migrants from neighboring Bangladesh — has aggravated their situation. 

The deepening crisis comes ahead of a visit by President Barack Obama to Myanmar next week for a regional summit, his second in two years. Obama, who has repeatedly pointed to democratic reforms in Myanmar as a foreign policy bright spot, called President Thein Sein recently by telephone to express concerns about recent backslides. 

Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist nation of 50 million that is still struggling to emerge from half a century of military rule, has an estimated 1.3 million Rohingya, and most are considered stateless. Though many of their families arrived from Bangladesh generations ago, almost all have been denied citizenship by Myanmar and Bangladesh. In the last two years, attacks by Buddhist mobs have left hundreds dead and 140,000 trapped in camps where they live without access to adequate health care, education or jobs. 

Smith said authorities in Myanmar have been profiting off the Rohingya for decades, and extracting money from those departing was only one way. If Rohingya residents attempt to travel to neighboring villages without permission from local authorities, they risk being arrested and forced to pay bribes for their freedom, he said. The restrictions are so intense that even those who repair their own houses — which often crumble during the rainy season — can be fined if they do so without permission. 

Many of those fleeing today have been forced to sell everything they have, including precious belongings — land, cattle, gold — to brokers who typically charge $2,000 for passage to Malaysia, a Muslim country. Many end up in secret jungle camps in Thailand, where they face extortion and beatings until relatives come up with enough money to win their release.

Thai authorities have also been accused of colluding with traffickers, but have denied the allegations.

“It’s draining them economically,” Smith said. “This is one of the poorest communities in Asia, one of the most abused, and this whole process is taking the little resources that they have left in exchange for even more abuse.”

According to Fortify Rights, the brokers may collect sums averaging $500 to $600 per small boatload of asylum seekers, usually numbering between 50 and 100 people, and hand those payments to officials from Myanmar’s police, navy and army. Police also have collected payments directly from passengers, the group said, adding that the Myanmar navy once demanded $7,000 from a trafficking ship offshore to allow them to leave.

The Associated Press has documented similar accounts in Rakhine state. The family member of one Rohingya broker — who has since been arrested — said his boat, which set off from a small creek inland, had to pass a police post on the way to the sea where an obligatory payment had to be made. The family member spoke in Myin Hlut town on condition of anonymity for fear of being arrested.

The family member also recounted navy ships escorting Rohingya asylum seekers out to sea as well as chasing them to extract more bribes. In another instance, a dozen Myanmar soldiers reportedly boarded a vessel filled with Rohingya in the Bay of Bengal and beat them with wooden planks and iron rods.

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Rohingya Exodus