March 19, 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

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...

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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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Myanmar Leader Voids Temporary ID Cards for Non-Citizens

Buddhist monks holding placards shout slogans as they march for a protest Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2015, in Yangon, Myanmar. Hundreds of people have demonstrated in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city, to protest a government decision to allow people without full citizenship, including members of the Rohingya ethnic minority, to vote in an upcoming constitutional referendum. Parliament recently decided to allow temporary identity card holders, known as white card holders, the right to vote in a referendum for constitutional amendments. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win)


February 11, 2015

Yangon, Myanmar -- Myanmar's president declared Wednesday that a system of temporary identification cards for people seeking citizenship will become invalid at the end of March, negating an earlier decision that would have allowed card holders to vote in an upcoming constitutional referendum.

The announcement of President Thein Sein's action came just hours after hundreds of people demonstrated in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city, against allowing non-citizens bearing the cards, including many members of the Rohingya ethnic minority, to participate in the referendum.

Most Muslim Rohingya are not citizens, and prejudice against them is high in the predominantly Buddhist nation. Communal tensions have led to violence in recent years which left at least 280 people dead and 140,000 homeless, mostly Muslims confined to squalid camps in the western state of Rakhine.

Most of those protesting Wednesday were Rakhine Buddhists, and the crowd of about 300 included at least 70 Buddhist monks.

Thein Sein's move came as a surprise and details remained unclear, along with the reason for the sudden decision. Presidential office director Maj. Zaw Htay said on Facebook that the announcement "automatically annuls the right" of temporary ID card holders to vote.

Parliament had only recently approved the right of the card holders to vote. It had originally opposed it, but reversed itself after an appeal from Thein Sein. Those rejecting the measure included the opposition National League for Democracy party of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The government has been under pressure from Western nations and rights groups over its treatment of Rohingya, and Thein Sein may have been trying to appease those critics with his original position.

However, domestic opposition to the policy appeared strong. Rohingya are generally regarded as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, even though many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

The temporary identification cards, popularly called "white cards," were created by the former military regime for the 2010 elections in which it relinquished power to a nominally civilian government, though under heavy army influence. An army-backed political party won seats in areas with sizable numbers of white card holders.

White card bearers are technically in the process of applying for citizenship. In addition to Rohingya, they include members of ethnic minorities such as the Kokang and Wa, and people of Chinese and Indian descent.

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