March 14, 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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America needs policy to protect Rohingya stranded at sea

In this Thursday, May 21, 2015 photo, children read books inside their makeshift tent at a camp for Rohingya people in Ukhiya, near Cox's Bazar, a southern coastal district about 296 kilometers (183 miles) south of Dhaka, Bangladesh. (Photo: A.M. Ahad, Associated Press)

By Iqbal Hossain
May 31, 2015

The ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority from the Rakine state in Myanmar, has become a global human crisis. The persecution of the Rohingya is so vicious that they find themselves between the proverbial rock and a hard place. They either had to remain in Myanmar and risk genocide, or be adrift in the Andaman Sea in a desperate attempt to flee. The inevitable choice for thousands was to venture by boat out of violence and annihilation, only to become victims of unscrupulous human traffickers, and be stranded indefinitely at sea without any food and water.

A recent report by the U.N. refugee agency estimates that 3,000 or more Rohingya could still be stranded in the Andaman Sea. As this sectarian violence reaches the level of a human catastrophe, the world seems to have turned a blind eye to this tragedy. Even Nobel Prize winners Aung San Suu Kyi and the Dalai Lama have remained non-committal and mysteriously evasive on this matter.

The United States, as the moral leader of the world, has an incontrovertible responsibility to put its foot down and send a clear message to Myanmar’s quasi-civilian government to stop these crimes against humanity. It is encouraging that the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution earlier this month that implored the Myanmar government to end the oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people.

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers also urged the Obama administration to actively support the search and rescue efforts, and provide humanitarian aid to these victims of institutional discrimination. It is heartening that countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines have decided to provide shelter to some of these victims who were stranded at sea.

However, the world must not forget that while some of these people are saved from death in the sea, a significant number of Rohingya still suffer from violence, racism and ethnic cleansing within the borders of Myanmar. We must stand united against this vicious harassment of thousands of Rohingya displaced in the filthy ghettos of Myanmar. The world must show resolve by sending an unequivocal message that the perpetrators of this tragedy shall not be allowed to continue with impunity.

The U.S. should adopt a two-fold strategy. The immediate focus must be on search and rescue and humanitarian assistance to the Rohingya stranded at sea. However, a more comprehensive, long-term U.S. policy must involve diplomacy, political persuasion and even sanctions in an effort to end this abominable persecution, and ensure the safety, security and citizenship of the Rohingya people who are trapped within the borders of Myanmar. The world needs a humble reminder of the sage philosophy of a great American, Martin Luther King Jr., that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Iqbal Hossain, Ph.D., is an adjunct professor at the University of Utah and a national board member of the American Civil Liberties Union.

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