March 16, 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...

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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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Asean has failed the Rohingyas

(Photo: Reuters)

By Ahmad A Talib
New Straits Times
June 14, 2015

THE plight of the Rohingyas has gone into the inside pages of newspapers everywhere. It is as if the issue has been dealt with once and for all. Out of sight and therefore out of mind — this is what it seems to many people.

But last Friday, a group of international speakers from diverse backgrounds made their way to the Islamic Museum auditorium to air their views and make bold suggestions on resolving the issue.

Organised by the Perdana Global Peace Foundation, the conference had speakers who articulated their views about the plight of the Rohingyas, tagged as a “crime against humanity”.

Thai academician Dr Sriprapha Petcharmesree said it for everyone when she admonished Asean for not doing enough to save the Rohingyas.

She spoke about two conferences involving several Asean governments in trying to seek a solution to the problem. 

These governments described the fleeing Rohingyas (and Bangladeshis) as an “irregular migration” of people via land and sea, thus, reducing the gravity of the crisis of those affected.

And she questioned these governments as to how could they cap attempts to help these fleeing people to only 7,000! 

Thousands more could perish at sea without food, shelter and protection.

Almost everyone at the conference were in agreement about the urgent need to help the Rohingyas, a minority group being bullied in their own territory.

Lawyer Jason Kay Kit Leon, who heads the Defence Division of the Legal Team, Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, said the Rohingya issue was not a religious issue. 

It’s a clear case of the strong bullying the weak; of the majority bullying the minority. How could there be a civil discussion involving all parties when Myanmar won’t even recognise the word “Rohingya”.

The plight of the Rohingyas is not even recognised at the world stage, referring to a draft resolution in 2007 by the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

Draft resolution S/2007/14 read: “Calls on the government of Myanmar to cease military attacks against civilians in ethnic minority regions”. 

China and Russia exercised their veto powers and the watered-down draft resolution didn’t even get to see the light of day. 

In rejecting the draft, China said: “The Myanmar issue is mainly the internal affair of a sovereign state. The current domestic situation in Myanmar does not constitute a threat to international or regional peace and security.”

Russia echoed similar sentiments.

This is where Asean comes in. A careful revisit of its policy of non-interference must be done urgently. Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad summed it up best when he called on the regional association to review its non-interference policy.

“The Rohingya issue is no longer a Myanmar issue. It is now an international issue,” Dr Mahathir said.

Reverand Alan Rey Sarte from the Philippines, another speaker, said: “Clearly, we can’t play deaf and mute on this issue. If Asean is serious in wanting to promote and protect human rights, the Rohingya issue should be on Asean’s roadmap.” 

Backing this call was Datuk Dr Ismail Noor, a local activist who was recently made international peace ambassador by the Universal Peace Foundation. 

He said: “Let’s not point the finger at others in trying to resolve the issue. All of us should come forward to help find an enduring solution.”

Talk is cheap. The onus is on all stakeholders to join forces to save lives and avert what could be another human tragedy, if it is not one already.

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