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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...

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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...

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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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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...

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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 ...

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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 ...

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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...

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(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...

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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...

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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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Daw Suu plans ‘risky’ Rakhine trip

By Ei Ei Toe Lwin
September 18, 2015

National League for Democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will next month embark on one of the toughest political challenges of her leadership: winning over voters in Rakhine State.

NLD leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi delivers a speech in Hpasawng, Kayah State, on September 11. Photo: AFP

The Nobel Peace Prize winner will make her first trip to the conflict-riven state since being released from house arrest in 2010.

“She will go [to Rakhine State] in early October,” confirmed U Win Htein, a senior member of the party.

She has faced significant criticism in Rakhine due to perceptions she is too focused on human rights, soft on “race and religion”, and sympathetic to the cause of the state’s Muslims.

Internationally, however, she has been castigated for failing to speak out against communal violence targeting Muslims in Rakhine State and elsewhere.

The trip will only take in southern Rakhine State, which has for the most part escaped the violence that in 2012 left about 200 people dead and 140,000 displaced.

U Win Htein said Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would campaign in Thandwe, Gwa and Toungup. The NLD won the seats in the 1990 election, beating out the Arakan League for Democracy, and is confident of doing so again.

But Rakhine State is a significantly different proposition 25 years on, largely due to rising Buddhist nationalism. In 1990, the NLD featured Muslim candidates in its lineup in northern Rakhine State but jettisoned them this time around to avoid being wedged on the issue.

Nevertheless, the party remains unpopular among some in Rakhine State. Observers say the trip is risky and may damage relations between the NLD and the Arakan National Party, which is expected to win a large number of seats.

If ties between the two parties fray, the NLD might struggle to win support from the ANP in parliament, said political commentator U Yan Myo Thein – possibly depriving it of the votes it needs to select the president.

“She must be very cautious when she gives her campaign message to people in a sensitive area [like Rakhine State],” he said.

“She should not go there. Instead, she should let the township committee campaign themselves,” he said. “If trust and mutual understanding is lost between NLD and ethnic parties, the NLD will face difficulties if they do not get enough votes to form government on their own.”

As in other ethnic minority areas of the country, she is also perceived by some in Rakhine State as not being supportive enough of ethnic rights, including natural resource sharing and decentralisation of power.

Officials from the ANP, one of three ethnic Rakhine parties contesting the vote, said they were concerned the trip could create “misunderstanding” about the Rakhine people.

“I know every party, including the NLD, has the right to do campaign activities but I think she should not come to Rakhine State because the situation is complex,” said U Oo Hla Saw, a central executive committee member of the Arakan National Party, who is running for a Pyithu Hluttaw seat in Mrauk Oo township.

“I’m not sure exactly how Rakhine people will respond. If they do some response, people outside the state might misunderstand the Rakhine people and Rakhine parties will face accusations.”

But others yesterday downplayed the risks for the NLD leader.

Ko Zin Ya Kyaw, a resident of Toungop, said ethnic Rakhine are not as “rude” as they are sometimes perceived.

He also suggested that some may be manipulating opposition to the NLD for their own purposes. He said some bloggers have tried to spread rumours that Rakhine people will protest during Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s trip and that her life may even be in danger if she visits the state.

“I don’t expect there will be any serious protests during the trip and there are definitely no worries about her security. I hope people can know the Rakhine people’s attitude toward the NLD and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi … through that trip,” Ko Zin Ya Kyaw said.

U Win Htein said the party was also unconcerned about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s safety in southern Rakhine State.

“As the people’s leader, she thinks she should go around the nation and meet with people. It’s not unusual. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi takes her own security … so don’t worry about that,” he said.

Before travelling to Rakhine State, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will visit Nay Pyi Taw and Yamethin in Mandalay Region on September 19 and Sagaing Region on September 25 and 26.

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