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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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(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...

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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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Burmese former monk Gambira arrested while preparing to travel to Australia

Gambira and his wife Marie Siochana. Photo: Facebook 

By Lindsay Murdoch
January 21, 2016

Bangkok: Myanmar authorities have arrested and jailed a former monk and leader of a 2007 uprising who returned to the country from Thailand to apply for a passport so he could travel to Australia.

Authorities have refused bail for Nyi Nyi Lwin, known as Gambira, despite that he is suffering severe health problems after spending years in Myanmar's jails where he was beaten, chained to a floor and injected with unknown substances that induced unbearable pain and psychotic episodes.

Known as a leader of the Saffron Revolution, Gambira has been one of the few voices to speak out against the persecution of minority Rohingya Muslims in the majority Buddhist country.

Nyi Nyi Lwin, known as Gambira, was arrested on Tuesday evening at a hotel in Myanmar. His wife posted the photos on Facebook asking people to pray for him. Photo: Facebook 

"Please pray for him," Gambira's Australian wife, Marie Siochana, who married him after a whirlwind romance in 2012, pleaded on Facebook.

"These are politically motivated trumped up charges," she said.

Armed police officers took Gambira for questioning in Myanmar. Photo: Facebook

Authorities in Mandalay, the country's second largest city, claim they arrested Gambira for illegally crossing the border from Thailand, where has lived on and off for several years. But Ms Siochana said she travelled with her husband through proper immigration channels in both Thailand and Myanmar last week without problems.

She said more than 20 plain-clothes police entered the couple's hotel room with at least three filming them as they sat semi-naked on the bed, before they took him to a police station.

Gambira, right, at a temple in Chiang Mai, last year. The former monk was a volunteer teacher at the local temple, providing lessons to migrant workers and their families. Photo: Steve Sandford

Ms Siochana, who insisted on going with him but wasn't allowed in, spent hours waiting outside while her husband was interrogated.

"He is not involved in political activities and just wants a normal life," she said.

Ms Siochana has two children in Australia. She said Gambira needs a passport so he can apply for a tourist visa to travel to Australia, where they hope to eventually settle, and be able to travel to other countries.

Gambira received treatment at Chiang Mai hospital in 2014 for illnesses connected to his ill-treatment in Myanmar's prison system. Photo: Steve Sandford 

She said Gambira, who underwent brain surgery last year, needs medication which is not available in jail.

The arrest has highlighted the refusal of Myanmar's military rulers to release hundreds of political prisoners awaiting trial on politically motivated charges, despite repeated promises made three years ago to do so.

US Assistant Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week called on the military to release the prisoners before a new government led by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is sworn into office early in February.

Human Rights advocates say there are an estimated 128 people who have been convicted and are serving time for political offences in the country also known as Burma.

Another 472 detainees are facing apparently politically motivated charges, including 23 arrested since elections on November 8 that swept Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy into power.

Ms Siochana began campaigning for Gambira in 2011 as he faced continued harassment in Myanmar where he has fought for labour rights, stood up for the poor whose land was taken away from them and clashed with pro-government elements in the powerful Buddhist clergy. They married after he had quit as a monk.

Gambira became one of Myanmar's best known political prisoners after he was sentenced to 63 years jail for leading led anti-government protests in 2007 that became known as the Saffron Revolution. Then troops opened fire on protesters, killing scores.

Gambira was released in 2012 as the military promised to end its 50 years of repressive rule but was jailed again after trying to re-open a monastery that had been sealed, and has suffered continuing harassment, supporters say.

Gambira's struggle against repression was acknowledged in late 2012 when he was among a select number of guests invited to hear US President Barack Obama speak at Rangoon University.

Ms Siochana said, for whatever reason, Myanmar authorities have created a "horrible" situation for Gambira and his family.

"I love Gambira dearly and he loves me," she said.

"He is a beautiful, kind and loving person. He makes me laugh constantly and is child-like and humble."

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