February 28, 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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Rights groups urge Obama to maintain sanctions

US President Barack Obama greets then opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a visit to Burma on 19 November 2012. (Photo: The White House)

By Bill O'Toole
Democratic Voice of Burma
May 10, 2016

Human rights advocacy groups Fortify Rights and United to End Genocide today released a report urging US President Barack Obama to renew the US State Department’s existing sanctions on Burma, which are set to expire on 20 May.

“While Myanmar [Burma] has undergone significant reform in recent years, authorities continue to commit gross human rights violations across the country,” said Tom Andrews, a former member of the US House of Representatives and the current president of United to End Genocide.

“President Obama should renew the sanctions authority without delay and make clear that promoting human rights in Myanmar will remain a priority in US foreign policy,” he added.

While some sanctions were lifted in 2013, the US has kept key parts of the program in place. The sanctions, which were introduced in 2003, include a ban on jade imports and a list of “Specially Designated Nationals” that targets around 200 Burmese nationals connected to organized crime and the military government.

In addition, the 2012 “Responsible Investment Reporting Requirements” dictate that US businesses investing more than US$500,000 in Burma must provide key information about their investments to the government and general public.

In February, a group of five business associations signed a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker calling for dramatic changes to the sanctions program.

“The time has come to examine the utility of the remaining sanctions and to map out a vision for the future of the relationship [with Burma],” the letter said.

“The upcoming expiration of sanctions authority under the IEEPA provides just such an opportunity,” it added, referring to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which authorises the president to regulate commerce after declaring a national emergency in response to any unusual and extraordinary foreign threat to the United States.

The letter was signed by AmCham Myanmar Chapter, the National Foreign Trade Council, the US-ASEAN Business Council, the United States Chamber of Commerce and the United States Council for International Business.

However, the new report argues that the nation’s several unfolding human rights crises merit maintaining the sanctions. The researchers note that the jade industry drives war and exploitation in Kachin State, and notes that the situation for the Rohingya remains dire in Arakan State.

“The current sanctions regime is deliberately limited and creates incentives for human rights abusers to clean up their act,” said Matthew Smith, the head of Fortify Rights. “These measures are sensible and should remain in place. Known human rights abusers shouldn’t profit from improved bilateral relations.”

If the sanctions do expire, it will represent an about-face for the Obama administration, which has been signaling for the last several months that the results of the national election would not result in sweeping changes to the sanctions program.

During his confirmation in January, the new US ambassador to Burma Scott Marciel assured American lawmakers that neither he nor the president supported changing the program.

In April, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom released a statement calling on the new government to end discrimination against the Rohingya and pressing the government to take action.

“Burma must do more to demonstrate its commitment to international human rights standards,” read the statement.

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