April 04, 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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US embassy asked to refrain from using ‘Rohingya’: official

Members of a Buddhist nationalist group shout slogans during a protest outside U.S. Embassy in Yangon, Myanmar against the embassy's April 20, 2016 statement with the word "Rohingya" Thursday, April 28, 2016. Myanmar nationalist believe long-persecuted and stateless Muslim minority in western Rakhine state who self identify themselves as "Rohingya" as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh and refer to them as "Bengalis." About 400 protesters, including Buddhist monks, marched in front of the embassy and held a protest rally. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)


By Aung Kyaw Min
Myanmar Times
May 4, 2016

Bowing to nationalist pressure, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday requested the US embassy in Yangon refrain from using the term “Rohingya”, according to an official.

The move follows increasing dissent from nationalist protesters after the US embassy released a statement expressing condolences for victims of a boat sinking accident who were reported to be Rohingya.

Nationalists swarmed the US embassy in an unauthorised march along University Avenue Road on April 28. The nationalist activists and monks, backed by Ma Ba Tha – or the Committee to Protect Race and Religion as it is formally called in English – demanded the embassy retract the statement and accused the US of interfering with Myanmar affairs.

Rohingya are not recognised as among the 135 official ethnic groups and are referred to as “Bengalis” by those who do not support their right to self-identification.

In a statement released on May 2, Ma Ba Tha encouraged people to ignore the US embassy statement, and treat the country as if it had broken diplomatic ties with Myanmar. The term “Rohingya” is “fake” and those who use it violate the sovereignty of the state, the statement said.

The nationalists planned to stage another, much larger rally outside the embassy on May 5, with a protest column marching in from Ayeyarwady Region. But the organisers said if the Myanmar government denounced the embassy for meddling in identity politics beforehand, the protest could be called off.

U Soe Lynn Han, deputy director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said yesterday that the US embassy was advised to avoid using the term “Rohingya” in the future.

“We told them that the use of the term by the US embassy is not supportive of national reconciliation in Myanmar. They said they have noted the request,” he said.

The US embassy was not able to confirm the request or provide a statement in response by press time yesterday.

Spokesperson for the President’s Office and the State Counsellor U Zaw Htaw previously told The Myanmar Times that the dispute over the terminology would be handled behind closed doors through “diplomatic channels”.

U Soe Lynn Han said “high-level” talks were held over the issue, but he did not go into detail about what was said or who was present. He said only that the discussion had clearly produced “positive” results.

When asked whether the new government had an official policy on the use of the word “Rohingya” and if the official terminology would be distributed to all the embassies, the ministry’s deputy director general said he could not comment.

“I can say only that this [request to the US] was the policy of the minister,” U Soe Lynn Han said.

The US has repeatedly defended its use of the word “Rohingya”.

In a press conference on the same day as the nationalist protest at the gates of the embassy, the new US ambassador Scot Marciel said it was not a “political decision” but “normal practice” to call people what they wish to be called.

Asked if he would continue using the term “Rohingya”, Mr Marciel said, “We have used that term before, President Obama has used that term before”, but throughout the interview with the press he did not himself use the word “Rohingya”.

US President Barack Obama has repeatedly called on Myanmar to end discrimination against Muslim Rohingya in Rakhine State where many are confined to temporary IDP camps built four years ago. Mr Obama repeatedly used the term “Rohingya” when he came to Myanmar in 2014, on his second visit to the country. Mr Obama was the first US president to visit Myanmar while in office, and his administration counts the rapprochement of relations with Myanmar as a major foreign policy success.

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