July 11, 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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Sufi Muslim speaker from Pakistan fined, deported after giving talks at Yangon mosques

The scene outside the Tamwe township courthouse on August 1, 2016. Photo: Aung Naing Soe / Coconuts Yangon

August 1, 2016

A traveling Sufi Muslim speaker from Pakistan and his son were convicted of immigration offenses on Monday and deported after giving sermons at mosques in Yangon. 

Authorities say that Zulfiqar Ahmad, 63, breached tourist visa rules by giving religious sermons. His son, Saifullah Ahmad, 29, is traveling with him. 

Here's what happened, according to police. 

Local authorities detained the two at around 3am on July 30 from their rooms at the Chatrium Hotel. 

“They were detained at Dagon Township police station but we didn’t use handcuffs when we took them from place to place,” a police officer said in an interview. “And they will be sent back to their place [country] today by the Immigration Department from Tamwe Township.” 

According to his Facebook account, Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmad is a former engineer and a leading Sufi author and traveling speaker. 

“He regularly travels to more than thirty countries transforming the lives of people all over the world,” his Facebook page says. “Shaykh Zulfiqar Ahmad regularly delivers lectures in both English and Urdu across the world. Furthermore, he has written dozens of books many of which have been translated into several languages.” 

One of the books, available on Amazon, speaks of solutions to solving terrorism. 

U Tin Maung Than, a Muslim community leader in Yangon, said that the father was well-known in Sufi circles, and that permission wasn’t needed to allow him to speak. 

“He is not giving speeches on the road, he just gave them in the mosque. So, we don’t need to ask permission from authorities as he was giving religious speeches.” 

Working on a tourist visa is not permitted in Myanmar, but it's unclear if religious activities constitute work. 

Myanmar has a religious visa but it is for "meditation," meaning for those wishing to practice Buddhism, the main religion in the country. 

Attempts to interview an immigration official at the Tamwe township courthouse where the hearing for the two took place on Monday were unsuccessful. 

Tin Maung Than said that those who had listened to the speeches said they contained no content about extremism or terrorism. 

“He just talked purely about religion,” he said. 

A recording of the speeches was not available. 

The Tamwe courthouse was full of police and journalists and members of the media on Monday as the hearing took place. 

Asked if the pair would prefer a fine of about $100 or a year imprisonment, they chose the fine. 

Following the ruling the men were escorted to the airport by a caravan of police cars.

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