March 14, 2025

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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, 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...

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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...

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...

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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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Muslims rail against Harvard as Suu Kyi named ‘Humanitarian of the Year’

Myanmar leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi was bestowed the Harvard 2016 "Humanitarian of the Year Award" on Saturday. Pic via Facebook.


By Asian Correspondent
September 18, 2016

MUSLIM students and groups are protesting Harvard Foundation’s selection of Myanmar (Burma) leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi for the “2016 Humanitarian of the Year” award, saying she has done nothing to address the persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority in her country.

Suu Kyi, who received the foundation’s Peter J. Gomes awardduring a ceremony in Cambridge Saturday, first gained international prominence as the General Secretary of the newly-formed National League for Democracy in Myanmar in 1990.
She later became one of the world’s most well-known political prisoners when in 1989 she was sentenced to 15 years’ house arrest due to her participation in anti-government protests. With the support of her country, she was later appointed to the newly-created position of state counselor, a role similar to that of a prime minister.

In 1991, Suu Kyi was honored with a Nobel Peace Prize for her “non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights”.

But since she claimed the reins of government in April, Suu Kyi has been heavily criticized by activists across the globe for failing to aid Myanmar’s Muslim minority – the Rohingya – who the United Nations calls one of the world’s most persecuted minorities.

In The Crimson, a Harvard College daily, Harvard Islamic Society director of external relations Anwar Omeish said the student organization felt the foundation’s selection of Suu Kyi for the award was “really jarring”.

“I think for us we see the type of rhetoric surrounding the Rohingya in Myanmar, the similar war on terror rhetoric that creates violence against people across the world and that affects us here,” she was quoted saying.

The report said Muslim students also planned to stage a protest during Suu Kyi’s visit, but it is not immediately known if this transpired.

Other organizations unaffiliated with Harvard voiced similar concerns over the award. The Burma Task Force USA, a group lobbying for an end to the persecution of the Rohingya, reportedly called and sent emails to the Harvard Foundation to protest the matter, The Crimson said, quoting media relations director Jennifer Sawicz.

“The message [this awards sends is] that our education institutions care far more about surface images than the complex truths.

“Yes, Suu Kyi did fight for democracy and that’s great, but this isn’t a democracy award, this is a humanitarian award,” Sawicz was quoted saying.



In its website and Facebook page, the group posted a statement urging its followers and supporters to contact the foundation, its director and the Harvard president, and flood Twitter with messages of outrage.

It also posted a laundry list of reasons why Suu Kyi was undeserving of such an award, saying among others that she has been “unconscionably silent on the plight of the Rohingya”.

Across social media platforms Facebook and Twitter, similar discontent was expressed by Muslims.

“@thecrimson why in the world, @Harvard is giving Humanitarian of the year award to #SuuKyi? What is the logic here?” asked Abdul Malik Mujahid who is Burma Task Force’s chairman, Huffington Post blogger and Chicago Iman.

“On the bodies of persecuted Rohingya,” another Twitter user, AKahn, Voice of America blog editor, wrote.

Suu Kyi’s government announced last month the formation of a nine-member advisory commission to resolve the “protracted issues in the region”, referring to religious and ethnic strife in the Rakhine state.

The council is made up of six locals and three foreigners – including former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan as its chair – a factor that has been fiercely protested by the Burmese.

Suu Kyi’s office said the commission will “consider humanitarian and development issues, access to basic services, the assurance of basic rights, and the security of the people of Rakhine”.

Rohingya Muslims have lived in the northwestern Rakhine state for generations but are denied citizenship because they are considered outsiders. More than 100 people, mostly Rohingya, were killed in clashes with the Buddhist majority in 2012.

Many Buddhists inside Burma prefer to call them ‘Bengalis’, arguing that the million or so members of the minority are mostly illegal immigrants and not a native ethnic group.

According to the Associated Press, the closest the government came to acknowledging the Rohingya was by saying that the commission will “examine international aspects of the situation, including the background of those seeking refugee status abroad.”

Every year, tens of thousands of Rohingya flee persecution in Burma and make perilous journeys in rickety boats to seek refuge in other Southeast Asian countries. Many, however, have perished in their pursuit of better lives, while others fall victim to human traffickers.

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