February 21, 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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UN Secretary General Receives Mixed Messages in Stakeholder Meetings

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon meets with interfaith leaders on Wednesday in Naypyidaw. (Photo: United Nations Information Center)

By Nyein Nyein
September 1, 2016

NAYPYIDAW — United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon met with an interfaith panel and civil society representatives at two different events with two contrasting messages in Naypyidaw on Wednesday.

During the meeting with the interfaith group, well-known Buddhist monk Ashin Nyanisara, also known as Sitagu Sayadaw, attributed a “lack of understanding of the essence of one’s own faith” to “one of the causes of conflict” in Burma.

Only through understanding this “essence,” the monk explained, can mutual understanding and friendship be fostered. Government schools, Ashin Nyanisara added, should develop a religious education syllabus “to help students understand every religion in the country.”

‘Focus on Poverty’

His comments came at a time when Burma has been struggling with interfaith relations, particularly between the Buddhist majority and Muslim minority. Since 2012, the country has been coping with ongoing violence and tension—mostly instigated by Buddhist nationalists—between the two communities. The latest documented incidents of anti-Muslim violence occurred in June, when a mosque was destroyed by a Buddhist mob in Pegu Division and on July 1, when a Muslim prayer hall was burned down in a similar manner in Kachin State.

In August, Burma’s government announced that they would form an advisory commission led by former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan to tackle ongoing abuses in Arakan State affecting the region’s Buddhist Arakanese and Muslim Rohingya.

Political parties like the Arakan National Party and the Union Solidarity and Development party have objected to the presence of international members on the Arakan State commission, describing it as foreign meddling in domestic affairs.

Ashin Nyanisara compared the ethnoreligious violence in western Burma to “fighting between a husband and wife,” also emphasizing that it was an internal affair.

“If a fight between husband and wife breaks out, it doesn’t make sense to call for outside help. That’s a problem they have to solve between themselves,” he said.

Yet, the monk offered a different stance referring to conflict-torn countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, pointing out that only “powerful” outside countries are able to intervene and halt the atrocities occurring there.

“Mr. Ban Ki-moon just folded his arms and watched what was happening, as he can do nothing,” said Ashin Nyanisara.

The self-identifying Rohingya have been disproportionately affected by the violence in Arakan State and are often referred to as “Bengali” migrants—implying that the have come from neighboring Bangladesh—by the Burmese public, government and locals; this is an assertion that the Rohingya deny, insisting that the Arakan region is their ancestral home.

Referring to “Bengali” immigrants, Ashin Nyanisara said that Arakan State had experienced an increase in migration due to poverty in Bangladesh, and asked Ban Ki-moon to consider this when examining conflict in Arakan State.

“My request to the UN general secretary and others today is to focus on poverty when you tackle the problem,” he said.

A Lack of Security for Women

UN general secretary Ban Ki-moon also met 13 civil society representatives on the same day in Naypyidaw’s Kempinski Hotel.

Nang Phyu Phyu Lin, chair of the Alliance for Gender Inclusion in the Peace Process said her organization highlighted for Ban Ki-moon how ongoing violence against women, particularly in conflict zones, remains a threat not only to security in those regions but also nationally. She also reflected on the lack of legal protection for women outside of conflict areas, and the need for more effective interventions to stop violence against women in all contexts.

“We still have a lack of security for women, whether they are in conflict zones or not. Because the policies protecting women from violence are very weak; perpetrators are not taken into custody and are still at large,” she explained.

“We urged the UN general secretary to pressure the government, the army and the ethnic armed groups to abide by and implement the UNSC resolution,” Nang Phyu Phyu Lin said, referring to the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which recognizes the gendered effects of conflict and provides a framework for furthering the participation of women in peace processes and security efforts.

Lway Cheery, secretary of the Ta’ang Women’s Organization, told The Irrawaddy that she raised issues concerning human rights abuses in northern Shan State, where many ethnic Ta’ang [Palaung] live.

“He seems well-informed about the refugees and IDPs [internally displaced people] and the peace process [in Burma],” Lway Cheery said of Ban Ki-moon. “He said he would raise these concerns with the government when he meets the leaders.”

“He pledged,” she continued, “that the UN is ready to provide more support toward achieving peace in Myanmar.”

Additional reporting by Kyaw Phyo Tha from Rangoon.

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