Myanmar Government makes baseless, slanderous allegations against Ro Nay San Lwin and the Rohingya Blogger News: Rohingya Blogger’s Statement

Myanmar Government makes baseless, slanderous allegations against Ro Nay San Lwin and the Rohingya Blogger News: Rohingya Blogger’s Statement

London, UK

January 13, 2017

Rohingya Blogger News group is deeply disturbed by Myanmar government’s slanderous and baseless allegations against its coverage of the crimes of the Myanmar security forces against the Rohingya people in the last few weeks.

We are a group of honest citizen journalists based in the Rohingya diaspora, as well as on the ground inside the predominantly Rohingya region of Northern Arakan in western Myanmar (Burma).

Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi’s Information Committee and the Commander in Chief’s Office are both officially behind this deplorable official propaganda designed to destroy our credibility with international news agencies, which consult with and rely upon our local expertise for in-depth knowledge of the decades-long genocidal crimes committed by Myanmar governments against the Rohingya community.

Myanmar government falsely accused us of “fabricating” incidents that we claimed took place in Gawduthara village tract in southern Maungdaw Township, Rakhine State, on the 7th and 8th of January, 2017. This attack on the integrity of the Rohingya Blogger first appeared on the Facebook page run by Myanmar military’s Commander-In-Chief’s Office.

We fully stand by our reporting about Myanmar troops committing sexual violence against 13 Rohingya women and girls that took place at Gawduthara. As a matter of fact, besides speaking to the rape victims and/or eye witnesses, Rohingya Blogger News Group has verified the initial accounts of rape, robbery, arrest and torture of Rohingya villagers by Myanmar troops.

We stand by the fact that Myanmar troops from a army battalion based in Mawrawaddy village and the Border Guard Police (BGP) from Magyi Chaung Village camp gang-raped 13 Rohingya women and girls in the late evening of 7 January, 2017. The same troops detained and severely tortured 7 Rohingya villagers, all men, on 8 January.

On the morning of 8 January a group of BGP troops led by Police Major Kyaw Thu Yee arrived and took records of of the incidents in detail and reported the matter to his superiors. Subsequently, the BGP troops subjected 30 women and seven men to various types of sexual violence, severe beatings, and other physical and mental tortures. In the late afternoon, the commander of the Battalion based in Mawrawaddy took the men who were tortured and provided them with medical treatment.

Again, on 10 January Myanmar troops brought the four Rohingya villagers who were already tortured to the local BGP camp where the latter were forced to sign confessions. Subsequently, the troop commander gave each signer 50,000 Kyat (US$45 approximately) and ordered them not to speak of the “incidents" of sexual violence, robbery and torture that they witnessed or experienced first-hand.

The Rohingya Blogger has collected evidence of these incidents, which remain in our News Group’s possession.

Following the slanderous attacks on Rohingya Blogger by the Office of Myanmar Commander-In-Chief, the State Counsellor’s Information Committee released the same information without mentioning us directly by name. The Info Committee instead described us as an “Internet propaganda page” which it said had posted fabricated news. Burmese media and State media then published the same information in Burmese and English language on-line publications, as well as hard copies.

Among the international journalists, we are one of the most trusted sources of Rohingya news, updates and raw stories for more than 10 years. Rohingya Blogger has received awards from nine organizations based in the United States in 2015. We have cooperated with every major media outlet in the world, from CNN and BBC to Al Jazeera and New York Times, in order to inform the world of Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya people – which is now increasingly and commonly described as “ethnic cleansing”, “crimes against humanity”, or even “genocide”.

We categorically reject and denounce the baseless accusations against us made jointly by the Aung San Suu Kyi’s Government and the military leaders of Myanmar.

Additionally, we denounce the false or fake news made by Myanmar’s State Counsellor’s Office where Aung San Suu Kyi’s Information Committee distorted a video clip from Al Jazeera news (ref: #AJNewsGrid November 21, 2016) as if Al Jazeera English was warning the world of “Fake News” spread by Rohingya Blogger. Al Jazeera uses raw stories about Myanmar’s atrocities against Rohingya because its editors and producers have worked with us and known us to be fully credible and truthful as the on-the-ground source of news about the Rohingyas.

The Myanmar Government’s mouthpiece, The Global New Light of Myanmar, posted an article stating that one of our bloggers and citizen journalists, namely Ro Nay San Lwin, was sending out fake news. Contrary to the malicious distortion by the Global New Light of Myanmar, the video news clip in question actually referred to Internet users posting wrongly attributed photos that claimed to be of Rakhine State. In fact, the AJE news story which Myanmar government mouthpiece referred to showed Ro Nay San Lwin’s tweets as the ones containing and transmitting verified photos about the unfolding situation in Northern Rakhine State. For the Aung San Suu Kyi government to be running this apparently distorted story in its official media outlet is a sign of desperation among Myanmar’s senior leaders, including Aung San Suu Kyi. However powerful and influential, Myanmar leaders may be, they are losing their propaganda war internationally - clearly designed to cover up and deny atrocity crimes of genocidal proportions.

To Myanmar State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, we have a message for you. We had loved you once and we called you our friend and even ‘Mother’. We ask now that you find in the Rohingya the same humanity you find in yourself. We ask that you give the Rohingya the same compassion the world gave you. Finally, we ask that you “use your liberty to promote ours”.

The Myanmar government’s allegation against RB can be read here. 

The Myanmar government’s fabricated news about Al Jazeera’s video clip can be read here.

The video clip of Al Jazeera can be watched here.

Rohingya Blogger Team

For more information, please contact: Ro Nay San Lwin + 49 69 26022349

The following organizations and individual have endorsed this statement.

1. International State Crime Initiative (ISCI)
2. Burma Campaign UK
3. Burma Task Force USA
4. Global Minorities Alliance (GMA)
5. Centre for Human Rights Research & Advocacy (CENTHRA), Malaysia
6. Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN)
7. Burmese Muslim Association
8. Protect The Rohingya (South Africa)
9. Civil Rights Movement
10. International Campaign for the Rohingya
11. Al Kanz (France)
12. Arakan Rohingya National Organisation
13. Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK
14. Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark
15. Rohingya Community in Germany
16. Rohingya Community in Switzerland
17. Rohingya Organisation Norway
18. Rohingya Community in Finland
19. Rohingya Community in Italy
20. Rohingya Community in Sweden
21. Rohingya Society in Netherlands
22. Burmese Rohingya Association in Japan
23. Rohingya American Society
24. Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand
25. Rohingya Advocacy Network in Japan
26. Burmese American Muslim Association (BAMA)
27. Rohingya Society in Malaysia (RSM)
28. Burmese Rohingya Association in Queensland-Australia (BRAQA)
29. Burmese Rohingya Community Australia
30. British Rohingya Community UK
31. Rohingya Culture Center Chicago
32. Rohingya Association Canada
33. Rohingya Peace Network of Thailand
34. Dr. Maung Zarni
35. Dr. Azeem Ibrahim
36. Jamila Hanan
37. Jennifer Sawicz
38. Andrew Day
39. Ahsan Khan
40. Janice Ahmed
41. BarakaCity
42. Dr. Habib Siddiqui
43. Paul Mooney
44. Matthew Smith

Please send email to info@rohingyablogger.com if you would like to endorse this statement.