July 27, 2025

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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...

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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End hypocrisy over Rohingya

(Photo - Phuket Wan)
Bangkok Post
January 18, 2013

When nearly 850 Rohingya boat people were rescued from their secret shelters in Songkhla's Sadao district this week, the government finally did the right thing by providing them with humanitarian care and allowing them to have access to international assistance.

Up until this week, the country's main policy toward Rohingya boat people was to give them food, water, and fuel before putting them back out to sea so they can continue their journey to Malaysia, which is their main destination, or to deport them by land back to Myanmar.

By chasing them away, either by sea or by land, this policy is equivalent to pushing the Rohingya back into the open arms of human traffickers. If they cannot pay up, they risk imprisonment, torture, or even death back in Myanmar.

It is therefore good news that the government finally responded to calls from human rights groups and the international community to give humanitarian assistance to the Muslim-minority Rohingya who fled ethnic-cleansing violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

There are many woman and children among the rescued Rohingya. This clearly shows that this latest influx of Rohingya boat people who have reached Thai shores are war refugees and asylum seekers. They must be treated accordingly. Thailand, however, still considers them illegal immigrants, which makes them criminals in the eyes of Thai law which subjects them to arrest, imprisonment and deportation.

The Yingluck government made the right decision not to deport them and allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to interview the boat people in order to determine who they are, where they came from, and what they need.

This assessment process is crucial. The records will help ensure that the assistance meets their needs and help the authorities with later identification when the same Rohingya are smuggled back into Thailand again.

There is no such assessment system at present. This laxity made it easy for corrupt officials to assist human traffickers by sending the Rohingya asylum seekers across the border and allowing them back again, which essentially makes them part of the human trafficking racket.

Amid trade sanction threats from the US and EU, the Yingluck government has sent the right message to the international community by starting to take human traffickers to task. But the government needs to do much more to prove its commitment to battling human trafficking.

To start with, a local politician in Songkhla and two Rohingya men wanted by the police are just small fry in the Rohingya human trafficking racket. Even so, they have not yet been arrested. The big fish remain unscathed. So do the corrupt officials. As long as these key players are spared, then the stream of Rohingya boat people won't stop.

Apart from getting real with the human trafficking rackets and corrupt officials, the government must stop viewing the Rohingya as a national security threat and set up a system to identify their identities and their needs so they can go to third countries or return home.

To help the Rohingya, the international community must also lend a hand, not only by financially supporting humanitarian assistance, but also by exerting pressure on the Myanmar government to stop ethnic violence in Rakhine. If the international community continues to focus on Thailand's policy shortcomings while turning a blind eye to the ongoing atrocities against the Rohingya so it can still enjoy reaping benefits from investment opportunities in Myanmar, there is one word to describe this gap between words and actions. It is called hypocrisy.

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