July 27, 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...

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...

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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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Restrictive race laws will divide Myanmar, Christians warn

This picture taken June 24 shows a Buddhist novice praying at a Yangon monastery affiliated with the Ma Ba Tha organization. Myanmar President Thein Sein has signed into law a series of restrictive race and religion bills, which were championed by Ma Ba Tha. (Photo by Christophe Archambault/AFP)

By John Zaw
September 2, 2015

Last of controversial race and religion bills signed into law

A set of restrictive laws on race and religion finalized this week in Myanmar could exacerbate tensions and drive a wedge between the country’s diverse ethnic and religious groups, Christian leaders warn.

Christian groups raised their concerns after Myanmar’s president on Aug. 31 signed into law the last of four controversial bills pushed by hardline Buddhist monks.

The new monogamy law sets punishments for people who have more than one spouse or who are living with another person while still married. It carries a maximum penalty of up to seven years in prison.

Rights groups believe the new law — as well as three other laws on population control, religious conversion and interfaith marriage — is a thinly veiled attempt to target religious minorities, especially Muslims, in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Dr. Saw Hlaing Bwar, professor at the Myanmar Institute of Theology’s Judson Research Center in Yangon, said the laws could be used to institutionalize discrimination against minorities.

"The law must protect the people and promote equality and rights," he said. "But attempting to enact these laws could legalize … discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities."

Saw Hlaing Bwar worried the laws could also trigger further conflict in a country already rife with ethnic tension, particularly in communities where Muslims and Buddhists coexist.

"What I’m more concerned with is that the conflict may happen among religions if people from minority groups respond to the incitement and propaganda with anger," he said.

Hardliners

The laws were championed by hardline Buddhist monks from a group known as Ma Ba Tha, or the Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion.

Fr. Maurice Nyunt Wai, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar, said the race and religion laws may not be overtly targeting Christians directly, but they could have a lasting impact on race relations in general.

"Over the long term, [the laws] could tarnish the image of Buddhism, which is peaceful, compassionate and calm," he said. "And this can destroy the harmonious society among religions in Myanmar and the distance between the majority Buddhists and other minorities will grow wider."

Saw Shwe Lin, general secretary of the Myanmar Council of Churches, said Christian leaders do not believe the race and religion laws specifically target Christians at this stage. However, church leaders will meet to discuss their possible impacts.

In addition to the monogamy bill, the race and religion laws include legislation on population control, religious conversion and interfaith marriage.

Myanmar President Thein Sein signed the population control bill into law in May. That legislation could let authorities impose mandatory "birth spacing" — the interval between a woman’s pregnancies — in specific populations.

The president signed the laws restricting religious conversion and interfaith marriage on Aug. 26, according to Zaw Htay, director-general of the president’s office. The law on interfaith marriages would require Buddhist women who want to marry non-Buddhist men to register their marriages in advance, allowing members of their community to object to a planned union.

In predominantly Buddhist Myanmar, Christians represent about 5 percent of the population while Muslims comprise about 3.5 percent.

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