Public Demonstration Calling For End Of Genocide Against Rohingya In Burma

Rohingya Demonstration Invitation 5th Nov 2015, 2-3pm

Whilst Burma waits and is on the cusp of a general election in early November, the world waits with baited breath to see if life improves for the many ethnic groups of Burma who have faced decades of marginalization. The Rohingya, whom the UN has long claimed to be ‘one of the most persecuted communities in the world’, are not expecting any reprieve.

The recent Yale Law School and Fortify Rights report says it found strong evidence that genocide is occurring against the Rohingya in Burma. It concludes, “The mass scale of the atrocities perpetrated specifically against Rohingya also provides strong evidence that the Myanmar government has acted with genocidal intent toward the group.”

A yearlong Al Jazeera report also claims that genocide has been enacted against the Rohingya in Rakhine State, Burma.

Restless Beings, Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK), Burmese Muslim Association UK, Bradford Rohingya Community UK and Burma Campaign UK have joined arms and are calling out to supporters of the cause of human rights to join together and demonstrate at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of UK to put political pressure and to take tangible steps to end the ongoing genocide against the Rohingya.

Demonstration Details:

Date – 5th November 2015

Time- 2:00-3:00 PM

Place- Foreign and Common Wealth Office, King Charles Street, London SW1A 2AH.

We urge you to attend and to publicize the event with contacts and other like-minded groups and people.

For more information, please contact:

Tun Khin +44 (0) 7888714866

Mabrur Ahmed +44 (0) 7506100785

The first "European Rohingya Conference" was held in Esbjerg, Denmark on 27-28 December 2014

Dear Rohingya Brothers and Sisters,

Assalaamu Alaykum Wrt. Wbt. 

We are organising 2nd European Rohingya Conference on 1st and 2nd of August 2015 in Esbjerg, Denmark. It will be the continuation of 1st European Rohingya Conference held in December last year. All the Rohingyas living in Europe are cordially invited to join the conference. Rohingyas living outside Europe are also welcome as guests.

We are aware that there are many Rohingya organisations in Europe today. We are also aware that many of the organisations are doing their best, but individually, in their respective countries. It is not enough, we need to do much. We need to work collectively. Our collective work will make our voice stronger and strengthen our unity.

We hope you will join the conference in the best interest of the suffering Rohingya people. If you decide to join, please confirm to us not later than July 20, 2015. You can confirm either by writing to eurohingyaconference@gmail.com or contacting one of the following persons. 

1. Zakaria Abdur Rahim (Denmark) +45 22556897

2. Monawara Jamil (Denmark) +45 4225 4828

3. Sazzat Ahmad (Netherlands) +31 615033663

4. Tun Khin (UK) +44 7888714866

5. Nay San Lwin (Germany) +49 1796535213

6. Mv. Azizul Hoque (Switzerland) +41 762982367

7. Sayed Hussein (Norway) +47 95795575

8. Mv. Ali Ahmad (Sweden) +46 725722472

9. Bolu Mohammad Siddique (Finland) +35 8442835756

You are requested to provide the following information on confirmation. 

1. Your name 

2. Country of residence 

3. Arrival date, time and place 

4. Contact number and/or email address 

Please be noted that food, accommodation (not hotel) and pick-up service from the nearest airport (Billund) or nearest bus/train station (Esbjerg) will be provided. You are required to make your own travel arrangement. Your travel expenses will not be reimbursed. 

Please forward this invitation to all of your contacts so that no one is left uninvited. 

Hope to see you all in the conference. 

On behalf of conference organisers,

Sayed Hussein

Norway

If you are going to ‪Glastonbury‬ this week be sure to look for Dr Zarni.

After a day and a night out rocking and rolling, whoever makes a mistake of coming to hear "Burma Update" they will be greeted with the details of ‪‎Myanmar‬ ‪‎Genocide‬ of ‪Rohingya‬, Myanmar Tatmadaw's (feudal army) internal colonial wars against other indigenous minorities, corporate and crony loot of the country, etc. 

Under Speakers' Forum, the opening session, named "Burma Update", 26th June 2015, Friday, 10-11 am

Watch here: the 26 May Oslo Conference Webcast LIVE 

The Norwegian Nobel Institute and Voksenaasen, Oslo, Norway

0900 - 1730 hrs Norway time (UTC +2 hr)

26 May 2015 (Tuesday)

SOME TIME CONVERSIONS

13:00 hr in DHAKA, Bangladesh

13:30 hr YANGON, Myanmar or Burma

14:00 hr BANGKOK & JAKARTA

15:00 hr KUALA LUMPUR

16:00 hr TOKYO & SEOUL

Oslo Conference Hashtags: #MyanmarRohingya and #Rohingya

For more info: OsloConference@yahoo.com

For the press contact: Dr Maung Zarni, +44 771 047 3322

The Oslo Conference to End Myanmar’s Systematic Persecution of Rohingyas

The Program for 26 May 2015

The Norwegian Nobel Institute and the Voksenaasen

Oslo, Norway

The Program for 26 May 2015 - The Oslo Conference to End Myanmar’s Systematic Persecution of Rohingyas

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

The Oslo Conference to End Myanmar’s Persecution of the Rohingyas

Venues: The Nobel Institute and Voksenaasen

Oslo, Norway

26-28 May 2015 

Refugees International (RI), Justice for All (USA), the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), Harvard Global Equality Initiative (HGEI), and International State Crime Initiative Queen Mary University of London (ISCI) and Den norske Burmakomité will be holding a 3-day international conference to discuss the plight of over 1-million Rohingyas of Myanmar (Burma) and explore concrete ways to end their decades-long persecution.

George Soros who escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary sees a parallel between his experience of life under the Nazis in 1944 and the human conditions for the Rohingyas in Western Myanmar, which he witnessed first-hand during a recent visit to the country.

At the conference, iconic leaders from diverse backgrounds including Soros, Nobel Peace laureates Mairead Maguire, Desmond Tutu, and Jose Rose-Jorta, and the former prime ministers of Malaysia and Norway - namely Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad and Kjell Magne Bondevik - will join hands with the representatives of the two generations of Rohingya refugees and activists as well as international human rights researchers and scholars of genocides and mass atrocities. They will push for the end to Myanmar’s policies of discrimination, persecution and oppression. 

Tomas Ojea Quinta and Yanghee Lee, former and present UN Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in Myanmar respectively, will also share their expertise with the audiences and other participants. 

The first day of the Oslo Conference is open to the public and will be webcast LIVE. 

Click here for the Conference Program (Draft).
https://www.facebook.com/OsloConferenceOnRohingyas/posts/960561500643487

To register, please RSVP by sending an email to OsloConference@yahoo.com. Be sure to include your full name, organizational affiliation (if any), and country of residence.

A 3-day Conference

26 May 2015: The first day of the conference – open to the public - will be held at the Nobel Institute and Voksenaasen conference center on 26 May 2015. 

27 May 2015: The second day of the conference – by invitation-only – will be devoted to exploring concrete ideas and proposals to help push for the restoration of basic human rights, nationality, and citizenship to the Rohingyas. 

28 May 2015: On the third and final day, the conference will host a Burma Forum in central Oslo, a public roundtable with select group of Rohingya leaders, other religious leaders and human rights experts to discuss Myanmar’s rising anti-Muslim hate campaign as well as other contemporary issues of relevance. For more information about the Burma Forum email Norwegian Burma Committee at info@burma.no

Backgrounder to the Oslo Conference

Rakhine Action Plan 

In July 2014, Myanmar government floated a comprehensive plan, known as the “Rakhine Action Plan”, to erase both Rohingya identity and the group’s legal residency in their own ancestral land and sent a 3-member advocacy team – made up of President’s adviser and former academic Dr Kyaw Yin Hlaing, Immigration Minister and ex-Brigadier Khin Yi, and Rakhine Chief Minister and ex-Major General Maung Maung Ohn - to lobby western governments and relevant international organizations to accept Myanmar’s official plan to solve “the Rohingya problem”. 

Thein Sein’s government in Myanmar is currently implementing the Rakhine Action Plan. This is evidenced from the further illegalization and disenfranchisement of the vast majority of ethnic Rohingya since March this year, by forcibly confiscating their White Cards, the only documentation that Rohingyas had of their legal, permanent residency. Meanwhile, the international community’s attention is diverted to the fighting along the country’s Sino-Burmese borders between Myanmar army and Kokant Chinese armed resistance organization and its allies, as well as Aung San Suu Kyi’s attempts to push for changes in the military’s 2008 Constitution in time for this year’s planned elections

Myanmar’s Policy of Official Denial and Persecution of the Rohingyas

Following the large scale violence against the Rohingyas in June 2012, Myanmar’s “reformist” government officially proposed two solutions to the Rohingya issue to the visiting head of the United Nations Refugee Agency or UNHCR António Guterres - either the “resettlement” of the Rohingyas to third countries, or placing Rohingya in UN-financed camps on their own ancestral soil in Western Myanmar. In his widely reported address to the Royal Institute of International Affairs (or Chatham House), in London, UK on 17 July 2013, Myanmar President Thein Sein officially denied the existence of Rohingyas as either legal residents or an ethnic group while his government has made consistent attempts to pressure INGOs, foreign missions and the United Nations agencies and officials – including the UN Special Rapporteurs on the human rights situation in Myanmar - to stop recognizing the Rohingya as a distinct ethnic group of Myanmar. 

Such statements and policies have been met with stiff opposition from the international community, including the highest level of leaderships such as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and US President Barack Obama. In sharp contrast to the international recognition of the Rohingya as an ethnic group, deserving non-discrimination, equal rights, dignity, and the same basic respect as any other indigenous peoples of Myanmar, the country’s Bama or Myanmar Buddhist majority and Rakhine nationalists label the Rohingyas as “illegal Muslim migrants” from the impoverished Bangladesh. As such, Rohingya have popularly been dehumanized and referred to by terms such as “viruses”, “leeches”, (ugly) “ogres”, “dogs” etc. 

Sadly, Myanmar’s pro-democracy opposition leaders and human rights organizations including Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy and other iconic human rights the leaders of the 88 Generation Group also share this anti-Rohingya sentiment. The Myanmar government has, misleadingly, portrayed the plight of Rohingyas as the result of a communal conflict between the predominantly Buddhist Rakhine and the Muslim Rohingya and a supposedly inevitable consequence of the “transition” from dictatorship. Periodically, unsubstantiated claims are made by Myanmar President’s Office attempting to link the Rohingya community to global “Islamic fundamentalism”, and worse still, “terrorism”. 

The Worsening Plight of the Rohingyas

The plight of the Rohingyas in Myanmar has worsened since the two bouts of organized attacks on the Rohingya in June and October 2012. In her 9-March-2015 report to the United Nations Human Rights Council, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Professor Yanghee Lee stated that Rohingya refugees inside Internally Displaced Persons (or IDP) camps feel they have two (equally risky) options: “to stay and die (in Myanmar) or leave by boat”. According to the UN High Commissioner for the Refugees (UNHCR), approximately 53,000 Rohingyas, including women and children, left Myanmar (and Bangladesh) by boats bound for Thailand and Malaysia in the 11-month period between January and November 2014. International visitors to Rakhine state have described the human conditions for the Rohingyas, both inside and outside IDP camps, as “deplorable”. Even by Myanmar’s official report of Myanmar President’s Rakhine Inquiry Commission, doctor-patient ratios among the Rohingyas in the two majority Rohingya towns in Western Myanmar are 1: 76,000 and 1:83,000 (vis-à-vis 1: 1,000 for the national average). Some local Rakhine groups routinely threaten international humanitarian organizations and attempt to disrupt and stop the delivery of basic humanitarian aid to the Rohingyas. 

International Responses

Human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch have assessed Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingyas as ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’. UN Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in Myanmar including Tomas Quintana Ojea and Yanghee Lee have highlighted the official nature of discrimination and persecution of the Rohingyas that a condones popular racism and violence against Myanmar’s Muslims. The Pacific Rim Law and Policy Association has published a 3-year academic study entitled “The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingya” in its peer-reviewed journal “Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal” (Spring, 2014).

Renowned academics, for instance, Harvard’s Amartya Sen have characterized Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingyas as a “slow genocide”. Likewise, at the conference on the Rohingyas at the London School of Economics held in April 2014 the then outgoing UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Tomas Oeja Quintana observed reportedly “genocidal acts” in the case of Rohingyas. 

At this Oslo Conference, global leaders including George Soros and Desmond Tutu will call on the international community, both international investors, European Union and governments with close ties to Myanmar, to help end Myanmar’s Rohingya persecution. They will also call for the restoration of basic human rights, nationality and citizenship to one of the world’s most vulnerable and oppressed peoples who, as a group, do have the fundamental right to self-identity under international human rights law. 

RB News 

(Photos Courtesy: San Han Htike)

RB News

December 21, 2014

For the sake of unity and to formulate a unified strategy, the Rohingya people living in different parts of Europe are organising a conference with all the Rohingya organisations and individuals living in Europe. The conference will not create any new organisation but will find the mechanism how existing organisations and individuals can sit and work together. The collective work will make the voice of Rohingyas stronger.

The conference will be held on 27th and 28th of December 2014 in Esbjerg, Denmark and will be hosted by the Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark (BRCD). All the interested Rohingyas are invited to join the conference in the best interest of the suffering Rohingya people. 

The objectives of the conference are:

· To discuss Rohingya issues with all Rohingya organisations and individuals in Europe

· To strengthen friendship among the Rohingyas in Europe

· To draw action plan and to formulate campaigning strategy

The following persons can be contacted for further information.

1. Mv. Habib Pitar (Denmark) +45 27965356

2. Monowara Jamil (Denmark) +45 4225 4828

3. Sazzad Ahmed (Netherlands) + 31 615033663

4. Tun Khin (UK) +44 7888714866

5. Nay San Lwin (Germany) + 49 1796535213

6. Mv. Azizul Hoque (Switzerland) + 41 762982367

7. Sayed Hussein (Norway) + 47 95795575

The Harvard Global Equity Initiative is convening a half-day conference on the worsening situation of Burma’s Rohingya minority community on November 4, 2014. 

The Harvard Global Equity Initiative is convening a half-day conference on the worsening situation of Burma’s Rohingya minority community on November 4, 2014. Professor Amartya Sen, Chair of the Harvard Global Equity Initiative’s Steering Committee, will be leading the proceedings in collaboration with Felicia Knaul, Director of the Harvard Global Equity Initiative. The conference serves as a follow-up to the seminar “The Future of Burma: A Panel Discussion” which was held last November and also organized by HGEI. The video of last year’s event is available here: http://vimeo.com/80141688. 

Two myths or false narratives dictate the discussion about the Rohingya plight: 1) the conflict is horizontal, sectarian and is due to lack of development in Rakhine state and 2) that communal conflicts are an unfortunate but ‘natural’ part of any multiethnic society in transitional period. The conference is timely and can be used strategically to rectify the grossly inaccurate media and policy framing of Burma’s state-sponsored persecution of Rohingya. Four panels exploring the following areas will be held: 1) historical, human rights and political perspectives, 2) Rohingya voices, 3) the right to health and essential services, and 4) developing a policy-oriented research agenda.

RB News

September 4, 2014

Detroit, Michigan, USA -- Over 25,000 people attended the 51st Convention of the Islamic Society of North America. Held at the Cobo Convention Center in Detroit, Michigan, President Jimmy Carter was the keynote speaker. Among the numerous events at the Convention, there were two Rohingya events: The exhibition on the Plight of Rohingya was presented by Arakan Rohingya Union (ARU) in association with GAPROWC (Global Alliance for Protection of Rohingya Women and Children) and ARU’s Global Rohingya Center (GRC) during the 3-day event. A special session on Rohingya political and human rights in Burma (Myanmar) was also convened on August 30th.

The exhibition booth of the Arakan Rohingya Union, was stationed adjacent to booth of the Muslim Aid America (MAA). The Arakan Rohingya Union exhibition was conduction by Sarah Naeem Uddin, the Director of GAPROWC, and Aasma Ahmed, the Country Coordinator of MAA, conducted the Muslim Aid America exhibition. Additionally, information on Rohingya political and human rights issues were displayed at the exhibition booths of Burma Task Force, Islamic Relief, and Helping Hands.

Some of the highlights at the Arakan Rohingya Union exhibition booth were: 

• The background history of the indigenous Rohingya people dating back to several centuries in the Rohang region of Arakan state in Burma
• Ethnic cleansing of Rohingya
• The growing militancy and terror campaigns against Rohingya and Pathi/Myanmar Muslims by the radical groups in Arakan and elsewhere in Burma, and the continuous major human right violations against Rohingya people on Arakan.

Visitors to the exhibition booths were deeply touched by the sufferings of Rohingya people in IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps that are currently under horrendous conditions and open-prison Rohingya villages in various townships in Arakan. Numerous attendees, including young generations American Muslim men and women, signed up for volunteering in Rohingya political and human rights work for the Arakan Rohingya Union in the US.