Month: December 2018

International community should act for resolution of Rohingya crisis, says head of Rome-based rights group By Sorwar Alam | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 19, 2018 ANKARA — The international community should put forward concrete plans to resolve the Rohingya crisis, head of a Rome-based human rights group said. “All evidence on what to be done are available. All obligations in front of the needs are clear,” said Gianni Tognoni, the secretary general of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT). He welcomed the U.S. House of Representatives’ recent vote on Rohingya genocide. The U.S. House of Representatives approved a resolution by a

Rohingya need ‘protected homeland in Myanmar’ for being repatriated, says pro-democracy Euro-Burma Office head By Sorwar Alam | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 17, 2018 ANKARA — The U.S. House of Representative vote declaring persecution of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar a “genocide” should encourage other nations to follow suit, a senior rights activist said. In an interview with Anadolu Agency on last week’s vote, Harn Yawnghwe, son of Myanmar’s first president Sao Shwe Thaike, said the move “affirms the action taken by the International Criminal Court to further investigate, and the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission (IIFFM) report that there

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 calling the crimes committed by Myanmar security forces against Rohingya Muslims a genocide. This was the right thing to do. The U.S. lawmakers deserve to be applauded for trying to turn “Never again!” into a concrete U.S. governmental policy, following the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s declaration that Myanmar is indeed committing a genocide and crimes against humanity. The House resolution states that

Returning Rohingya refugees is like sending Holocaust survivors to gas chambers, says Myanmar rights activist By Sorwar Alam | Published by Anadolu Agency on December 9, 2018 ANKARA — Bangladesh needs to form a broader international alliance to resolve the issue of roughly 1 million Rohingya refugees in the country, a rights activist and political dissident from Myanmar has said. In an interview with Anadolu Agency on Global Genocide Day, Maung Zarni said four regional powers plus Israel either support or protect Myanmar’s genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority group in the western Rakhine state.  “No genocide is ever committed by a single nation

Rohingya activists accuse ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of failing to protect the Rohingya because it hasn’t condemned Myanmar’s violence against the ethnic minority as genocide. Is ASEAN protecting Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar’s generals from international criminal prosecution? Guests: Maung Zarni Coordinator of the Free Rohingya Coalition Tom Villarin Member of Philippines’ Congress and ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights

By Khin Mai Aung | Published by Lion’s Roar on December 6, 2018   Last week, a prominent Buddhist teacher defended Aung San Suu Kyi, the Buddhist Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Myanmar civilian leader, against criticism that she is party to genocide. Khin Mai Aung explains why that defense doesn’t hold up.   Recently, respected Bhutanese lama Dzongzar Khyentse Rinpoche posted an open letter on Facebook downplaying Myanmar’s brutal Rohingya genocide and expressing support for the country’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The politician has come under fire in recent years for her tacit support of the

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 protest the detention of a million Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang. “As a human rights activist, a Buddhist educator and a politically engaged scholar of genocide, racism and violence, I cannot, in clear conscience, participate in the three-day forum which is officially endorsed by the Government of China,” wrote Maung Zarni in his withdrawal letter on Friday. Zarni was scheduled to