{"id":120970,"date":"2018-10-29T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2018-10-29T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=120970"},"modified":"2018-11-05T11:13:54","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T11:13:54","slug":"activist-for-rohingya-muslims-zarni-calls-on-tokyo-to-speak-out-over-refugee-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/10\/activist-for-rohingya-muslims-zarni-calls-on-tokyo-to-speak-out-over-refugee-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Activist for Rohingya Muslims, Zarni Calls on Tokyo to Speak Out over Refugee Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

25 Oct 2018 \u2013 <\/em>Maung Zarni, leader of a global network of activists for Rohingya Muslims, today called on Japan to actively speak out against the alleged abuse and genocide against Myanmar\u2019s ethnic minority by the country\u2019s military and strongly criticized Tokyo for its relative silence on a crisis that has become a major international concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are 400 villages burned to the ground \u2026 Japan cannot be so out of line from the reality. Rohingyas are treated as guilty (just) because they exist,\u201d Maung Zarni, leader of the Free Rohingya Coalition, said at a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents\u2019 Club of Japan in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Maung Zarni, leader of the Free Rohingya Coalition, speaks at a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo on Thursday 25 Oct 2018. | CHISATO TANAKA<\/p><\/div>\n

Around 723,000 Rohingya people fled to neighboring Bangladesh in the year after violence broke out in the Rakhine state in the Buddhist-majority country in August 2017, according to the UNHCR, the U.N.\u2019s refugee agency. More than 40 percent of them were under age 12.<\/p>\n

In September this year, a U.N. fact-finding mission released a report on the situation, saying that the armed forces of Myanmar are the main perpetrator of the \u201cgross human rights violations and international crimes\u201d committed in Rakhine and other states.<\/p>\n

Zarni, who is visiting Japan to give speeches about the plight of the Rohingya people, said international intervention is imperative and Japan could take a leading role as the world\u2019s third-biggest economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cJapan can simply say we are going to have a policy review,\u201d he said, signaling his frustration with the Asian country, which he views as not doing enough to address the humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n

Michimi Muranushi, an international politics professor at Gakushuin University who will be giving lectures with Zarni, told The Japan Times that the Japanese government appears to be avoiding the use of the term \u201cRohingya\u201d in consideration of the fact the Myanmar government does not recognize the people as citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government has been really strict about not using that word,\u201d said Muranushi, noting that it instead has usually referred to the people as \u201cMuslims in the Rakhine state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zarni argued that a language encyclopedia published by the Myanmar government says that \u201cirrefutably and unequivocally, and officially, Rohingya people are an official ethnic minority who have ancestral lands in the northern Rakhine state of Myanmar\u201d and that the Southeast Asian country\u2019s leader Aung San Suu Kyi also \u201chas access to this document.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Suu Kyi visited Japan earlier in the month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a joint news conference that he values her efforts \u201cto cope with a difficult agenda,\u201d including economic reforms and \u201cissues related to Rakhine state.\u201d Abe also said the refugee issue poses a \u201cvery complex and grave\u201d problem, and Japan will extend assistance to help them return to Myanmar and resettle there.<\/p>\n

The Japanese government is reportedly said to be considering accepting more refugees who have fled their home to neighboring countries for resettlement. Zarni said Abe should accept more Rohingya people as they could become \u201cassets,\u201d for example by becoming part of the country\u2019s workforce, which is experiencing shortages as Japan struggles with a graying population and declining birthrate.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 japantimes.co.jp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 Oct 2018 \u2013 Maung Zarni, leader of a global network of activists for Rohingya Muslims, today called on Japan to actively speak out against the alleged abuse and genocide against Myanmar\u2019s ethnic minority by the country\u2019s military and strongly criticized Tokyo for its relative silence on a crisis that has become a major international concern.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":120971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,677],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","category-asia-updates-on-myanmar-rohingya-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}