{"id":315070,"date":"2026-04-20T12:01:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=315070"},"modified":"2026-04-18T07:07:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T06:07:27","slug":"newcastle-upon-tyne-the-first-city-to-erect-a-genocide-memorial-monument-for-myanmars-rohingya-survivors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/04\/newcastle-upon-tyne-the-first-city-to-erect-a-genocide-memorial-monument-for-myanmars-rohingya-survivors\/","title":{"rendered":"Newcastle Upon Tyne: The First City to Erect a Genocide Memorial Monument for Myanmar\u2019s Rohingya Survivors"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rohingya community members with Lord Mayor of Newcastle and other supporters, including Councilman Habib Rahman at the Rohingya Genocide Monument.\u00a0 Photo by BROUK<\/p><\/div>\n

Forgetting is a crime against memory. The city of Newcastle in the UK does not forget Myanmar\u2019s genocide of Rohingya and pledges to support their quest for justice.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

14\u00a0 Apr 2026\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0This past Sunday, 12 April 2026, Newcastle Upon Tyne, England became the world\u2019s first city to erect a monument in recognition of a grave crime under both Myanmar and international law, which Rohingya people have suffered at the hands of their own countrymen and women, led by the military country-state over the last almost half-century.<\/p>\n

It is fitting for the 2,000-years\u2019 old city of with its rich history, to recognize that what Myanmar\u2019s historically conscious Rohingya have suffered at the hands of the country\u2019s ruling military, political parties and predominantly Buddhist civil society is nothing short of a textbook genocide.<\/p>\n

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Lord Mayor of Newcastle City and the 3-generation the representatives of Rohingya survivors unveiled the Rohingya Genocide Monument at The Peace Park, Civic Centre, Newcastle, 12 April 2026 (photos by Zarni)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The black granite memorial stone with its inlaid diamond-shaped map of Myanmar, with the red-coloured ancestral land of Rohingya \u2013 known as Arakan \u2013 took its historic place immediately adjacent to the Rwandan genocide monument in the city\u2019s Peace Park.<\/p>\n

Several steps away from Rohingya and Rwanda genocide monuments stands another genocide monument, recognizing the Nazi genocide of Roma and Sinti people.<\/p>\n

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(photos by Zarni)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Post-Holocaust German politicians \u2013 and political class \u2013 have claimed Israel to be Germany\u2019s Straatraison\/Raison d\u2019Etat, but had, for several decades, shamefully ignored non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust, specifically Roma and Sinti, after Auschwitz was closed by the Soviet Red Army on 27 January 1945.<\/p>\n

So, I was pleased to see a dignified manner with which this old English city honoured the memories of Roma and Sinti people at the Civic Centre.<\/p>\n

The monument in recognition of the crime of genocide which Rohingya have been subjected to reads:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn memory of the Rohingya lives lost to Genocide, and the homeland taken from them. These memorial honours those we lost, and those forced to flee. We honour your strength. We fight for your justice.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

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(photo Zarni)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The city\u2019s move to formally recognize Myanmar\u2019s crime against Rohingya as an identity-based people with deep root in Western Myanmar, before Myanmar ever became a post-colonial nation-state, was morally courageous and intellectually sound.<\/p>\n

Following the genocidal expulsion and destruction of Rohingya people from Western Myanmar under the democratically elected leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2016 and 2017, the city had demonstrated its moral clarity by stripping Myanmar Nobel Peace Prize winner of its civic honour.<\/p>\n

(See Burmese leader set to lose freedom of Newcastle<\/a>, Belfast Telegraph, 29 January 2018)<\/p>\n

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City Councilman Habib Rahman (far right in suit and tie), with his Rohingya Action Northeast (RANE) colleagues. Habib spearheaded the campaign for Rohingya genocide recognition at the city council (Photo by Zarni)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Given the deeply discouraging international context regarding justice for Rohingya, the city\u2019s genocide recognition and the accompanying moral pledge to support the Rohingyas\u2019 quest for justice makes it ever-more more meaningful for the Rohingya survivors both in UK and in the diaspora, including the 1 million Rohingyas in Bangladesh\u2019s camps.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s highest court of UN member states \u2013 the International Court of Justice \u2013 moves at a snail pace: the ICJ has only a few months ago completed its Merit Phase (that is, evidence and counter-evidence hearings), in Gambia vs. Myanmar genocide case. In December 2019, that is, six years ago, the State of Gambia brought the case against a fellow signatory state of \u201cstate party\u201d, Myanmar, for allegedly breaching the treaty obligations under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.<\/p>\n

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Tun Khin, President of the Burmese Rohingya Organization UK, speaking on the Rohingyas\u2019 quest for justice and the right of return to Myanmar with full citizenship, and in dignity, City Council Event, Newcastle (photo by BROUK)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (or ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member state have chosen not to even consider the genocidal nature of the crimes against Rohingya people and have sought to frame it as \u201ca humanitarian issue\u201d with a cross-border consequences for Southeast Asian region.<\/p>\n

The act of unveiling this historic monument in recognition of Rohingya genocide accompanied by a pledge to \u201cfight for your justice\u201d was made possible by the City Council. The effort was led by the Bangladeshi-born council member and rights activist Mr Habib Rahman, in collaboration with his activist group Rohingya Action North East (RANE), Bradford Rohingya Community (BRC) and the London-based Burmese Rohingya Organization UK (BROUK).<\/p>\n

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Lord Mayor of Sunderland (in stripy suit) and Lord Mayor of Newcastle (in red ceremonial dress), President of Burmese Rohingya Organization UK (BROUK) Tun Khin with other VIPs on their way from the City Council to the adjacent Peace Park to unveil the Rohingya Genocide Monument and participants at the ceremony, 12 April 2026 (photo by BROUK)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

My scholar colleague and wife Natalie Brinham and I felt very privileged and honoured to have been a part of this historic event.<\/p>\n

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Dr Natalie Brinham (of Bristol University) (pseudonym Alice Cowley) and Dr Maung Zarni (FORSEA), the co-authors of the seminal research paper, The Slow-Burning Genocide of Myanmar\u2019s Rogingya (2014), speaking at the City Council event, 12 April 2026 (photo by BROUK)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

To be sure, genocide recognition is no substitute for the actual return to Rohingya\u2019s ancestral homeland of Arakan (called Rakhine state today) of Western Myanmar.<\/p>\n

Natlie\u2019s address is below \u2013<\/p>\n