https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJtgFveVlLs
Saturday, October 10, 2026
Myanmar’s Leaders Tried to Erase My Rohingya Identity 11 Years Ago
The repression of Rohingya identity is connected to Myanmar’s broader failure to establish an inclusive political order. It’s time for ASEAN to realize that.
By Shwe Maung
October 10, 2026
edit: Photo 145097814 © Rick Jason Silva | Dreamstime.com)
October 10, 2026
edit: Photo 145097814 © Rick Jason Silva | Dreamstime.com)
In July 2015, I was invited to the residence of U Aung Thaung, a senior and influential leader of Myanmar’s Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), in Naypyidaw. We discussed the approaching general elections and parliamentary nominations for the constituencies in northern Rakhine state.
What happened during that meeting has remained outside the public record for more than 11 years. I want to disclose it now because the political question at its center – the recognition of Rohingya identity and rights – remains unresolved. It is also relevant to how ASEAN engages with Myanmar’s military leadership today.
I was elected to Myanmar’s house of parliament, the Pyithu Hluttaw, from Buthitaung township of Rakhine state in November 2010 as a USDP candidate. In the summer of 2015 I was preparing to secure my office for another term. But, during our private conversation, U Aung Thaung proposed a condition that went far beyond ordinary electoral politics.
As I recall it, he told me that he, the USDP leadership, President U Thein Sein, and then Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing did not accept “Rohingya” as an ethnic identity. He urged me to stop advocating for that identity and to persuade my constituents to identify themselves as “Bengali” instead. He presented this change as a pathway toward obtaining citizenship documentation and restoring political participation. He also advised me to give a media interview stating that “there is no Rohingya but Bengali,” without mentioning our private meeting and his name.
My parliamentary nomination, he indicated, depended on my willingness to support that position.
I refused.
I could not ask my constituents to surrender their identity in exchange for the possibility of receiving documents, voting rights, or another parliamentary term. Political representation should protect the rights of a community, not become an instrument for bargaining those rights away.
U Aung Thaung encouraged me to consult my constituents and reconsider. I subsequently informed community leaders and constituents about the conversation. They supported my position and we were all on the same page. I did not disclose the meeting to the media at that time because of the political consequences of making such an account public while living in Myanmar.
During my visit, I saw large portraits of President Thein Sein, Min Aung Hlaing, and nationalist Buddhist monk U Wirathu in an office at the residence. An assistant told me that the office also served U Wirathu whenever he comes to Naypyidaw. These are my recollections of what I saw and I was told 11 years ago.
The statements about Thein Sein and Min Aung Hlaing were made to me by U Aung Thaung. I cannot claim that I heard either man personally authorize the proposal. But U Aung Thaung confirmed the proposal with Union Immigration Minister U Khin Yi, today’s USDP chairman and speaker of Pyithu Hluttaw, over the phone in front of me.
The central proposition was unmistakable: I was being asked to abandon public advocacy for the identity of the people I represented as a condition of continuing my political career.
On August 4, 2015, I resigned from the USDP. Two days later, I applied to contest the upcoming Pyithu Hluttaw election as an independent candidate for Buthitaung.
On August 22, the Maungdaw District Election Subcommission rejected my candidacy. Its decision concluded that my parents had not been Myanmar citizens at the time of my birth in 1965. I appealed, together with concrete documents, to the Rakhine State Election Subcommission, which upheld the rejection on September 1, 2015. The Union Election Commission subsequently affirmed the decision, communicating its ruling in a letter dated September 6, 2015.
This outcome presented a profound contradiction in my political life.
The same Union Election Commission had formally recognized me as an elected member of parliament following the November 7, 2010 election. Its recognition certificate, dated January 10, 2011, identified me as the elected representative of Buthitaung and recorded my citizenship card.
Five years later, election authorities found me ineligible to stand for the same parliamentary seat because they now considered the evidence of my parents’ citizenship insufficient.
The State Election Subcommission acknowledged that my father possessed a national registration card, which serves as a primary document for full citizenship, and that my maternal grandparents also held national registration cards. Nevertheless, it concluded that those records did not adequately establish the citizenship qualifications required under the election laws.
I maintained that I had submitted the same family citizenship documentation in both electoral processes. The surviving recognition certificate and 2105 rulings represent contrasting official outcomes, although a complete comparison of the underlying applications would require examination of the original 2010 candidate file.
I believe the circumstances of my exclusion cannot be separated from the political pressure I experienced over my Rohingya identity. But the official election decisions do not themselves establish that my refusal of U Aung Thaung Thaung’s proposal caused my disqualification.
In November 2015, I publicly described the disenfranchisement of Rohingya voters and candidates in an opinion article for the New York Times. What I did not reveal then was the private conversation that had proceeded my departure from the USDP. I am revealing it now not simply to revisit my personal experience, but because it illuminates a continuing political problem.
For decades, Rohingya identity has been contested by successive Myanmar authorities, often through the characterization of the community as “Bengali” migrants. Questions of citizenship, documentation, and political participation have been intertwined with that dispute. The consequences extended beyond elections.
The mass atrocities committed against Rohingya in 2017 drove hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people into Bangladesh and intensified international demands for accountability. The Myanmar military coup in February 2021 subsequently plunged the country into wider political and humanitarian crisis.
Today, the Rohingya question cannot be treated as an isolated refugee-management problem. It is connected to Myanmar’s broader failure to establish an inclusive political order in which citizenship and fundamental rights are protected without discrimination.
This why ASEAN’s diplomatic engagement with Min Aung Hlaing deserves close scrutiny.
Regional governments have legitimate reasons to maintain channels of communication concerning humanitarian access, armed conflicts, migration, and regional security. Diplomatic contact is not necessarily equivalent to recognition or endorsement. But engagement must be judged by what it achieves for people affected by Myanmar’s crisis.
For Rohingya, discussions of repatriation are incomplete unless they address the conditions that forced people to flee and the rights they must be able to exercise upon return. A refugee cannot be expected to regard return as durable when questions of identity, citizenship, personal security, and political belonging remain unresolved.
ASEAN should therefore make these issues substantive elements of its discussions with Myanmar’s authorities. They include equal citizenship rights, recognition of the right to self-identification, meaningful political participation, protection against further atrocities, accountability for grave violations, and conditions for voluntary, safe, dignified, and sustainable return. The wider realities of Myanmar’s conflict must be taken into account. The aspirations of people resisting military rule, the safety of civilians across the country, and political future of ethnic communities cannot be separated from efforts to resolve the Rohingya crisis.
My experience in 2015 taught me how readily the question of identity could become a condition imposed upon political participation. The documents from my parliamentary career show that official recognition in one election offered no assurance of eligibility in the next.
Eleven years later, I remain convinced that Rohingya rights cannot depend on whether individuals agree to relinquish the name by which they identify themselves.
ASEAN cannot settle Myanmar’s political future on its own. But it can insist that engagement address the rights and security of the people whose lives are at stake.
A sustainable future for Myanmar requires more than meetings among political leaders. It requires a political order in which no community must choose between its identity and its rights.
CAIR-Minnesota Condemns Trump’s Racist Attack on Somali Americans, Warns of Increased Threats and Violence
The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) today strongly condemned President Donald Trump’s latest attack on Somali Americans, calling his remarks blatant racism and an implicit call for violence against an entire community.
In his social media post, President Trump accused Somali immigrants of taking over Minnesota and urged Minnesotans to “fight back.” CAIR-MN warned that such dangerous rhetoric threatens the safety of Somali Americans who have already faced years of political scapegoating, discrimination, and targeted attacks.
CAIR-Minnesota Executive Director Jaylani Hussein stated:
“President Trump is placing a target on the backs of Somali Americans. His words are not simply political rhetoric. They are a dangerous invitation to hatred and potentially violence. Minnesota has led the nation in attacks on mosques, including fire-bombings. We know firsthand what happens when hateful rhetoric turns into violence.”
CAIR-Minnesota calls for immediate action:
Political leaders must denounce these remarks. Elected officials from both parties must publicly reject the president’s racist rhetoric and stand against the scapegoating of Somali Americans.
Law enforcement must increase its response to threats. Local, state, and federal authorities must immediately strengthen security around mosques, Somali American businesses, and community centers, investigate threats, and respond swiftly to potential hate crimes.
Community institutions must strengthen security. CAIR-MN urges mosques and Somali American organizations to increase safety measures, report all threats, and exercise their constitutional rights, including the Second Amendment right to lawful self-defense.
“Somali Americans are not outsiders. They are Minnesotans. They deserve the same safety, dignity, and constitutional protections as every other American. We will not allow racism and intimidation to become acceptable political weapons,” Hussein added.
CAIR Congratulates 2026 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Navi Pillay
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today congratulated South African jurist and former UN human rights commissioner Navi Pillay on winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
Ms. Pillay has served as a judge in her native South Africa and on international courts investigating war crimes. She led a U.N. panel that determined that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, a finding the Israeli government rejected. She dedicated her Nobel Prize to survivors of international crimes.
SEE: Nobel Peace Prize Live Updates: Navi Pillay, Human Rights Lawyer, Wins – The New York Times
In a statement, CAIR said:
“We welcome the Nobel Prize Committee’s decision to recognize human rights lawyer Navi Pillay with this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, and we congratulate her on this deserved honor. Between Judge Pillay’s role as the United Nations’ top human rights official, her service as judge on the International Criminal Court, her historic investigation of the Rwandan genocide, and her leadership of the committee that recognized Israel’s genocide in Gaza, she has spent decades strengthening international humanitarian law.
“It is important to note that the Nobel Prize Committee caused immense damage to its reputation by awarding last year’s prize to Maria Machado, a supporter of the Gaza genocide, an anti-Muslim extremist, and an ally of fascist movements in Europe and Israel’s far-right Likud Party. Recognizing a worthy honoree like Ms. Pillay this year does not undo the damage caused, but it is a step back in the right direction.”
CAIR Calls New U.S. Sanctions Targeting International Criminal Court a “Lawless” Attempt to Protect Israel, Not America
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called new sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued by the Trump administration a transparent and “lawless” attempt to protect Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders from accountability for the Gaza genocide and other war crimes.
In a statement, CAIR said:
“We strongly oppose the lawless sanctions that the State Department has imposed on the International Criminal Court. Let’s be very clear. These sanctions have nothing to do with protecting America and everything to do with protecting Israeli politicians under investigation for the genocide in Gaza and other war crimes. The American people want our State Department to focus on championing American values and protecting the American people, not tearing down international humanitarian law to protect Benjamin Netanyahu.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement announcing the sanctions that President Donald Trump “will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans” even though the ICC is not pursuing any action against Americans.
The State Department began levelling sanctions against the ICC after the court opened investigations against Israel for its genocide in Gaza.
SEE: US sanctions the ICC after former judge wins the Nobel Peace Prize
END
Message from USCPR
|
The Ideological Engineering in the Muslim World & the Catastrophic Outcomes by Dr. Firoz Mahboob Kamal
The worst crime
In Muslim countries, most of the crimes against Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala, Islam and Muslims haven’t been committed by non-Muslims. These are the works of so-called Muslims themselves. The objective of such crimes is not to take Muslims back to idolatry, atheism, or other non-Islamic faiths but to take them away from the Qur’anic guidance and the Prophet (peace be upon him)’s legacy. A man gets physical death if his body is invaded by lethal bugs, poisons, or cancer. He meets the spiritual death if his conceptual premise is infiltrated with the corrosive faiths, beliefs, or ideologies. The physical death doesn’t take one to the hellfire, but spiritual death definitely takes there for a period of infinity. This is why preventing spiritual death is the most important deed in Islam, nothing can be compared to that.
So, healers of spiritual ills get more importance and honour than healers of physical ills. More than hundred thousand Divine prophets were sent to carry out this task. Nothing is more important in Muslim life than execution of this prophetic legacy. As the viceroy of Allah Sub’hana Ta’ala, it is an obligation on every Muslim. But Muslims have badly failed to fulfil the obligation. It is indeed the root cause of all failures of Muslims.
One can save his soul from spiritual death and from the subsequent hellfire only by full adherence to the Qur’anic teaching and the teaching of the Prophet (peace be upon him). It is only possible through understanding of the Holy Qur’an. This is indeed the lifeline for the spiritual health of a man or woman. But now, the Muslims show their ugly defiance against that. As a result, spiritual cum ideological illness overwhelms Muslim lives. The spiritual ill-health exhibits through immorality, division, disintegration, deviation, corruption, and rebellion against the Qur’anic doctrine.
These so-called Muslims boast as proud defenders of divisive national boundaries, national flags, maps, and evil ideologies like nationalism, tribalism, monarchism, secularism, fascism, capitalism. Adherence to the Qur’anic roadmap is no more an objective in their lives. This is why building national, tribal, secular, or other forms of kuffar state become their political objective. And, establishing an Islamic state as per the Prophet (peace be upon him)’s legacy doesn’t enjoy any place in their lives. With an aim for dismantling any effort for an Islamic state, they even make a global coalition with the known infidels. As a result, the Qur’anic Islam with its sharia, hudud, shura, khelafa, jihad, and pan-Islamic brotherhood -as was practiced by the Prophet (peace be upon him) of Islam and his companions survive nowhere in more than 50 Muslim states.
Like any other human, Muslims are also under the All-Knowing Allah’s constant watch. Therefore, such a robust form of rebellion against His agenda and His prescribed deen –Islam, never goes unnoticed. And a rebellion against Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala never brings any blessing, rather earns the promised punishment. Hence such a rebellion of Muslims doesn’t go unpunished either. More than 1.5 billion Muslims’ status as the most powerless, defenseless and humiliated people on the earth and the ongoing deaths, rapes, evictions, and destruction in Muslims’ lives tell a lot about the intensity of such punishment. Moreover, such punishment doesn’t end here, this will continue for a period of infinity in the hereafter–as repeatedly told in the Holy Qur’an.
The lost immunity
Immunity against evil faiths, beliefs, or ideologies never grows from good physical health or affluent economy. One gets such immunity only if imbued with the Qur’anic knowledge and possesses fear of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala -called taqwa. There exists no alternative means to build such immunity. Since such immunity is crucial for survival as a true Muslim amidst all forms of toxic ideologies, seeking Qur’anic knowledge was made obligatory from day one of Islam –more than a decade prior to five-time prayers, month-long fasting, zakat, and hajj.
Because of such immunity, the early Muslim could build up perfect moral health amidst all alluring sinful distractions in Makkah. The need for such an immunity is no less even today. Hence, seeking the Qur’anic knowledge is made obligatory for all ages. This is why “iqra” (means read) -a command to access Qur’anic knowledge is made the first word of the Holy Qur’an. It is very significant to note that Almighty Allah didn’t use any other expression to initiate His most important communication with mankind.
Acquiring the Qur’anic knowledge is so vital that any failure in the field leads only to disbelief in Islam and ultimately to hellfire. Hence, for men, women, and children, no other moral, social or educational service is more crucial than the provision of the Qur’anic education. To address such a critical need of mankind, the mosque –the house of Allah Sub'hana wa Ta'ala, was built as the first and the most important institution on earth. In fact, during the golden days of Islam, Muslims didn’t have any other institution apart from the premises of mosques to run mass education. Thus, it shows how the five-time prayer to Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala and seeking His Qur’anic knowledge should run side by side in the same Divine premise. Like two wings of a bird, these two twin projects of Islam are vital; a Muslim can’t grow up as a true Muslim if any of these two wings is missing or malfunctioning. Nor can serve the Islamic objectives.
The strategic importance of such twin projects becomes more pronounced even on the first day of the prophet of Islam (peace be upon him)’s arrival in Medina. He didn’t waste even a single day to start constructing this Divine institution there. Five-time prayers as well as educating the Muslims started on the same floor of the Prophet (peace be upon him)’s mosque from day one of the Islamic State in Medina.
The enemies of Islam are not ignorant of the true power base of Islam. Hence, they do not destroy agriculture, homes, highways, or industries of the Muslim countries; rather, they dismantle the mosque-based infrastructure of Qur’anic literacy. Because of the success of the enemy project, millions of mosques in the Muslim World now stand dysfunctional. The vast premises of the mosques are strictly restricted only to hold five-time prayers. This way the most vital wing of Islam now stays almost non-functional. As a part of the same inimical project against Islam, the anti-Islamic rulers of Muslim states allocate more money, manpower, and time to teach even evil ideologies -like secularism, nationalism, liberalism, kufr laws, riba-based banking, dance, drama, and music in state-run schools, colleges, and universities. They have stopped or strictly restricted the premises and resources to teach the Holy Qur’an and the Qur’anic language.
The powerful media organs are doing the same. This way the despotic tyrants and their cronies manipulate the huge state and non-state infrastructures to corrupt Muslim's mind and intellect. Thus, the taxpayers’ money is spent to hide the Qur’anic guidance and to guide people towards hellfire. Because of such corruptive institutions, Muslims now lead a life without the Qur’anic roadmap. As a result, the sovereignty of Allah Subhana wa Ta’ala, as well as the practice of sharia, hudud, khilafah, borderless pan-Islamic Muslim unity, jihad, and other basics of Islam, stand missing in Muslims’ life.
Because of the similar crimes by the Jews and the Christians, the great Abrahamic faith of full submission to the revealed commandments of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala -as was practiced by Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him), Prophet Musa (peace be upon him) and Prophet Isa (peace be upon him) now stand almost extinct among the followers. Judaism and Christianity survive only as an archive of massive corruption on the polity of the original Divine faith. Like a Hindu temples, idols of Jesus and Mary are installed inside churches.
Muslims, too, have taken various routes of deviations. As a result, Islam that dismantled the divisive tribal and racial walls and raised pan-Islamic Muslim brotherhood and sharia-based finest civilization on earth, doesn’t exist anywhere in the Muslim World. In a true sense, Muslims now live without the Qur’anic Islam. What they follow are indeed the cultural, racial, tribal, or sectarian perversions of Islam.
Because of such perversion, even the so-called ulama and leaders of the so-called Islamic parties could maintain their tongue-tied silence and inaction even in absence of sharia, hudud, shura, khilafah, jihad, and pan-Islamic Muslim brotherhood in Muslim lands. Such silence matters a lot. It tells a lot about their conceptual corruption and disbelief in Qur'anic Islam. Like the cursed Jews and the deviant Christians, they also keep the Qur’anic Islam in the archive and not in practice. More awfully, most Muslims have even converted to evil ideologies like secularism, nationalism, capitalism, monarchism, liberalism, and socialism. As a result, they could stand shoulder to shoulder with the believers of the kuffar ideologies to resist the resurgence of Islam in any part of the Muslim World. They could even generate protracted wars to kill the passionate followers of Qur'anic Islam. They put a tag of terrorism on Islamists who want to establish an Islamic state on the Prophet (peace be upon him)’ legacy.
The corruptive engineering and the calamity
The corruptive social, cultural, and educational engineering by the secular rulers of the Muslim states has been so pervasive and deep that it could successfully kill the Qur’anic concept of Islam in most Muslims’ minds. As a result, Islamic prescriptions like the sovereignty of Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’ala, sharia, hudud, shura, khilafah, borderless Muslim brotherhood, and jihad in His way stand strange even to Muslims. As if, they have never heard of such Islamic jargons before. The ideological conversion has been so complete that these ideological converts call the Qur’anic Islam that has political, social, and civilizational aims as barbarism, backwardness or terrorism.
So, in opposing the Islamic way of life, the home-grown enemies of Islam look no different from the known kuffar of other faiths. Because of that, millions of such Muslims could be easily recruited by the native tyrannical despots or the invading foreign kuffar as servants to serve their anti-Islamic agenda. In the past, such de-Islamised people were used by the criminal rulers to kill even Imam Hussain –the leader of the youth in paradise and to abuse the family of Ali bin Abu Talib (ra) –the great hero of Islam.
Now, the same de-Islamised Muslims are being used by the imperialists and their local cronies to kill Islamists or dismantle Islamists’ governments in Muslim countries. This way the home-grown enemies of Islam could easily sustain their brutal occupation of the Muslim lands. As a result, the Islamic state that was established by the Prophet (peace be upon him) and his companions -that had sharia, sovereignty of Allah Subhana wa Ta’la, jihad against corruption, Quranic education, pan-Islamic brotherhood and Islam’s socio-economic policies exists nowhere in the Muslim World. This is indeed the worst outcome of the state-sponsored corruptive ideological engineering in Muslim countries.
(The writer is an author of books, columnist and consultant physician).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)