Maung Zarni (; born 1963) is a Burmese educator, academic, and human rights activist. He is noted for his opposition to the violence in Rakhine State and the

Rohingya genocide The Rohingya genocide is a series of ongoing persecutions and killings of the Islam in Myanmar, Muslim Rohingya people by the Tatmadaw (armed forces of Myanmar). The genocide has consisted of two phases to date: the first was a military crackd ...

. Zarni is a co-founder of several activist platforms, including the Free Burma Coalition (1995-2004), the Free Rohingya Coalition (2018-present), and Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia (2018). He is also a Fellow at the Documentation Center - Cambodia, specializing in

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

, and serves as an advisor to

Genocide Watch Gregory H. Stanton is the former research professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention at the George Mason University in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. He is best known for his work in the area of genocide studies. He is the founder ...

Early life and education

Zarni was born in 1963 into a Burmese Buddhist family in

Mandalay Mandalay is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. It is located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631 km (392 mi) north of Yangon. In 2014, the city had a population of 1,225,553. Mandalay was founded in 1857 by Ki ...

, Burma. He migrated to the United States on the eve of Burma’s 1988 uprisings. He graduated with a BSc (Chemistry) from University of Mandalay in 1984, MA from

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

in 1991, and earned his PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

in 1998.

Career

Zarni founded and led the

Free Burma Coalition The Free Burma Coalition was created in 1995 as an umbrella organization for the Free Burma movement. Under the leadership of Maung Zarni, Zarni, then a graduate student at University of Wisconsin–Madison, it galvanized principally American stu ...

, the then pioneering Internet-based human rights movement and spearheaded a successful international boycott against Myanmar’s military dictatorship from 1995 to 2004. Zarni has held a series of academic positions, or research and leadership fellowships, including at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

' Human Security Research Unit. He resigned from an academic post at the

Universiti Brunei Darussalam The Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD or University of Brunei Darussalam) is a public national university, national research university situated in Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei, was founded in 1985 and is the oldest institution i ...

in 2013, citing academic censorship. Zarni is a member of the board of advisors of Genocide Watch and a non-resident fellow at Genocide Documentation Center in Sleuk Rith Institute, Cambodia. In 2014, Zarni co-authored an academic paper, "The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar's Rohingyas", with Alice Cowley, an academic study that examines the plight of the

Rohingya The Rohingya people (; ; ) are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who predominantly follow Islam from Rakhine State, Myanmar. Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an estimated 1.4 million Ro ...

using the genocide framework. In 2015, he was awarded the "Cultivation of Harmony Award," by the

Parliament of the World's Religions There have been several meetings referred to as a Parliament of the World's Religions, the first being the World's Parliament of Religions of 1893, which was an attempt to create a global dialogue of faiths. The event was celebrated by another c ...

, an international interfaith dialogue. Zarni served as a member of the Panel of Judges in the Permanent Peoples Tribunal on Sri Lanka's genocidal crimes against Eelam Tamil in 2013 and was the initiator of the Permanent Peoples Tribunal on Myanmar in 2017. He has held visiting and research fellowships at institutions including UCL Institute of Education, Oxford, Harvard, and the London School of Economics. On 21 May 2021, in the aftermath of the

2021 Myanmar coup d'état A coup d'état in Myanmar began on the morning of 1 February 2021, when Elections in Myanmar, democratically elected members of the country's ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), were deposed by the Tatmadaw, Myanmar's milita ...

, he was initially appointed as the director of the Department of Advisory Cooperation at the Ministry of International Cooperation of the NUG by Minister Sasa. However, the appointment was revoked just one hour after a statement was released, for reasons unknown. In 2024, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Northern Irish peace activist Mairead Corrigan Maguire, herself a recipient of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize.

Personal life

Zarni is married to Natalie Brinham, an English researcher, and has a daughter, Nilah.

Books

*''Myanmar’s Enemy of the State speaks: Irreverent Essays and Interviews'' (2019) *''Essays on Myanmar's Genocide of Rohingyas (2011-18)'' (2018) *''The Free Burma Coalition Manual: How You Can Helpagn Burma's Struggle for Freedom'' (1997)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zarni, Maung Living people 1963 births People from Mandalay Burmese Buddhists Burmese academics Burmese expatriates in the United States Burmese expatriates in Malaysia Burmese expatriates in the United Kingdom Burmese human rights activists Burmese democracy activists University of California, Davis alumni Mandalay University alumni Academic staff of Universiti Brunei Darussalam Activists for Palestinian solidarity