Maung Zarni

Who is Maung Zarni?

Maung Zarni is a Burmese democracy advocate, human rights campaigner, and a research fellow at the London School of Economics. He lived and worked in the United States for 17 years. In 1995 he founded the Free Burma Coalition and was its director until 2004. Zarni is also a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment. He is writing a book on Burma to be published by Yale University Press.

Zarni was a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics' Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit in the Department of International Development. He served as a Programme Leader for Universiti Brunei Darussalam's Institute of Asian Studies, founded in 2012. Zarni resigned position at Darussalam Brunei University in January 2013 after being instructed to stop advocating for democracy in Brunei. In his resignation letter he wrote: "I simply could not countenance allowing my employer to intimidate me into professional silence on unfolding human rights atrocities." He got into trouble for focusing attention on the Rohingya Muslim minority's oppression by Buddhist in Burma. Zarni is Buddhist.