[1][2] He is noted for his opposition to the violence in Rakhine State and the Rohingya genocide.
[4] Zarni founded and led the Free Burma Coalition, the then pioneering Internet-based human rights movement and spearheaded a successful international boycott against Myanmar’s military dictatorship from 1995 to 2004.
[6] 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 using the genocide framework.
[8] 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.
[10] Zarni is married to Natalie Brinham, an English researcher,[11] and has a daughter, Nilah.