Laws, decrees, bills and regulations relating to nationality, citizenship and immigration (commentary)

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Description: Text and commentary: 1. The Foreigners Act, 1864... 2. The Registration of Foreigners Act, 1940... 3. The Registration of Foreigners Rules, 1948... 4. Exemptions under the said Act... 5. The Burma Passport Act, 1920... 6. The Burma Passport Rules, 1948... 7. The Burma Extradition Act, 1903... 8. The Burma Immigration ( Emergency Provisions) Act, 1947... 9. The Burma Immigration (Detention) Rules, 1951... 10. The Transfer of Immoveable Property (Restriction) Act, 1947... 11. The Transfer of Immoveable Property ( Restriction) Rules, 1956... 12. The Union Citizenship Act, 1948... 13. The Union Citizenship Regulations, 1949... 14. The Union Citizenship (Election) Act, 1948... 15. The Union Citizenship Election Rules, 1948.... 16. Appendix I - Forms... 17. Appendix II-Burma Independence Act, 1947...
Creator/author: S. L. VERMA, B. A., B. L.,
Source/publisher: RISHI RAJ VERMA
1961-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-07-18
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
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Size: 6.43 MB
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Description: A set of 5 reports by David Weissbrodt to the UN Sub-Commission - Link to an OBL section.
Creator/author: David Weissbrodt
Source/publisher: UN Sub-Commission via Online Burma/Myanmar Library
2003-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-08-24
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Individual Documents

Description: "Citizenship issues are a vital element in any state’s sovereignty. Countries vary and individually adapt under the two generally recognized systems of law: jus soli (right of the soil—where one was born) and jus sanguinis (right of blood—one’s heritage). States continuously redefine the qualifications, such as whether—and how—the male or female blood line applies, religious beliefs, historical records, and the issue of dual citizenship. Myanmar has a unique system based on its 1982 citizenship law. Under it, only taingyintha (literally, “sons of the land,” called “national races” (actually ethno-linguistic groups) long and traditionally resident in Burma/Myanmar are full citizens with whatever rights such status stipulates. Members of other ethnic groups, such as Chinese or Indians, may, depending on a number of factors such as length and proof of family residence before 1823, become citizens, but that number must be small. The remainder may become associate or naturalized citizens with less status and rights. The Myanmar government until the coup of Feb. 1, 2021 has regarded the Rohingya as alien Bengalis. The issue is now under dispute. So, the system in Myanmar is a type of modified and combined jus sanguinis and jus soli system. But what happens when another country with extensive expatriates has a different system, and seems more intent on recognizing its perceived authority over them? The case is China, with important implications for Myanmar, and indeed far beyond Myanmar to those Chinese resident in the West. In May 2019, in a highly significant event basically ignored by the international media, President Xi Jinping attended the 9th World Ethnic Chinese Association Conference in Beijing, jointly sponsored by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council and the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese. The conference called for “the members of the association of Chinese in the world to follow the guidance of the Xi Jinping socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era…” (Xinhua News). He seemed to demand political and economic orthodoxy for worldwide Chinese—some 60 million in about 200 countries and regions—under his and the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This has historical Chinese roots. Starting in 1909, the Chinese Qing Dynasty regarded Chinese anywhere in the world as theoretically subject to Chinese central government authority to ensure “perpetual allegiance to the state”; i.e., jus sanguinis. This policy was reaffirmed under the Chinese Nationalist (KMT) government until it was overthrown in 1949 by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which continued the policy for half a dozen years after its founding. The Burmese civilian government was disturbed by this policy, as China at that time was regarded by the Burmese military as its only external threat and indigenous Chinese as a potential fifth column. It regarded the status of Chinese residents in Burma as one of the four major problems with the new PRC, the other three being a disputed border demarcation, Chinese support for the Communist Party of Burma, and the residual KMT forces that had retreated into northern Burma. It was only after Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai reassured Prime Minister U Nu in the mid-1950s that the Chinese ought to obey Burmese law and customs that the Burmese government’s fear of Chinese residents was assuaged, at least until China exported the Cultural Revolution into Chinese schools in Burma, resulting in anti-Chinese riots and many deaths in Rangoon in 1967. The overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia are a critical component of governance and the individual and collective economies of the region. Ethnic Chinese residents in Myanmar and Southeast Asia are more than simply numerous. In Myanmar, illegal Chinese immigration has resulted in several million Chinese (perhaps 4 percent of the population), excluding Sino-Burmese who are also very numerous. Chinese play extensive roles in the retail trade, even though the Burmese census of 2014 has not released their figures but regards them as essentially minimal. By 2000, there were some 25,000 Chinese firms involved in the retail trade in household sundries. In Indonesia several decades ago, scholars estimated that overseas Chinese controlled 80 percent of private capital in that country. Although the Chinese in Thailand have been better integrated into that society than in any other regional state except Singapore, which is largely ethnically Chinese, they remain profoundly important in the region. In at least the first two decades of the PRC, communist control over large swathes of the Chinese-language school system in Southeast Asia was evident, causing concern that they could be an internal fifth column for PRC influence or control. Attempts to counter this was evident through the supply of anti-communist textbooks to a large number of schools by Taiwan, Hong Kong, and third-force Chinese, often with foreign support. Under Deng Xiaoping the tensions eased, shifting to the more recent “soft power” attributes of the Confucius Centers designed to teach Chinese language and culture essentially to the ethnically non-Chinese. But now Xi seems determined to bring the overseas Chinese into line. China does not allow dual citizenship, so in many countries in the region the PRC can only bring moral suasion to their expatriates, although the power of China and the forces of family, the economy, and group identity are important. In Myanmar, the situation is complex, as the Chinese are essentially not Burmese citizens. Given the alacrity and vigor with which the Chinese bureaucracy responds to perceived commands from the top of its very steep hierarchy, we may expect some additional pressures and tensions to surface. Recent reports have indicated increased official worldwide Chinese surveillance of Chinese, and current indications demonstrate the dictates of Xi cannot be easily ignored. If China pushes the overseas Chinese in Myanmar to adhere to the dictates of the CCP, the problems of the past, which resulted in some riots but more recently strong anti-Chinese sentiments because of its aid program, may well intensify. Chinese surveillance and attempted control worldwide are dangers to expatriate host states. It needs to act more discreetly and carefully on these issues everywhere, but especially in fragile countries like Myanmar..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2023-05-03
Date of entry/update: 2023-05-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Dozens of Rohingya Muslims, including two children, appeared in court in Myanmar on Friday, the latest group to face charges after attempting to flee conflict-torn Rakhine state. The group of about 20 were among 54 people from the Rohingya minority arrested on Wednesday on the outskirts of the commercial capital Yangon while trying to leave for Malaysia, according to judge Thida Aye. “The immigration officer submitted the case because they found no identification cards from these people,” she told Reuters. Some were barefoot, others clothed in colorful head-scarfs, as they were ushered into the small courtroom in Yangon. A small boy was naked from the waist down. Defense lawyer Nay Myo Zar said they had fled Rakhine state, the western region where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya live in apartheid-like conditions and have come under increasing pressure as government troops battle ethnic rebels. More than 730,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar to Bangladesh in 2017 to escape a military-led crackdown that U.N investigators have said was carried out with “genocidal intent” and included mass killings and rapes..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
2020-02-21
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-23
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Description: "Myanmar is on a long and tedious road to democratic transition. As the country prepares for General Elections in 2015, the struggle to maintain hegemony and legitimacy is becoming even more intense for Thein Sein‘s Union Solidarity and Development party, given the public support enjoyed by the newly revived opposition party National League for Democracy led by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. This transition and struggle to maintain status quo is coming at a high price for Myanmar, particularly for those belonging to the ethnic minority groups. This paper is particularly concerned with the situation of one such minority group — the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The Rohingya Muslims live in the Rakhine state bordering the Bay of Bengal in the west. Despite an estimated 1-2 million Rohingya Muslims living in the region, they are not recognized as ethnic minority group by the Myanmar government but are believed to be Bangladeshi migrants who have settled in the state illegally. This perspective has given birth to all the discriminatory policies and actions against them since beginning of the last century. In June 2012, sectarian violence broke out between the majority Arakanese Buddhists and the Rohingya Muslims, triggered by the rape of a 28-year old Buddhist woman by three Muslim men. The violence in October was on a larger scale and much more lethal. The ensuing violence since June has reportedly claimed hundreds of lives and caused thousands of Rohingyas to flee their homes. As of July 2013, an estimated 140,000 Rohingya Muslims have been displaced from their homes. An unaccounted number of people are dying almost daily in the open sea as they attempt to flee to neighboring countries on rickety boats, and many more are dying due to systematic blockade of aid, food, water or medicine supply in the Rohingya IDP camps. Several factors clearly indicate that the ongoing violence is much more than sectarian clash..."
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Source/publisher: European Peace University via Academia.edu (USA)
2013-10-16
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-09
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Topic: Rohingya, refugee, history, human rights,Bangladesh, Myanmar
Topic: Rohingya, refugee, history, human rights,Bangladesh, Myanmar
Description: "Rohingyas are the inhabitants of historical Arakan (RakhineState) of Myanmar. Arakan shares nearly 171 mile-longcommon border with Bangladesh. Its toatal area is 14,914 sq mileswhich contains approximately 3 million population according to the census of 2014. Out of this, there are around one million Rohingyas in Arakan (Farzana, 2017, p. 2). It is a piece of land along the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal from the Naaf river on the border of Chittagong to cape Negaris. Topographically, it is separated from the mainland of Myanmar by Yoma range in one side and widely connected to the Bay of Bengal in the other side. That is why it is known as the ‗Gate Way to the Far East‘ (Yunus, 1994, p. 7). Because of its geographical location, it started to atract the seafarers from the very ancient period. It was one of the maritime activities centre in the South Asia. With this Arakan grew up with economic development and multi cultural environment. However, because of the geographical condition, Arakan remained as an independent entity from the very ancient period. According to archaeological evidences, the earliest human settlement in Myanmar dates back to 11,000 BC (Maw, 1995, pp. 213-220). In case of Arakan, antique relics have been found from Indo-Aryan groups who arrived from the Ganges Valley to Arakan as early as 3000 BC. And these people were basically from the ancient India. Hence, the culture of Arakan was influenced by India instead of mainland of Myanmar at least up to the 10th century because of its easy access to the Gangetic land and the Bay of Bengal instead of mountainous boundary on the other side..."
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Source/publisher: Borno Prokash Ltd. via Academia.edu (USA)
2019-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The word “Rohingya” was used for the first time as "Rooinga" (= inhabitant of Arakan, today's province Rakhine) in 1799 in the "Journal Asiatic Researches" for a longestablished population in Rakhine (Ibrahim 2016, Gill 2015). Later they were called "Muslim Arakanese". Myanmar is one of the most ethnically diversified societies of the world. 135 "ethnic nationalities" with numerous subgroups are officially recognized in the Burma Citizenship Law from 1982, but the ethnic Rohingya were not included (Farzana 2017, 2018). In the first constitution of Myanmar in 1947, all people living at that time in “Frontier Areas” and who intended to stay permanently were considered citizens and accepted as “The People of Burma” (Farzana 2018). However, when General Ne Win came to power in 1962, the Rohingya were deemed as not compatible with other ethnic groups in Burma. Other Muslims, who do not belong to the Rohingya, have Myanmar nationality (Ibrahim 2016). The Muslims in Rakhine have not always identified themselves as an independent group. But a uniform concept with an identifying name had political advantages, since recognition as an ethnic group would increase the chances to gain the right to citizenship. The common experience generated by decades of discrimination contributed further to the identity formation of the Rohingya. The term "Rohingya" as an ethnic group spread only after the major refugee movements with the human rights debate through international organizations (Farzana 2017; Bochmann 2017)...ဓ
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Source/publisher: Academia.edu (USA)
2018-08-18
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "This paper problematizes the situation of vulnerable migrants, in particular, that ofrefugees and asylum seekers in Southeast Asia as against policy pronouncements towards a people-centered ASEAN. As a case in point, the paper highlights the so-called Boat People Crisis of 2015 and argues that the events that lead to and resulted from it reveal a situation ofhyper-precarity, as well as a crisis of and for human security. Additionally, the paper offersJudith Butler’s notion of an ethic of cohabitation as a means of substantiating claims for a people-centered community. From Visions of a ‘People-Centered’ Community to PrecarityMany trace the emergence of visions for a ‘people-centered’ ASEAN community to the development of human security or otherwise less state-centric approaches to security in the region. As early as the 1960s, Indonesia’s concept of ketahanan nasional or national resilience, Malaysia under Mahathir, and Singapore’s notion of Total Defence, all embrace a concept of security that goes beyond the military dimension to incorporate political, economicand socio-cultural dimensions (Caballero-Anthony, 2004: 160). Nishikawa argues that suchformulations were still essentially state-centric because protecting territory and resourcesfrom internal and external threats continue to be the main concerns for Southeast Asiancountries as a result of its postcolonial experiences. Nonetheless, since the 2004 VientianneAction Programme (VAP), which outlines ASEAN’s program of actions towards the creationof an ASEAN Security Community (ASC), Nishikawa agrees that there has been a move awayfrom a traditional military definition of security towards a more a more people- centeredapproach (Nishikawa, 2009: 217)..."
Source/publisher: Southeast Asia Research Centre via Academia.edu (USA)
2016-06-17
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-09
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Description: "In a muddy field in western Myanmar, hundreds of Chinese shipping containers fitted with single narrow windows stand in neat lines, empty of the refugees they were designed to host. The gray boxes were sent by China two years ago as quick and cheap housing for some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar for Bangladesh during a military-led crackdown in 2017 that the United Nations said was conducted with genocidal intent. The empty containers, situated near the town of Maungdaw in Rakhine state, reflect months of failed efforts to entice the Rohingya to return to Myanmar despite a diplomatic drive by the country’s close ally and neighbor, China. In a sharp departure from its official policy of non-interference in the affairs of other countries, China has positioned itself as the key mediator in resolving the protracted crisis. But like the Indonesian and United Nations envoys who previously attempted to mediate between the parties, China is finding the business of diplomacy tough going, with little signs that the crisis will soon be resolved..."
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Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
2020-01-20
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-20
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Description: "There are over one million Muslims in Rakhine State whose legal status is obscure. They are generally referred to as “Rohingya”, an ethnic designation unknown to the former British administration. Though the Rohingya are primarily located in the northern part of the State, there are many thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Muslims of Chittagonian origin living elsewhere in Myanmar who are likely to be inhibited from claiming openly to be Rohingya. There are in addition another million or more Rohingya said to be living overseas, as refugees in Bangladesh and elsewhere, or as workers in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States. For some time the international community has been urging the Myanmar Government to grant full citizenship rights to the Rohingya, and to review the controversial 1982 Citizenship Law in this context. But this is easier said than done as the extent of illegal immigration from Bangladesh into Rakhine State since independence in 1948 is difficult if not impossible to assess. I also argue that it is not so much the Law itself which is at fault as the failure to implement the Law in Rakhine State in a timely and responsible manner. The longer the Government delays action to resolve the impasse, the more entrenched and potentially explosive the situation is likely to become. Controversy surrounds the designation of some one million or more people of Islamic faith who live in Rakhine State in Myanmar. For some, this controversy is as unwelcome as it is unnecessary, since the issue at stake is the human rights, and especially the citizenship status of the people concerned. For others, the designation of the community as “Rohingya” is vital to their very survival and is not to be dismissed as a distraction..."
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Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
2017-06-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: The Rohingya are a people under attack in their place of birth. India wants to deport them, a marked departure in its response towards asylum seekers.
Description: "Myanmar’s historically intriguing Rohingya question is one of the most misunderstood and ill-informed international crises of our time. So much ignorance is attached to the subject that the world is blind even to the precise headcount of Rohingyas. From the first ever census in 1872 to the latest in 2014 there is no record of the Rohingya numbers. W. W. Hunter, the census commissioner of 1872 noted that a total of 64,315 Muhammadans—not Rohingya—were living in Arakan (now Rakhine state). In 1931, the last combined census of British-held India and Burma, J. J. Bennison, superintendent of census operations for Burma, reported that the total Muslim population was 584,839. No census ever used the word Rohingya. Therefore, the numbers, from one million to three million Rohingya Muslims, as claimed by various agencies and media houses are imaginary or based on hearsay. Even the origin of the pervasive but unverified phrase “ethnic Rohingyas are among the most persecuted minority groups in the world” ascribed to the United Nations, is shrouded in mystery. There is no record available that has ever linked the statement to any of the UN organs, therefore making it a propagandist’s tool to influence world opinion. Enmity between followers of Theravada Buddhism and the Rohingya Muslims stems from the latter’s alleged treachery, betrayal and secessionist behaviour in Burma’s freedom struggle..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
2017-12-06
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-08
Copyright holder: html
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Size: 361.12 KB (12 pages)
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Topic: Rohingya children, citizenship, identity, National Registration Cards
Sub-title: Rohingya children caught travelling outside of Rakhine State without identity documents are being detained in vocational schools and rehabilitation centres in Yangon, where they rarely receive family visits.
Topic: Rohingya children, citizenship, identity, National Registration Cards
Description: "ON A Sunday night in late September, an old, wooden motorboat carrying 30 Rohingya Muslims disappeared quietly into the darkness from the shore near the Thae Chaung camp for internally displaced people, about 40 kilometres northwest of the Rakhine State capital, Sittwe. Relatives of those on board prayed and waved as the boat pulled away into the Bay of Bengal. They were left undisturbed by the camp’s security guards, who only patrol the land entrance to the camp of about 12,000 people. Among those who prayed for a safe passage was the mother of Ma Fatima, 16. (The names of all children mentioned in this article have been changed to protect their identities.) “There was no moon that night and I was unable to see my mother, but I know she would have remained on the dock for hours after the boat left,” recalled the teenager. Fatima was seasick for most of the four days before the boat beached near Nga Yoke Kaung in Ayeyarwady Region’s southwestern Ngapudaw Township, where those on board – 15 women, six men, eight teenagers and a boy aged six – were detained on the evening of September 26 while crammed into an SUV heading for the regional capital, Pathein. Fatima said the SUV that picked up the Rohingya after the boat came ashore was badly overcrowded. “Some complained about the situation and made a noise; I think that’s why we were arrested,” she said. They were taken to the police station at Ngapudaw town and charged under the 1949 Residents of Burma Registration Act because they had no proof of identity or citizenship..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
2019-11-08
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
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Description: "II n today’s world, the immediacy of humanitarian crises tends to bar a deeper interest in the complexity of the historical roots of a conflict. The deteriorating situation of the Muslim minority in the Rakhine State of Myanmar, a group now widely known as the Rohingya, is a case in point. They have been presented as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world due to a track record of human rights violations, while the local Islamic history and the emergence of Muslim nationalism at the margins of Muslim Bengal (East Pakistan/ Bangladesh) and Buddhist Burma (Myanmar) has barely begun to inform international understanding of the regional conflict. The present article argues in favor of historical research as a prerequisite both for understanding the nature of the conflict and for keeping opportunities for competing historical interpretations alive. It also contributes to the ongoing question of collective representations of “voiceless” non-Western victims as deprived of political agency.1 The article supports the argument that victimhood is a form of agency, but, as in the case of the Rohingya crisis since 2012, it bears the risk of encapsulating people and isolating them from their historical context..."
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Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
2018-01-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-30
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Description: "The successive waves of violence and aggression involving Muslims and Buddhists in Rakhine state of Myanmar1 in 2012 and 2013 attracted widespread international attention. The communal violence resulted in the death of more than 200 people and the displacement of over 130,000, mostly Muslims, as well as the destruction of housing properties. It highlighted ethno-religious tensions, harsh social problems and long-standing resentment. It also demonstrated, over the last two years, the risks inherent in the political transformation of the country, releasing tensions that had been repressed for decades 1 The word “Rakhine”, a spelling adopted after 1991, is an ethnonym and can be used as an adjective. Rakhine state is the official name of the state in western Myanmar that is still known in most history books as Arakan. The people of the state are the Rakhine or Arakanese, and they refer to their country as “Rakhine-pray”. For reasons of convenience, as this article mostly deals with history, the name “Arakan” will be used to refer to the former kingdom whose territory extended, at times, far beyond the borders of the current administrative division, to the colonial province, and to the current Rakhine state. UN organizations and international non-government organizations that deal with the situation of the Muslim Rohingyas have established the acronym NRS, that is, Northern Rakhine State, referring to the area where Muslims form the majority population. The majority people of Myanmar will be referred to as “Burmese”..."
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Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
2015-07-27
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-28
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Description: "When the 34th ASEAN Summit concluded last month in Bangkok, Thailand, it came as no surprise that the bloc was met with heavy criticism for suggesting Rohingya refugees will repatriate back to Myanmar within two years. More than 700,000 Rohingya were forced to flee northern Rakhine state in western Myanmar during a 2017 military-led crackdown the United Nations (UN) has said included mass killings and gang-rapes executed with “genocidal intent”. Almost 400 Rohingya villages were burned to the ground during the violence. A final statement from the weekend summit said ASEAN leaders supported Myanmar’s efforts to “facilitate the voluntary return of displaced persons in a safe, secure and dignified manner”. The statement did not even include the term Rohingya. The criticism ASEAN faced in relation to the way it has been handling the Rohingya issue is nothing new. Human rights observers have often claimed that the 10-member bloc has done little to ensure the safety of the Rohingya, asserting that diplomacy between member countries, as well as its adherence to a non-interference policy, has consistently trumped human rights concerns..."
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Source/publisher: "The ASEAN Post" (Malaysia)
2019-07-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-25
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Description: "Myanmar wants the Rohingya refugees to return, and preparations have been made to receive them, according to the minister in charge of the process. "We will accept them back anytime," said Dr Win Myat Aye, Myanmar's Minister for Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement. "Whoever wants to come back voluntarily, we can accept," he said. He also urged Bangladesh to immediately return the 400 or more Hindu refugees who have agreed to be repatriated, as this could help kick-start the stalled repatriation programme. The minister made his comments in an exclusive interview with the Bangkok Post, amid growing international criticism of Myanmar's repatriation efforts and Bangladesh's accusations that Myanmar is to blame for the failure of the process..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Bangkok Post" (Thailand)
2019-10-24
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-24
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Sub-title: The case of 30 men, women and children raise worries about the opaque treatment of the Muslim minority in Southeast Asia.
Description: "THE extended detention of dozens of Rohingya men, women and children is raising new concerns from the international community about the treatment of the Muslim minority in Myanmar, and that government’s commitment to repatriate hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled persecution. Thirty Rohingya, including nine youths traveling in the group, were arrested on Sept. 26 in the country’s Ayeyarwady Region after arriving there by boat from Sittwe, the capital of Myanmar’s conflict-stricken Rakhine state, on their way to Yangon, the country’s commercial capital, according to local media reports. A week later, a court sentenced the adults to two years in prison for breaking immigration laws for not carrying official papers, while the same court sentenced the children to a youth detention center south of Yangon. According to Human Rights Watch, a 5-year-old child was among those arrested and is currently being held in prison with his mother..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: US News (USA)
2019-10-21
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-23
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Sub-title: No Rohingya Muslims staying in crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh turned up for a planned repatriation to Myanmar because they want to be guaranteed safety and citizenship first.
Description: "COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) — None of the thousands of Rohingya Muslims living in crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh turned up for a planned repatriation to Myanmar on Thursday, demanding they first be guaranteed safety and citizenship. "Not a single Rohingya wants to go back without their demands being met," Bangladesh refugee commissioner Abul Kalam told reporters. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled across the border to Bangladesh after Myanmar's military began a harsh counterinsurgency campaign against them two years ago, a campaign that involved mass rapes, killings and the burning of homes. A U.N.-established investigation has recommended top generals be prosecuted over the crackdown. Rohingya Muslims have long demanded that Myanmar give them citizenship, safety and their own land and homes they left behind. The Buddhist-majority nation has refused to recognize Rohingya as citizens or even as one of its ethnic groups, rendering them stateless, and they also face other forms of state-sanctioned discrimination. Myanmar had cleared more than 3,000 refugees from more than 1,000 families as eligible for repatriation and said the operation to return them would begin Thursday. Kalam said none of the 295 families interviewed by the Bangladesh government and the U.N. refugee agency had agreed to return to Myanmar. "I'll go to Myanmar only if I have citizenship. Otherwise they will shoot and burn us," 26-year-old Abdul Hossain told The Associated Press. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said her government will not force the refugees to return and the repatriation will only happen if they are willing..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Associated Press" (USA) via US News (USA)
2019-08-22
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-23
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Description: "A 12-year-old boy in ragged clothing shoulders a child, his younger sister of 3 years, as they walk mile after mile, escaping their home, because their father was shot dead on the spot and their mother was raped in front of them and killed thereafter. They are fleeing with many others who have similar experiences. Some of them lost their parents, or brothers and sisters while others saw their entire families burn alive. Two pregnant women walk for miles with inexplicable hardship, but try their best to keep their babies inside alive. The group finally enters Bangladesh after walking one day and seven hours, crossing lands and hills, and riding by boat. Like this group, more than half a million Rohingyas have fled persecution in Myanmar to Bangladesh since the military crackdown started on August 25, 2017. Following an alleged attack on 30 police camps and one military base by the radical Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), Myanmar security forces indiscriminately fired on Rohingya civilians, burnt their houses down, raped girls and women, and killed hundreds of Rohingyas mercilessly. The intensity of atrocity was so extreme that the global community, including the United Nations, the European Union, human rights groups like International Organization of Migration (IOM), Amnesty International, and the Human Rights Watch, came forward to stand beside Rohingyas and condemn Myanmar for its deadly violence, severe brutality, and crimes against humanity. The United Nations Human Rights Council termed it as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” and major international media outlets like the New York Times, ABC News, and CNN have called it genocide..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "BERKLEY CENTER for Religion, Peace & World Affairs" (USA) via "Academia.edu" (USA)
2017-10-25
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Torment on Rohingya minority has been once again flared up on Friday, allegedly, scores of men purportedly from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), assaulted on Myanmar security forces, killing at least a dozen of personnel. Since 1982 after the denial of Rohingya citizenship in Myanmar (former Burma) several violent attempts have been fabricated to evacuate Rohingya minority from Rakhine state withal Myanmar. Recurrence of tension in Rakhine-state of Myanmar is harrowing world community's sentiment as well. Rohingya people are an ethnic Muslim group primarily located in Rakhine state (formerly Arakan-state). Rohingya Muslims usually follow sufi trends, one of the noteworthy versions of Islam. They are estimated 1-1.5 million in number out of 50 million population of Myanmar. But irony of fate that they are treated like aliens in their own fatherland while Myanmar military junta have turned down their citizenship via new citizenship law of 1982. As human being they hardly get rights to live profoundly. To get citizenship they must provide evidence that they are living in Myanmar hereditarily since 1823. For getting married and having work they must need permission from the government by showing symbolic white cards. Very often they face torture by the security forces and local Buddhists i.e brutal beating, gang rape, abduction, molestation, arson, mass killings and so on. Even women and children do not get rid of the turmoil. After being harassed on diverse military campaigns and communal violence they seek to get shelter vastly on Bangladesh and rest on Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
2017-08-31
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-20
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Description: "Myanmar is a non-secular Buddhist majority country. The majority of Myanmar peoples are Buddhist, including both ethnic Burmans and non-Burman ethnic minorities. Buddhists make up 89.8 percent of the population, Christians 6.3 percent and Muslims 2.3 percent. In the contemporary climate of Myanmar, Many Buddhists see Islam as a threat to Buddhism; they use Bangladesh, Indonesia and Afghanistan as examples of Islam’s takeover of previously Buddhist majority locations. Myanmar was born out of the ashes of the murder of its integrationist freedom 5ghter leader General Aung San, the father of Aung San Suu Kyi. He was assassinated on July 19, 1947, a few months before the independence of Burma on January 4, 1948. His legacy of seeking integration and the violence associated with his murder still alludes Myanmar today. These research notes witll set forth the history of Muslims in Mynamar as in attempt to understand the contemporary exclusion of the Rohingya from the modern nationstate of Mynamar and to argue for the continued failure of Myanmar to become a multicultural society of ethnoreligious equality and plurality..."
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Source/publisher: "Mahidol University" (Thailand) via "Academia.edu" (USA)
2017-09-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-20
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Description: "This study has been conducted to find out the root causes and consequences of ethnic conflict regarding especially the Rohingya minority in Myanmar. As Rohingya crisis in Myanmar is a contemporary and crucial issue not only in South and Southeast Asia but also in the world; that is why, it has been selected as a research topic. This study is conducted in qualitative approach. In this study, secondary sources have been used for data collection which is based on content analysis. Text books, journal articles, reports of government and non-government organizations, television and newspaper reports are the main sources of data. In this study it has been found that the Rohingya people are considered as the world’s least wanted groups. They are the world’s most persecuted minorities. About 43 percent of the Rohingyas are still refugees and of them 87 percent are deprived from basic needs. The main objectives of the study are: (i) to examine the root causes of ethnic conflict; (ii) to analyze the current humanitarian vulnerability of the Rohingyas. Rohingya conflict begins with mainly the denial of separate identities and rejection of their citizenship. A large number of Rohingyas are now stateless refugees who are too much vulnerable. The study will reveal the current vulnerable conditions of the Rohingyas. The findings of the study may help the different global organizations of human rights in policy supports for the Rohingyas..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: University of Dhaka (Bangladesh) via "Academia.edu" (USA)
2015-07-30
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-19
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Description: "Shortly after Myanmar's independence from the British in 1948, the Union Citizenship Act was passed, defining which ethnicities could gain citizenship. According to a 2015 report by the International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School, the Rohingya were not included. The act, however, did allow those whose families had lived in Myanmar for at least two generations to apply for identity cards. Rohingya were initially given such identification or even citizenship under the generational provision. During this time, several Rohingya also served in parliament. After the 1962 military coup in Myanmar, things changed dramatically for the Rohingya. All citizens were required to obtain national registration cards. The Rohingya, however, were only given foreign identity cards, which limited the jobs and educational opportunities they could pursue and obtain. In 1982, a new citizenship law was passed, which effectively rendered the Rohingya stateless. Under the law, Rohingya were again not recognised as one of the country's 135 ethnic groups. The law established three levels of citizenship. In order to obtain the most basic level (naturalised citizenship), there must be proof that the person's family lived in Myanmar prior to 1948, as well as fluency in one of the national languages. Many Rohingya lack such paperwork because it was either unavailable or denied to them..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
2017-09-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Size: 726.06 KB (32 pages)
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Description: "Large scale violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state directed at the Rohingya Muslim minority group can be traced to March 1997 where allegations of the rape of a Buddhist woman by a Muslim man led to Buddhist monks instigating violence which led to the burning of entire Muslim neighborhoods in Mandalay. This coincided with the Mahamuni Buddha incident where Muslims were accused of stealing a large ruby from the sacred Buddhist site of pilgrimage (Schober 2007, 58). Alleged rapes of Buddhist women by Muslim men have led to major violence in June 2012 which left hundreds dead in Sittwe Rakhine state as well as 2013 and 2014 in other areas of Myanmar (BBC 2014). Increasing tension between ethnic groups and frequent outbreaks of violence led the military junta to create ‘safe’ villages for Rohingya Muslims. In effect this forced ethnic enclaving on the part of the government led to camps where Rohingya were sealed off from other communities and could not engage in economic, social or other activities outside of their patrolled villages. The latest round conflict erupted in late 2016 and continues at present with massive destruction of over 400 Muslim villages in Rakhine state being burned due to military operations against this minority group (Human Rights Watch 2017) and tens of thousands being displaced (Barry 2017). At present UN Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee is being denied access to Muslim villages in Rakhine state during her investigatory visit and is instead reportedly being allowed access to government vetted and approved individuals (Al-Jazeera 2017). The paper seeks to analyze the context of violence against the Rohingya from Galtung’s perspective of structural and cultural violence. In particular the author will detail the internal and external plight of the Rohingya and identify mechanisms which have failed to protect these people and finally provide some insight into drivers of this conflict and some possible pathways to peace..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Journal of Urban Culture Research via "Academia.edu" (USA)
2017-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Size: 905.36 KB (18 pages)
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Description: "Persecuted and oppressed in Myanmar, Rohingyas flee across the border into Bangladesh. Starving and stateless, they live in squalid makeshift camps. The recent ethnic clashes between Rohingya Muslims and the Rakhine Buddhists in the Rakhine (Arakan) province of Myanmar have attracted global attention. It is as if a veil had been lifted to reveal a hideous blemish. The terrible ethnic and religious violence recently happened in June 2012, in Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine, pitted Buddhists against the mostly Muslim Rohingyas minority. The latest—when an ugly incident of rape and murder of a Buddhist woman allegedly by three Rohingyas—turned into a disaster for the Rohingya Muslims community in Myanmar. According to United Nations (UN) reports, there are more than 800,000 Rohingyas residing in Myanmar, mostly in the province of Rakhine, and many hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees in other countries. Thus, Rohingyas are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. The ruling Junta stripped Rohingyas of all the rights of a citizen through a law called “Citizenship Law” in 1982, thus making Rohingyas the only stateless community of the world. However, the ruling Junta in Myanmar did not want to know nor let others know that the Rohingyas have a long history, a language, a heritage, a culture and a tradition of their own that they had built up in the Rakhine, through their long history of existence there. Moreover, through their “criminal propaganda”, the Buddhist majorities have been feeding so much misinformation against the Rohingya. According to Siddiqui (1999), the level of disinformation has reached such an alarming level that if some of the people were to talk with a Rakhine Buddhist, they would say that the Rohingyas are refugees in Rakhine and they do not belong to Myanmar, but that they belong to Bangladesh. However, such allegations are unfounded. Some scholars distinguished that in fact the forefathers of Rohingyas had entered into Rakhine from time immemorial (Karim, 2000)..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
2015-03-23
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 2.82 MB (10 pages)
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Description: "“What can we do, Brother, they (the Rohingya) are too many? We can’t kill them all.” Ex-Brigadier General, formerly stationed in Arakan or Rakhine State, and Ambassador to Brunei, Fall, 2012.1 “How can it be ethnic cleansing? They are not an ethnic group.” Mr. Win Myaing, the official spokesperson of the Rakhine State Government, May 15, 2013.2 “We do not have the term ‘Rohingya.’” Myanmar President Thein Sein, Chatham House, London, July 17, 2013.3 “There are elements of genocide in Rakhine with respect to Rohingya . . . . The possibility of a genocide needs to be discussed. I myself do not use the term genocide for strategic reasons.” Tomás Ojéa Quintana, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, London Conference on Decades of State-Sponsored Destruction of Myanmar’s Rohingya, April 28, 2014.4 Over the past thirty-five years, the State in Myanmar has intentionally formulated, pursued, and executed national and state-level plans aimed at destroying the Rohingya people in Western Myanmar. 5 This destruction has been state-sponsored, legalized, and initiated by a frontal assault on the identity, culture, social foundation, and history of the Rohingya who are a people with a distinct ethnic culture..."
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Source/publisher: Compilation © 2014 Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal Association via "Academia.edu" (USA)
2014-05-31
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-19
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Description: "In Myanmar the constitutionally defined ethnic categories are often described as derive from the colonial state. But the contemporary scholarship would not support the inflexibility of such categories of the ethnic identification because it rejects the reification of ethnic distinctions and the obscuring of recesses of ethnic change. The Rohingya Muslims are living in Arakan since 1400s CE. The majority Buddhist Burmese conquered Arakan in 1785 and started to execute the Rohingya from the region. In 1826, the British took control over Arakan and encouraged farmers from Bengal to come to the depopulated area of Arakan. “The sudden influx of immigrants from British India sparked a strong reaction from the mostly-Buddhist Rakhine people living in Arakan at the time, sowing the seeds of ethnic tension that remain to this day”(Kallie S, Asian History). In the aftermath of Britain's withdrawal from Indian subcontinent, religious conflicts between Muslim and Buddhist took place in several times. In 1962, General Ne Win occupied the power of Burma and started to deny Burmese citizenship to the Rohingya people. “Since that time, the Rohingya in Myanmar have lived in limbo” (Kallie S, Asian History). The Burmese Government is always claiming the Rohingya are migrated from the British India and from the western part of Bangladesh. But the previous notes show the distinct history about their living in Burma. Rather than “during the four decades of Burmese rule (1784-1824), because of ruthless oppression, many Arakanese fled to British Bengal. According to a record of British East India Company, about thirty-five thousand Arakanese..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "South Asian University" (India) via "Academia.edu" (USA)
2015-11-19
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 245.94 KB (11 pages)
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Description: "The name Rohingya denotes an ethnoreligious identity of Muslims in North Rakhine State, Myanmar (formerly Burma). The term became part of public discourse in the late 1950s and spread widely following reports on human rights violations against Muslims in North Rakhine State during the 1990s, and again after 2012. Claims for regional Muslim autonomy emerged during World War II and led to the rise of a Rohingya ethnonationalist movement that drew on the local Muslim imaginaire, as well as regional history and archaeology. To explore the historical roots of distinctive identity claims and highlight Buddhist-Muslim tensions, one must reach back to the role of Muslims in the precolonial Buddhist kingdom of Arakan and their demographic growth during the colonial period. Civic exclusion and state harassment under Burma’s authoritarian regimes (1962–2011) put a premature end to political hopes of ethnic recognition, and yet hastened a process of shared identity formation, both in the country and among the diaspora. Since the 1970s, refugees and migrants turned to Bangladesh, the Middle East, and Southeast Asian countries, forming a transnational body of Rohingya communities that reinvented their lives in various political and cultural contexts. A succession of Rohingya nationalist organizations—some of whom were armed—had negligible impact but kept the political struggle alive along the border with Bangladesh. Although Rohingya nationalists failed to gain recognition among ethnic and religious groups in Burma, they have attracted increasing international acknowledgment. For postdictatorial Myanmar (after 2011), the unresolved Rohingya issue became a huge international liability in 2017, when hundreds of thousands fled to Bangladesh following military operations widely interpreted as ethnic cleansing. In December 2017, the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights acknowledged that elements of genocide may be occurring..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History" via "Academia.edu" (USA)
2018-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 303.73 KB (38 pages)
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Description: "On the Oct.1, 2019 broadcast of "Talking Foreign Policy," Dean Scharf discusses the international response to the Rohingya genocide in Burma with five panelists, who are experts on peace negotiations, national security, human rights and war crimes. Panelists include: Ambassador Todd Buchwald, former Ambassador at Large for War Crimes.."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Case Western Reserve University School of Law (USA)
2019-10-02
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: UN United Nations Rohingya Bangladesh Myanmar Bangladesh in foreign media
Topic: UN United Nations Rohingya Bangladesh Myanmar Bangladesh in foreign media
Description: "The UN's independent investigator on Myanmar says it's not safe for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled to Bangladesh to return because Myanmar has failed to dismantle its "system of persecution" of Rohingyas. Yanghee Lee said in a report to the General Assembly circulated Friday that living conditions for the remaining Rohingyas in northern Rakihine state "remain dreadful", reports Associated Press. The Rohingya can't leave their villages and earn a living, she said, making them dependent on humanitarian aid whose access "has been so heavily diminished that their basic means for survival has been affected." "While this situation persists, it is not safe or sustainable for refugees to return," said the UN special rapporteur appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, adds AP. Lee also expressed concern that a household-counting exercise in Rohingya villages "is an effort to erase the Rohingya from administrative records and make their return less possible." She said the government's requirement that any refugee who returns must be issued "a national verification card" is not a solution to citizenship for the Rohingya, the news agency also adds..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Prothom Alo" (Bangladesh)
2019-10-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: Rohingya Muslims, Rakhine State, Genocide, Humanitarian Crisis, Citizenship.
Topic: Rohingya Muslims, Rakhine State, Genocide, Humanitarian Crisis, Citizenship.
Description: "Considerable historical evidence affirms that the Rohingya Muslims are indigenous inhabitants and rightful citizens of Myanmar, who have been living in Rakhine State not for decades, but for centuries. The Myanmar government has been systematically eradicating the Rohingya people due to their Islamic religious identity. This analysis finds that the ongoing persecution on Rohingya Muslims is a manifestation of a classical model of ethnic cleansing. The disasters experienced in Rakhine State present a complete evidence of systematic, widespread and prolific human rights violations, including heinous crimes against humanity. This article presents an academic perspective on repeated incidents, based on authentic proofs to international community of ethnic cleansing committed by the Myanmar army. This research has been carried out through various types of sources, such as recent and previously published books, articles, local and international newspapers, TV channels, magazines, documentaries, human rights organizations’ reports, and eye-witness accounts of the victims. Finally, it provides suggestions to resolve the rising problems, which may bring a permanent solution to the long-lasting humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA) via "AL-SHAJARAH" (Malaysia)
2018-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 876.04 KB
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Topic: Arakan, Rakhine state, ethnonationalism, Rohingya, Burma, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan, state oppression, refugees
Topic: Arakan, Rakhine state, ethnonationalism, Rohingya, Burma, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan, state oppression, refugees
Description: "The name Rohingya denotes an ethnoreligious identity of Muslims in North Rakhine State, Myanmar (formerly Burma). The term became part of public discourse in the late 1950s and spread widely following reports on human rights violations against Muslims in North Rakhine State during the 1990s, and again after 2012. Claims for regional Muslim autonomy emerged during World War II and led to the rise of a Rohingya ethnonationalist movement that drew on the local Muslim imaginaire, as well as regional history and archaeology. To explore the historical roots of distinctive identity claims and highlight Buddhist-Muslim tensions, one must reach back to the role of Muslims in the precolonial Buddhist kingdom of Arakan and their demographic growth during the colonial period. Civic exclusion and state harassment under Burma’s authoritarian regimes (1962–2011) put a premature end to political hopes of ethnic recognition, and yet hastened a process of shared identity formation, both in the country and among the diaspora. Since the 1970s, refugees and migrants turned to Bangladesh, the Middle East, and Southeast Asian countries, forming a transnational body of Rohingya communities that reinvented their lives in various political and cultural contexts. A succession of Rohingya nationalist organizations—some of whom were armed—had negligible impact but kept the political struggle alive along the border with Bangladesh. Although Rohingya nationalists failed to gain recognition among ethnic and religious groups in Burma, they have attracted increasing international acknowledgment. For postdictatorial Myanmar (after 2011), the unresolved Rohingya issue became a huge international liability in 2017, when hundreds of thousands fled to Bangladesh following military operations widely interpreted as ethnic cleansing. In December 2017, the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights acknowledged that elements of genocide may be occurring..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA) via Oxford Research Encyclopedia (UK)
2018-05-00
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 303.74 KB
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Topic: citizenship, colonialism, crisis, identity, Myanmar, Rohingya.
Topic: citizenship, colonialism, crisis, identity, Myanmar, Rohingya.
Description: "The people who call themselves Rohingya are the Muslims of Mayu Frontier area, present-day Buthidaung and Maungdaw Townships of Arakan (Rakhine) State, an isolated province in the western part of Myanmar across Naaf River as boundary from Bangladesh (Chan, 2005). For the past three decades, the Rohingya have been seeking to restore their unrecognised ethnic identity, for any ethnic group has the right to identify itself or decide what name it should be called. Rohingya identity crisis began when they were divested from their cultural, national and ethnic identity in 1982, while Cheesman (2017) argues that 1982 citizenship law did not affect the Rohingya though he mentioned in the abstract that ‘people who reside in Myanmar but are collectively denied citizenship – like anyone identifying or identified as Rohingya – pursue claims to be taingyintha so as to rejoin the community.’ Recently, almost all news channels and agencies, social and human right activists, journalists etc. have addressed and tackled the Rohingya crisis. Much of the focus was on the ongoing violence and systematic ethnic cleansing committed by some fanatic Buddhists and military forces. Thus, this 21st century most outrageous tragedy has nearly prevailed all social media, depicting the worst discrimination and bloodiest atrocities ever..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Academia.edu" (USA)
2018-05-31
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 188.62 KB
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Description: "Hindu Rohingya refugees who fled a 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar have appealed to State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi to let them leave refugee camps in Bangladesh and return to Rakhine state, according to a mobile phone video obtained by Radio Free Asia (RFA), a BenarNews sister service. Several hundred Hindus along with more than 740,000 Muslim Rohingyas fled to safety in southeastern Bangladesh after deadly attacks on border police outposts by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) insurgents provoked a brutal military crackdown in Rakhine two years ago. Though the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh have agreed to repatriate refugees now living in sprawling displacement camps, none have returned under two previous attempts, failing to show up at the border for re-entry processing. The stateless Rohingya, who face systematic discrimination in Myanmar because they are viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, have refused to return unless they are granted full citizenship, recognition as a national ethnic group, and basic rights, as well as guaranteed a safe environment. The Rohingya say they had Myanmar citizenship, but it was stripped away in 1982..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: " BenarNews"
2019-09-12
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Cross-party MPs say it is still unsafe for Rohingya refugees to return home and call for tougher sanctions on Myanmar and greater support to Bangladesh September 10th, 2019, London - A cross-party group of MPs has warned that continued violence and discrimination against the Rohingya in Myanmar mean conditions are still unsafe for returns, leaving Bangladesh hosting over a million refugees. They urged the UK Government to step up pressure on Myanmar, including introducing tougher sanctions and referring the situation to the International Criminal Court. The recommendations are part of a series made in a new report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on the Rights of the Rohingya, which is published today. The APPG, chaired by Anne Main MP and co-chaired by Rushanara Ali MP, received oral and written evidence from a wide range of humanitarian and human rights organisations, Rohingya civil society groups and UK Government officials. The report condemns the impunity for the atrocities of August 2017, described by UN officials as ‘ethnic cleansing’, which forced more than 700,000 Rohingya people across the border to Bangladesh. The MPs call for measures to increase diplomatic and economic pressure on the Government of Myanmar, including by working with the European Union to expand targeted sanctions to include companies run by the military. It also calls on the UK Government to use its leadership role at the UN Security Council to draft a resolution that refers the situation to the International Criminal Court. Rushanara Ali MP, co-chair of the APPG on the Rights of the Rohingya, said: “For years, parliamentarians have been raising the alarm about the atrocities inflicted on the Rohingya community in Myanmar. The events of August 2017 were the latest in a history of ongoing human rights violations and discrimination for which the Myanmar military have never been held accountable. Without justice, recognition of their rights and citizenship, the Rohingya community will remain in limbo as refugees in Bangladesh and across the region. The UK must show leadership and uphold human rights and international laws on the world stage. At the UN Security Council, the UK should work with like-minded partners to end the stalemate and refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court immediately. We must bring to justice those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.”..."
Source/publisher: "Reliefweb" via Government of the United Kingdom
2019-09-09
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 445.45 KB
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Sub-title: Fortify Rights’ latest 102-page report exposes new details on root of Rohingya crisis
Description: "The Government of Myanmar should end discriminatory measures that deny Rohingya equal access to citizenship, said Fortify Rights in a new report today. The report exposes a systematic campaign to erase the identity of Rohingya Muslims. “The Myanmar government is trying to destroy the Rohingya people through an administrative process that effectively strips them of basic rights,” said Matthew Smith, Chief Executive Officer at Fortify Rights. “This process and its impacts lie at the root of the Rohingya crisis, and until it’s addressed, the crisis will continue.” The 102-page report, “Tools of Genocide”: National Verification Cards and the Denial of Citizenship of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, reveals how Myanmar authorities forced and coerced Rohingya to accept National Verification Cards (NVCs), which effectively identify Rohingya as “foreigners” and strip them of access to full citizenship rights. Myanmar authorities tortured Rohingya to accept NVCs and restricted the movement and livelihoods of Rohingya who refused NVCs. Due to a highly restrictive environment created by the government, international humanitarian agencies also effectively furthered the government’s NVC policies and erasure of Rohingya identity, according to the report. The violations documented in the report associated with the government’s NVC process and the denial of citizenship are within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court to consider in its investigation into atrocity crimes against Rohingya in Myanmar, Fortify Rights said.....“လူသားတို့၏ ကိုယ်ပိုင်သရုပ်လက္ခဏာဖြစ်တည်မှုနှင့် ပတ်သက်ပြီး နိုင်ငံရေးလွှမ်းမိုးမှုများကို ဆထက်တိုးပြုလုပ်ခြင်း၊” အကာအကွယ်ပေးခံရသော အုပ်စုများအား ပစ်မှတ်ထား ခွဲခြားဆက်ဆံသည့် “အစီအမံများ သို့မဟုတ် ဥပဒေများ” ချမှတ်ဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်း အစရှိသည့်လုပ်ရပ်များသည် “ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်သော ရာဇဝတ်မှုများဖြစ်ပွားစေရန် အားပေးအားမြှောက်ပြုသည့် အနေအထားတစ်ခုကို ဖန်တီးသည့်” လုပ်ရပ်များဖြစ်ကြပြီး၊ ထိုကဲ့သို့သော လုပ်ရပ်အချို့နှင့်ပတ်သက်ပြီး လူမျိုးတုန်းသတ်ဖြတ်မှု ဟန့်တားရေးဆိုင်ရာ ကုလသမဂ္ဂရုံးမှ သတိပေးချက်ထုတ်ပြန်ထားပါသည်။ လူအုပ်စုတစ်စု၏အဖွဲ့ဝင်များအား သတ်ဖြတ်မှုကဲ့သို့သော သီးခြားတားမြစ်ထားသည့် လုပ်ရပ်များအပြင် လူမျိုးတုန်းသတ်ဖြတ်မှုများအား ကျူးလွန်သော နိုင်ငံများသည် ၎င်းတို့ပစ်မှတ်ထားသည့် အုပ်စုတစ်စုအား တိုက်ခိုက်ဖျက်ဆီးရန်အတွက် အထောက်အပံ့ဖြစ်စေသော ဥပဒေနှင့်အုပ်ချုပ်မှုဆိုင်ရာ နည်းလမ်းများအား “အလုံးစုံ သို့မဟုတ် တစ်စိတ်တစ်ပိုင်းအနေဖြင့်” မကြာခဏ အသုံးပြုကြပါသည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင်အစိုးရအဆက်ဆက်သည် ရိုဟင်ဂျာမွတ်ဆလင်များ၏ ဖြစ်တည်မှုနှင့် အခွင့်အရေးများအား ဖျောက်ဖျက်ရန်အတွက် အစီအမံများနှင့် ဥပဒေများကို အကောင်အထည်ဖော်ခဲ့ပြီး၊ လူမျိုးတုန်းသတ်ဖြတ်မှုအတွက် လုပ်ဆောင်နိုင်သော အနေအထားတစ်ခုကို ဖန်တီးလျှက်ရှိပါသည်။ ဤအစီအရင်ခံစာမှ မြန်မာအစိုးရသည် ရိုဟင်ဂျာများအား နိုင်ငံသားဖြစ်ခွင့်ကိုငြင်းပယ်ရန်အတွက် ခွဲခြားဆက်ဆံသည့် အုပ်ချုပ်မှုဆိုင်ရာအစီအမံများပြုလုပ်နေကြောင်းကို မှတ်တမ်းတင်ထားသည်။ အစိုးရက ရိုဟင်ဂျာများအား “နိုင်ငံခြားသားများ”ဟု ခွဲခြားထားသည့် နိုင်ငံသားစိစစ်ရေးကဒ်များကို ရိုဟင်ဂျာများက လက်ခံလာစေရန် အင်အားသုံးခြင်း၊ အတင်းအကျပ်ခိုင်းစေခြင်းတို့ကို ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့ပြီး၊ မြန်မာအာဏာပိုင်များမှ..."
Source/publisher: "Fortify Rights"
2019-09-03
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 9.37 MB 8.85 MB
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Sub-title: End Restrictions on Movement, Internet; Investigate Killings of 4
Description: "The Bangladesh government should end restrictions on Rohingya refugees’ freedom of movement and access to the internet and online communications, Human Rights Watch said today. Government restrictions have intensified following a failed attempt to repatriate refugees to Myanmar, a large rally by Rohingya refugees, and the killings of a local politician and four refugees. “Bangladesh authorities have a major challenge in dealing with such a large number of refugees, but they have made matters worse by imposing restrictions on refugee communications and freedom of movement,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “The authorities should take a level-headed approach instead of overreacting to tensions and protests by isolating Rohingya refugees in camps.” On September 1, 2019, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) ordered telecommunication operators to shut down mobile phone services in the camps within seven days. The next day, the BTRC ordered mobile network operators to shut down 3G and 4G services in the camps each day between 5 p.m. and 6 a.m. While the authorities say the shutdown is to enhance security, they have not explained how. The 13-hour daily shutdown puts approximately one million refugees at serious risk by cutting off communications with security, health, and other necessary services..."
Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch"
2019-09-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Even though Myanmar and Bangladesh inked a deal for repatriation of the Rohingyas, the likelihood of the displaced people’s return is minimal, opined eminent Swedish journalist Bertil Lintner. He made the remarks while speaking at a discussion on “Rohingya Exodus and Crisis” held at Omeo Kumar Das Institute of Social Change and Development in Guwahati on November 28. “While on the one hand, the refugees themselves are reluctant to go back to the Rakhine province of Myanmar due to insecurity, the Myanmar regime itself has also put up certain tough conditions as per the citizenship laws of 1982 which makes it difficult for the displaced persons to prove their nationality,” said Lintner. “Sending them back forcefully is not an option for the Bangladeshi government. At the same time, people in Myanmar consider them to be illegal,” Lintner added. Stating that the situation is “potentially explosive” for Myanmar and Bangladesh, the longtime Myanmar observer said that the August 25 attacks at police outputs in Rakhine by the ARSA have changed the geopolitics of the entire region. Lintner also alleged that China is trying to take full advantage of the rising tension between Myanmar and the West. By doing this, China wants to develop its proximity with Myanmar. Speaking on Aung San Suu Kyi, he said the Nobel Laureate has been made a scapegoat by the Myanmar military which still wields considerable power, even though the country is now run by a democratically elected civilian leadership..."
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Source/publisher: "Dhaka Tribune"
2017-11-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi has washed her hands of the Rohingya crisis, a United Nations rights investigator said on Tuesday (Sep 3) ahead of a meeting between South Korea's President Moon Jae-in and the tarnished democracy icon. Yanghee Lee, a university professor in Seoul who is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights to Myanmar, said Suu Kyi was "terribly misguided and misinformed" about the abuses against the stateless Muslim minority in her country. The Nobel laureate was under house arrest for years when Myanmar was a military dictatorship before her party won elections in 2015 by a landslide, in the first fully free vote for generations. Hopes were high that she would usher in a new era of freedom, but more than 740,000 Rohingya have since been driven out of the Buddhist-majority country and into Bangladesh in a 2017 army crackdown..."
Source/publisher: "CNA"
2019-09-03
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention warns of certain indicators that “provide an environment conducive to the commission of atrocity crimes,” including “increased politicization of identity” and discriminatory “measures or legislation” targeting protected groups. In addition to certain prohibited acts, such as killing members of a group, genocidal States often use legal and administrative tools to facilitate the destruction of a targeted group “in whole or in part.” In Myanmar, successive governments have implemented measures and legislation to erase Rohingya Muslims’ identity and rights, creating an enabling environment for genocide. This report documents how the Government of Myanmar is using discriminatory administrative measures to deny Rohingya the right to nationality. The government has forced or coerced Rohingya to accept National Verification Cards (NVCs), which effectively identify Rohingya as “foreigners,” and Myanmar authorities tortured Rohingya and imposed restrictions on Rohingya freedom of movement in the context of implementing the NVC process. This report finds that the NVC process violates customary international law as well as core human rights treaties to which Myanmar is a party, including the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and may have contributed to the commission of genocide and crimes against humanity. The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority group indigenous to Buddhist-majority Myanmar. Using a citizenship law entered into force in 1982, the government denies access to full citizenship for individuals who do not belong to “national” ethnic groups determined by the State. The State relies on an arbitrary and disputed list of 135 recognized national ethnic groups. As Rohingya are not among the “national ethnic groups” specified by the Myanmar government, the law effectively strips them of access to full citizenship rights. Over the years, successive governments in Myanmar also created a series of administrative “citizenship scrutiny” processes to progressively limit rights for Rohingya..."
Source/publisher: "Fortify Rights"
2019-09-03
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 1.95 MB 10.18 MB
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Description: "There are around 14,000 registered Rohingya refugees in India. The Indian government has given Long Term Visas to 500 Rohingyas. But, India has made no official comment about the handling of the Rohingya crisis..."
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Source/publisher: Mint
2017-06-20
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar has expressed dismay after Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Rohingyas faced “massacre or genocide”. In an exclusive interview with the Anadolu Agency last week, Mahathir said the Rohingyas “should either be treated as nationals, or they should be given their territory to form their own state.” Myanmar’s Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Myint Thu said such allegations would not help the efforts of Myanmar government and ASEAN in finding a sustainable solution for peace, development and social harmony in Rakhine State. Thu, who met Malaysian Ambassador to Myanmar Zahairi Baharim on Wednesday at Myanmar’s foreign ministry headquarters in Naypyitaw, also said the Malaysian leader’s statement was not constructive and described it as a breach of principles enshrined in the ASEAN Charter. “It was also against the ASEAN’s cardinal principles of non-interference in the internal affairs and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of ASEAN member states,” said the ministry in a statement..." Many commentators, however, blamed Myanmar for “buying time” and diverting the international community’s focus, by repeatedly denying crimes it has committed against the Rohingya community in the Rakhine state. Some 750,000 Rohingyas fled state persecution since August 2017 and took shelter in Bangladesh as thousands were killed, raped and hundreds of Rohingya villages were completely burnt. The UN independent investigators late last year called for Myanmar military generals to be investigated for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Myanmar denies the allegations. Meanwhile, nearly two years after the mass influx of Rohingyas into Bangladesh, the repatriation could not begin as the refugees say the situation in Rakhine is not conducive for return, while there is no guarantee of citizenship, which they have been denied since 1982..."
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Source/publisher: The Daily Star
2019-08-03
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law, which has fueled widespread discrimination against various ethnic minority groups, is irreconcilable with core rule of law principles and the State’s obligations under international human rights law, the ICJ said today in a
Description: "The briefing paper Citizenship Law and Human Rights in Myanmar: Why Law Reform is Urgent and Possible (available in English and Burmese) analyses the legal framework for citizenship in Myanmar, and assesses certain provisions of the 2008 Constitution relevant to citizenship as well as the 1982 Citizenship Law. This law embedded the current narrow definition of citizenship, which generally links citizenship acquisition to membership of a prescribed “national race.” The resulting system enables and legitimizes discrimination against various groups, particularly against persons of South Asian or Chinese descent, members of whole ethnic groups, such as the Rohingya, and also the children of single mothers. “Enacted by unelected military governments, Myanmar’s citizenship laws fuel widespread discrimination throughout the country,” said Sean Bain, Legal Adviser for the ICJ. “The government must act immediately to dismantle this discriminatory system and to protect in law the human rights of all persons,” he added. The intentionally discriminatory character of this law, and its equally discriminatory implementation, largely explain why many long-term residents of Myanmar lack a legal identity (more than 25 percent of persons enumerated in the 2014 Census). The ICJ recommends three immediately achievable, concrete areas of law reform to the Government: 1) legislative reform, including most urgently of the 1982 Citizenship Law and the Child Rights Bill now being considered by the parliament; 2) Constitutional reform, to protect the right of citizens to full political participation; and 3) to institute interim measures to address discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity. A review of the 1982 Law was recommended in 2017 by the Government’s advisory commission chaired by the late United Nations Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan, but the Government has not yet demonstrated any tangible progress on this. “The government has the means at hand to get rid of this discriminatory system, which has undermined the rule of law and blocked the development of a pluralistic democracy. The government can and must implement the recommendations of its own advisory commission. The pervasiveness of discrimination cannot continue to go unaddressed, and there are no reasonable legal grounds for further delay in initiating pathways to reform,” Bain said. UN Member States, as well as International Finance Institutions and UN agencies, must also ensure that assistance to the Government of Myanmar enables necessary reforms, and does not, in any way, entrench the existing discriminatory system..."
Source/publisher: International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)
2019-06-25
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf pdf pdf
Size: 258.64 KB 367.26 KB 2.19 MB
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Topic: Refugee Rights, Asylum Seekers
Sub-title: Myanmar Delegation Fails to Make Convincing Case for Safe Return
Topic: Refugee Rights, Asylum Seekers
Description: "Myanmar officials arrived at the sprawling refugee settlement in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh this week to discuss the repatriation of the Rohingya population. Armed with “fact” sheets, colorful brochures, and PowerPoint presentations, officials whose government committed a campaign of ethnic cleansing that forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh two years ago were now trying to persuade them it was safe to return home. They were not convincing. “They didn’t even use the term ‘Rohingya,’” one refugee noted, alluding to the government’s longstanding unwillingness to recognize the ethnic group. The 10-member delegation, led by the permanent secretary of the Myanmar Foreign Ministry, Myint Thu, explained categories of citizenship and promoted the government’s National Verification Card (NVC) process. Many Rohingya despise this deeply flawed process, which they view as a perpetuation of the discriminatory 1982 Citizenship Law, which has effectively left them stateless in their own country. The newly digitized NVC process would require Rohingya to reapply for their citizenship using their biometric data, which may further encourage discrimination. Myint Thu told them this was a first step towards achieving “naturalized citizenship.” The problem is that many Rohingya already consider themselves Myanmar citizens. “We showed them documents that prove that our ancestors were Burmese,” said Dil Mohammad, one of Rohingya participants. “Why do we need to go through that NVC process again which will identify us simply as a foreigner?” Given the horror of the atrocities they survived, the refugees understandably first want Myanmar authorities to assure them that they and their families will be safe if they return home, before they discuss terms of their repatriation..."
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Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch
2019-07-31
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "A top-level Myanmar government delegation began repatriation talks with Rohingya leaders in a Bangladesh refugee camp on Saturday, an official said, with many of the Muslim minority fearing for their safety if they return home. Some 740,000 Rohingya fled a 2017 crackdown by Myanmar's military and are living in squalid conditions in camps in Bangladesh's southeastern border district of Cox's Bazar. The two countries signed a repatriation deal in November 2017 but so far virtually no Rohingya have volunteered to go back to Myanmar, where the group has faced decades of repression. The Myanmar team, led by permanent foreign secretary U Myint Thu, arrived in Cox's Bazar on Saturday amid tightened security in the camps. 'Seemed positive' The delegation visited Kutupalong — the world's largest refugee settlement — where they discussed repatriation with Rohingya community leaders over several hours, said Bangladesh refugee commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam. "Both parties seemed positive about it and the discussion will continue [Sunday]," he told AFP. One of the Rohingya leaders who joined the talks, Dil Mohammad, said they "went well" as he reiterated demands for Myanmar to recognize Rohingya as an ethnic group. "We hope this discussion will be fruitful. We told them that we won't return unless we are recognized as Rohingya in Myanmar," he said. Myanmar denies the minority citizenship and refers to them as "Bengalis" — implying that the Rohingya are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Second such session It was the second time in less than a year that Myanmar officials were trying to persuade Rohingya refugees to return to their homeland in violence-wracked Rakhine state, after a repatriation offer was rejected by Rohingya leaders in October. The massive camps have sparked tensions between the neighboring nations, with Bangladesh blaming Myanmar for delays in repatriating the refugees. Dhaka has said it will not force any Rohingya to leave, while Myanmar has faced international pressure to allow the Rohingya to return to Rakhine and grant them citizenship rights. The U.N. has complained that progress to address the refugee crisis has been far too slow. The new visit comes in the wake of talks between Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. China is a key ally of Myanmar, and Hasina said then that Beijing would "do whatever is required" to help resolve the Rohingya crisis..."
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Source/publisher: VOA
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Government delegation tries to convince Rohingya refugees to go back to Myanmar. It’s almost two years since more than 700,000 Rohingya fled a military crackdown in Myanmar. The UN labelled it 'a textbook example of ethnic cleansing' with soldiers accused of rape and murder and burning down Rohingya villages. Since their escape the mainly Muslim ethnic group has been crammed into the world’s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh. But Myanmar’s government is under pressure to take them back. And a delegation has been at Cox’s Bazar trying to persuade the Rohingya they should return to Rakhine State. But so far the refugees have said no. They want guarantees about their safety and for them to be granted citizenship. So what exactly is the Myanmar government offering?..."
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Source/publisher: Al Jazeera English (Inside Story)
2019-07-30
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Malaysia FM Saifuddin Bin Abdullah says perpetrators of violence against Myanmar's minority must "be brought to justice," in talks with members of Association of Southeast Asian Nations gathered in Thailand conference.
Description: "Malaysia on Saturday said the perpetrators of violence against Myanmar's Rohingya minority must "be brought to justice," in sharp comments delivered at a normally tame regional summit of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In talks on Saturday with Southeast Asian counterparts, Malaysia's Foreign Minister Saifuddin Bin Abdullah called for the "perpetrators of the Rohingya issue to be brought to justice," his ministry said in Tweet. He also said repatriation of the minority from the fetid, overcrowded refugee camps of Bangladesh "must include the citizenship of the Rohingya." Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as citizens, instead officially labelling them "Bengalis," short-hand for illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. A military crackdown in 2017 drove more than 740,000 Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh, carrying accounts of rape, mass killings and the razing of villages. UN investigators have called for Myanmar's top generals to be tried for genocide. But Myanmar's army and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi have defended the action as necessary to flush out Rohingya rebels from Rakhine state..."
Source/publisher: TRT World
2019-06-22
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "A high-level delegation from Myanmar has visited Rohingya camps in Bangladesh, to persuade refugees to return home. Hundreds of thousands have been sheltering there since fleeing a violent crackdown...Al Jazeera's Tanvir Chowdhury reports from Cox's Bazar..."
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Source/publisher: Al Jazeera English
2019-07-27
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh refused Myanmar’s offer of “naturalised citizenship” to return to their home country as the refugees sought recognition as an ethnic group during fresh repatriation talks with officials from Myanmar at camps in Bangladesh on Sunday..."
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Source/publisher: bdnews24.com
2019-07-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The Burma Human Rights Network, in cooperation with Queen Mary University of London’s International State Crime Initiative, is proud to reveal its latest report, NVC: A Barrier To Rohingya Repatriation focusing on Burma’s deeply troubling National Verification Card (NVC) process. The NVC is often portrayed as a stepping stone to citizenship for the Rohingya but BHRN believes this process to further marginalize the Rohingya and that it ultimately enhances apartheid conditions in Rakhine State. BHRN disputes claims by the Burmese authorities that the NVC is being used as a stepping stone to citizenship for the Rohingya or that it has any useful purpose as a tool to verify the identities of returning refugees. “Burma has convinced many in the world that the NVC process will help the Rohingya to become citizens and grant them greater rights in the country but this is clearly false. The NVC has been in use for years as a tool to identify Rohingya as foreigners and they have not received any greater rights as a result. The international community must not go along with Burma on this endeavor and should instead insist upon citizenship and full rights for the Rohingya,” said BHRN’s executive director, Kyaw Win. For this report, BHRN interviewed 25 Rohingyas. In Bangladesh, BHRN interviewed 18 refugees, 5 from Buthidaung, 6 from Maungdaw and 7 from Ratheadaung about the extensive documentation the Burmese authorities have of Rohingya who lived in Northern Rakhine State since the 1990s as part of an annual survey conducted by authorities called “SweTinSit.” BHRN interviewed an additional 7 Rohingya currently living inside of Burma, both with and without National Verification Cards, about how the identification system has affected their day to day lives and the pressures they were under to accept them. The SweTinSit survey demonstrates that Burma has extensive records of Rohingya living in the state prior to the mass exoduses of Rohingya fleeing genocidal campaigns by the Burmese Military in 2016 and 2017. These records negate the need for NVC to verify returning refugees as they contain extensive records of who is to return and what their original locations were. These records also detail births of Rohingya inside of Burma whose claims to citizenship should be unquestionable..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Progressive Voice via "Burma Human Rights Network"
2019-07-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-07-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 1.8 MB
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Description: GENEVA (27 May 2015) ? "A group of United Nations human rights experts today expressed alarm at the enactment of the Population Control Healthcare Bill in Myanmar, the first of four in a package of bills that seek to ?protect race and religion?. The bills are highly discriminatory against ethnic and religious minorities as well as against women. ?These bills risk deepening discrimination against minorities and setting back women?s rights in Myanmar,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee. ?At a time when thousands of Rohingya are already fleeing the country by boat, this sends precisely the wrong signal to these communities.” On Saturday, State media reported that the President of Myanmar had signed the Population Control Healthcare Bill. While the stated objectives of the Bill are to improve living standards, alleviate poverty, ensure quality healthcare and develop maternal and child health, its provisions are extremely vague and lack any protection against discrimination, the independent experts noted. Under the newly adopted law, certain areas can be designated for special health care measures, including birth spacing. ?Any coercive requirement for birth spacing with the aim to ?organise? family planning would constitute a disproportionate interference in the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and could amount to a violation of women?s human rights,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dainius Pûras, noting that the Bill allows township groups to ?organise? married couples to practice 36-month birth spacing between pregnancies. ?Women should be able to choose freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children.”..."
Source/publisher: United Nations
2015-05-27
Date of entry/update: 2015-05-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "Since Myanmar?s opening in 2011, the country has seen a rise in Burman-Buddhist nationalism. Monk-led groups such as ?969? and the Organization for Protection of Race and Religion (?MaBaTha?) and their messages of religious chauvinism enjoy strong popular support. Islam and its followers are particular targets. In addition to sporadic outbreaks of mob violence, this nationalist sentiment has expressed itself in calls for laws to promote and protect Buddhism. This paper provides an overview of the current status of this draft legislation. It looks at origins of the bills currently before the legislature, a summary of their key provisions, the likely next steps and their political implications. It also discusses the recent moves to disenfranchise over a million Temporary Registration Card holders ? most of whom are Muslim, and many of whom are in Rakhine State..."
Creator/author: Richard Horsey
Source/publisher: Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum
2015-02-13
Date of entry/update: 2015-02-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 246.18 KB
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Description: "A special commission in Myanmar is now drafting legislation that if passed would effectively limit the rights of certain minority groups. At the request of the speaker of the parliament, President Thein Sein earlier this month formed a commission charged with drafting legislation on two laws: one concerning restricting religious conversions and another on controlling population growth. Although the official notification creating the commission does not mention religion, both laws are directed against the country?s minority Muslim community. The first will severely limit the conversion of Buddhist women to Islam and the second will restrict Muslim families to no more than two children. A wide spectrum of Burmese society will be questioned "in a transparent manner" by the commission, while any proposed legislation should be in conformity with the constitution, diverse beliefs, national unity, and Myanmar culture, according to the notification. Regulations of other countries will also be examined in the process, the notification said..."
Creator/author: David I Steinberg
Source/publisher: "Asia Times Online"
2014-03-18
Date of entry/update: 2014-05-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: "...The Rohingya problem has been referred to and described in different ways, and certainly it is more than a matter of nationality and discrimination, statelessness and displacement, and the Responsibility to Protect. Yet the initial two areas have assumed particular factual and legal significance over the past three decades, as persecution of the Rohingya within Myanmar and its effects regionally have continued unabated. The third area—not unrelated to the others—should assume equal importance and attention, but thus far it has not. All three issues are progressive in their application to the Rohingya: persecutory discrimination and statelessness includes and leads to forcible displacement, which combined constitute crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing and implicate the Responsibility to Protect. Primary responsibility rests with the Myanmar government to protect those whose right to a nationality the country has long denied, but its regional neighbors have legal and humanitarian obligations of their own vis-?-vis the Rohingya, as does the international community. The Rohingya problem begins at home—and could well end there with enough political will. Failing that, as has been the case since June 2012 if not decades, regional countries and the wider world should act to address the displacement and statelessness, and to stop the violence and violations."
Creator/author: Benjamin Zawacki
Source/publisher: American University Washington College of Law?s Human Rights Brief,Volume 20 Issue 3, Spring 2013
2013-07-23
Date of entry/update: 2013-07-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 515.88 KB
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Description: General Assembly, Fifty-first session. The Secretary-General has the honour to transmit to the members of the General Assembly the interim report on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, prepared by Judge Rajsoomer Lallah, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, in accordance with Commission resolution 1996/80 of 23 April 1996.
Creator/author: Mr. Rajsoomer Lallah
Source/publisher: United Nations (A/51/466)
1996-11-08
Date of entry/update: 2010-11-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Meeting held in the Central Meeting Hall, President House, Ahlone Road, 8 October 1982. Translation of the speech by General Ne Win provided in The Working People?s Daily, 9 October 1982
Source/publisher: "The Working People's Daily"
1982-10-09
Date of entry/update: 2009-02-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 96.4 KB
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Description: "The Muslim ethnic minority, generally known as the Rohingyas, who live in northern Rakhine State, western Myanmar, continue to suffer from several forms of restrictions and human rights violations. The Rohingyas? freedom of movement is severely restricted and the vast majority of them have effectively been denied Myanmar citizenship. They are also subjected to various forms of extortion and arbitrary taxation; land confiscation; forced eviction and house destruction; and financial restrictions on marriage. Rohingyas continue to be used as forced labourers on roads and at military camps, although the amount of forced labour in northern Rakhine State has decreased over the last decade. These practices, in addition to violating other basic human rights of the Rohingyas, are discriminatory towards the Rohingya population as they do not appear to be imposed in the same manner and at the same level on other ethnic nationalities in Rakhine State, or in the country as a whole. These restrictions and abuses, and the general discrimination against them, also amount to violations of the right to an adequate standard of living for many Rohingyas. As a consequence tens of thousands have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh and other countries. This report is based on almost 50 testimonies taken from Rohingyas which were made available to Amnesty International during the last year. These interviews were conducted in private and in confidence in accordance with the organization?s general terms of reference for primary research. Information from other reliable and credible sources is also used to corroborate these testimonies. In order to protect the safety of those interviewed, all details which could identify individuals have been deleted, but information obtained from public sources is cited where appropriate. Myanmar is not state party to most international human rights treaties. Amnesty International has consistently urged the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC, Myanmar?s government) to accede to these treaties. However, the fact that the SPDC has not done so does not release it from its obligation to respect fundamental human rights which, being provided for under customary international law, are binding on all states..."
Source/publisher: Amnesty International (ASA 16/005/2004)
2004-05-19
Date of entry/update: 2004-05-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English and French
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Creator/author: Mr. Yozo Yokota
Source/publisher: United Nations (E/CN.4/1993/37)
1993-02-17
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: General Assembly, Fifty-second session. The Secretary-General has the honour to transmit to the members of the General Assembly the interim report on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, prepared by Mr. Rajsoomer Lallah, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, in accordance with General Assembly resolution 51/117 of 12 December 1996 and Economic and Social Council decision 1997/272 of 22 July 1997. Good section on citizenship and citizenship legislation (paras 119-142), mainly relating to the Rohingyas, a Muslim group in Rakhine (Arakan) state; statelessness and the conformity of the different forms of citizenship [in Burma] with international norms. Also, the rights pertaining to democratic governance, the right to form and join trade unions, forced labour, violations against ethnic minorities, including violations of civil rights.
Creator/author: Mr. Rajsoomer Lallah
Source/publisher: United Nations (A/52/484)
1997-10-16
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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Description: Burmese Rohingyas in Malaysia. Contains a good discussion of the Rohingyas' de facto statelessness under the 1982 Citizenship Law as well as background material on the Rohingyas' situation in Burma.."Burmese authorities bear responsibility for the Rohingya's flight. Burma's treatment of the Rohingya is addressed in the background section of the report, and the report offers specific recommendations to the Burmese government. The focus of this report, however, is on what happens to Rohingya when they reach Malaysia. There, they are not treated as refugees fleeing persecution who should be afforded protection, but as aliens subject to detention or deportation in violation of Malaysia's international human rights obligations..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch
2000-07-00
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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