They told us, 'You are Bengalis – there is no such thing as the Rohingya,'" the imam recalled. "They said, 'If you claim that you are Rohingya, you will be thrown into the sea.'"
We were speaking in one of the internally displaced person (IDP) camps reserved for the Rohingya – Burma's persecuted Muslim minority – near the city of Sittwe in Burma's troubled Rakhine state. Last year, mob violence in the area left hundreds dead and well over 100,000 homeless, the vast majority of them Rohingya.
I was told that the alleged visits to the camps by members of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) – an ethnic nationalist political organisation, accompanied by police and the notorious, now-disbanded border force known as the Na Sa Ka – were linked to ongoing government efforts to document who was eligible for citizenship in preparation for an upcoming national census. The Rohingya, despite their presence in Burma for centuries, are officially regarded by the government as "illegal immigrants" from Bangladesh and, as such, are denied citizenship, rendering them a stateless people.
The pre-census measure has been criticised as an attempt to deepen efforts to totally marginalise the one million Rohingya residing in the country, which would be achieved by officially identifying them as foreign interlopers – "Bengalis" – who have no place in Burma and therefore no rights. Full story...
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We were speaking in one of the internally displaced person (IDP) camps reserved for the Rohingya – Burma's persecuted Muslim minority – near the city of Sittwe in Burma's troubled Rakhine state. Last year, mob violence in the area left hundreds dead and well over 100,000 homeless, the vast majority of them Rohingya.
I was told that the alleged visits to the camps by members of the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP) – an ethnic nationalist political organisation, accompanied by police and the notorious, now-disbanded border force known as the Na Sa Ka – were linked to ongoing government efforts to document who was eligible for citizenship in preparation for an upcoming national census. The Rohingya, despite their presence in Burma for centuries, are officially regarded by the government as "illegal immigrants" from Bangladesh and, as such, are denied citizenship, rendering them a stateless people.
The pre-census measure has been criticised as an attempt to deepen efforts to totally marginalise the one million Rohingya residing in the country, which would be achieved by officially identifying them as foreign interlopers – "Bengalis" – who have no place in Burma and therefore no rights. Full story...
Related posts:
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- Buddhists torch Muslim homes in Myanmar...
- Why Burma could become another Rwanda...
- U Wirathu, Burma’s 'bin Laden of Buddhism’
- No justice for Muslims massacred by Myanmar Buddhists...
- Massacre in Myanmar ignored by everyone...
- Burma's Buddhist mobs sow fear amid widening unrest...
- Video shows Burmese police standing by as Buddhists attack Muslims...
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