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== Human rights violations against Rohingya ==

Background

Rohingya people in Rakhine State

The Rohingya Muslim are amongst the most persecuted minority group in the world. According to Amnesty International, the Rohingya Muslim people have continued to suffer from human rights violations under the Burmese junta since 1978, and many have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh as a result. However, the reality is that the Rohingya people have been oppressed for many years prior to 1978. They have lived in Myanmar for centuries, however tensions with Myanmar's Buddhist majority have caused discrimination and harassment for many years. Cases of rape, torture, arbitrary detention, and violence against Rohingya are commonplace, with many incidents going unreported as enforcement officers turn a blind eye. These perpetrators are not solely confined to the local population, but also include the authorities and law enforcers themselves. Tensions increased in 2012, when three Rohingya Muslim men were convicted of raping a local Rakhine Buddhist woman, which led to the 2012 Rakhine State riots. There are currently over a million Rohingya people living in Myanmar, however, systemic oppression has led to an increase in migrations. In early 2015 alone, around 25,000 asylum-seekers, consisting of Rohingyas and Bangladeshis, sailed out of the Rakhine State to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. Aside from Bangladesh, majority of asylum-seekers also set out to other South-east Asian countries such as Thailand, but also to Malaysia and Indonesia, which are predominantly muslim countries.

Legal Framework

The Rohingya people have been denied Burmese citizenship since the Burmese nationality law (1982 Citizenship Act) was enacted. They are not allowed to travel without official permission and were previously required to sign a commitment not to have more than two children, though the law was not strictly enforced. Many Rohingya children cannot have their birth registered, thus rendering them stateless from the moment they are born. Rohingya people are also subjected to routine forced labour. Typically, a Rohingya man will have to give up one day a week to work on military or government projects, and one night for sentry duty. The Rohingya have also lost a lot of arable land, which has been confiscated by the military to give to Buddhist settlers from elsewhere in Myanmar. Without proper identification and documents, the Rohingya people are officially stateless with no state protection and their movements are severely restricted.

Human Rights Violations

The 1982 Citizenship Law represents systemic discrimination at a policy level by the Government of Myanmar, which openly denies the Rohingya access to basic human rights such as, access to education, employment, marriage, reproduction and freedom of movement. As of 2005, the UNHCR had been assisting with the repatriation of Rohingya from Bangladesh, but allegations of human rights abuses in the refugee camps have threatened this effort.

Despite earlier efforts by the UN, the vast majority of Rohingya refugees have remained in Bangladesh, unable to return because of the regime in Myanmar. Now they face problems in Bangladesh where they do not receive support from the government. Lack of support from the Bangladeshi Government and also human rights abuses in Bangladeshi refugee camps have led many asylum-seekers to risk their lives and to journey further south to other Southeast Asian countries. The mass exodus in 2015 has led to an international humanitarian crisis because of the inability of host States in Southeast Asia to accommodate the vast number of asylum-seekers. Most of them are also subjected to human trafficking by organised crime groups operating in Thailand and Malaysia. The 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis highlighted the flaws of the international community in responding to humanitarian crises. An Amnesty International report on the crisis

In February 2009, many Rohingya refugees were helped by Acehnese sailors in the Strait of Malacca, after 21 days at sea.

International Response'

Over the years thousands of Rohingya also have fled to Thailand. There are roughly 111,000 refugees housed in nine camps along the Thai-Myanmar border. There have been charges that groups of them have been shipped and towed out to open sea from Thailand, and left there. On February 2009, there was evidence of the Thai army towing a boatload of 190 Rohingya refugees out to sea. A group of refugees rescued by Indonesian authorities also in February 2009 told harrowing stories of being captured and beaten by the Thai military, and then abandoned at open sea. By the end of February, there were reports that of a group of five boats were towed out to open sea, of which four boats sank in a storm, and one washed up on the shore. 12 February 2009 Thailand's prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said there were "some instances" in which Rohingya people were pushed out to sea.

"There are attempts, I think, to let these people drift to other shores. [...] when these practices do occur, it is done on the understanding that there is enough food and water supplied. [...] It's not clear whose work it is [...] but if I have the evidence who exactly did this I will bring them to account."

Rasheduzzaman, professor of international relations at Dhaka University, said the reformist administration of Myanmar is said to be democratic; however, there were no signs that its strategy on the Rohingya would see an improvement soon. Indeed, even the opposition democratic pioneer Aung San Suu Kyi, who had been kept under house arrest for nearly 15 of the 21 years from 1989 to 2010, is quiet on it. It implies the humanitarian crisis on the Rohingya issue that the world sees today may proceed with, he said.