Rohingya community suffers racially motivated state sponsored collective punishment.
Thank you Mr. President.
Society for Threatened People is deeply concerned about the racially motivated, increasing attacks on the Rohingya community in Myanmar, with the intention to drive them out of their ancestral land. Apartheid policies, including the 1982 citizenship law persist against the Rohingya, “Laws on Protection of Race and Religion” are completely aimed at the Muslim minority. The democratic government itself forbids using the name Rohingya inside Myanmar. The displaced Rohingya from the 2012 violence are still barred behind fences. They live in constant fear.
The 969 movement is still actively spreading anti-Rohingya, anti-Muslim sentiments across Myanmar.
The recent collective punishment of the Rohingya by a brutal military crackdown left hundreds of Rohingya civilians, including babies, dead. Thousands of their houses were razed down. There were mass rapes of Rohingya women. One Rakhine minister insisted that Rohingya women are too “dirty” to arouse the troops. A prominent Muslim lawyer, who challenged discriminatory laws, was shot dead in bright daylight at Yangon airport.
The de-facto leader of Myanmar, Miss Aung San Suu Kyi has failed to rein in with the military and thus turns a blind eye to the oppression of ethnic minorities, the Rohingya in particular. We applaud the announcement by the EU to call for an international fact-finding mission to Myanmar.
Dear Mr. President, we strongly urge the Human Rights Council to call on the Myanmar government to:
Change its emphasis on minority & race distinction.
Take action against the military and other organizations that are involved in anti-Rohingya and anti-Muslim violence.
Allow for a UN-led probe into the violence against Rohingya community.
Thank you!
