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Rushanara Ali MP: End discrimination against Rohingya and find urgent resolution to citizenship
Tuesday | 18/06/2013 - 12:01 PM
Rushanara Ali MP: End discrimination against Rohingya and find urgent resolution to citizenship

Rohingya News Agency- Press Release by Rushanara Ali MP

Following her recent visit to Rakhine State with Refugees International, Rushanara Ali MP, Shadow ‎Minister for International Development, spoke in a Westminster Hall debate to call for an end to the ‎discrimination against the Rohingya community in Burma and an urgent resolution to their citizenship ‎status.‎

The humanitarian situation

Since inter-communal violence broke out a year ago in Rakhine State, Rohingya Muslims have been ‎forced into segregated settlements, completely unsuitable for displacement camps, and many have ‎been cut off from lifesaving aid. Rushanara said that the humanitarian situation she witnessed was ‎dire with tens of thousands of people living in makeshift camps lacking food, water, sanitation, ‎adequate shelter and access to healthcare. She said:‎

‎“One camp I visited, in Pauk Taw township, was accessible only by means of a two-hour boat journey. ‎Non-governmental organisations had to bring drinking water in on boats, and primary health care was ‎provided just one morning a week. The shores adjacent to the camp were covered in faeces, and ‎dead rats floated in the water just metres from children who were bathing to keep cool in the ‎scorching heat.”‎

‎“I heard stories of many people—particularly women—dying unnecessarily because of the lack of ‎health care. That experience—observing hospitals turning people away in life-and-death situations ‎because of their ethnicity and the fact that they are not recognised—echoed, to me, apartheid. I do not ‎use that term lightly. Being forced into camps and not allowed out is the equivalent of being a prisoner ‎in one’s own country.”‎

Citizenship rights and human rights violations

At the heart of this humanitarian crisis lies the question of citizenship. The Rohingya have been ‎described by the United Nations as “one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.” Rushanara ‎condemned the discriminatory orders against the Rohingya, including a directive placing a two-child ‎limit on Rohingya couples and restrictions on their movements, cutting them off from their livelihoods ‎and rendering them reliant on aid. She said:‎

‎“When I visited camps, where malnutrition rates are dangerously near emergency levels and where ‎people are forced to live in segregated areas cut off from their livelihoods and are struggling to ‎survive, I did not expect citizenship and identity to top the list of issues that people wanted to talk ‎about. However, every group of Rohingya men and women, including children, to whom I spoke told ‎me that their priority was recognition of their Rohingya identity and the restoration of their Burmese ‎citizenship rights, which were taken away from them in the 1980s.”‎

‎“Many Rohingyas were keen to insist that ethnic Rohingya Muslims had been in Burma for centuries, ‎yet the national and state Governments deny them their Burmese citizenship and their ethnic ‎Rohingya identity, instead claiming that they are “Kala,” a racist derogatory term, or Bengali migrants ‎from Bangladesh. One woman lost her entire family—I met a group of women, many of whom had ‎similar stories—and she told me, “If, after having lost everything, including my whole family, because ‎we are Rohingya Muslims, the Government still don’t recognise me as Rohingya in my own country, ‎then I might as well be dead.”‎

Following the lifting of EU sanctions she called on the Government to use what leverage remained to ‎exert influence on the Burmese authorities to prevent human rights violations.‎

Rushanara also called on the UK Government to:‎

• Press the Burmese authorities to facilitate unimpeded humanitarian access to Rakhine State and ‎other parts of Burma.‎
• Improve conditions for displaced people, particularly in flood prone areas, and address shelter ‎needs as a matter of urgency.‎
• Exert pressure on the Burmese authorities to restore the Rohingya’s Burmese citizenship status as ‎a matter of urgency.‎
• Encourage the Burmese authorities to support a safe and voluntary return process for Rohingya ‎with adequate protection.‎
• In light of Human Rights Watch’s recent report ‘All we can do is pray’ which concluded that crimes ‎against humanity and ethnic cleansing were being committed towards Burma’s Rohingya ‎Muslims, she called on the UK Government to exert pressure on our international partners for an ‎international inquiry into the events of June and October 2012 and March 2013




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