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| Maung Kyaw Nu with Matthew Smith and Taylor Landis from Fortify Rights |
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| Maung Kyaw Nu with Greg Constantine and Abdul Mahboud |
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| Rohingya Conference at FCCT with B.R.A.T. members in attendance |
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| B.R.A.T. memebers with Kachin Baptist Church leader Hkang Brang Mai and Lance Woodruff |
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| Photographer Greg Constantine from the Holocaust Museum with B.R.A.T. president Maung Kyaw Nu |
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| B.R.A.T. President Maung Kyaw Nu taking part in Q&A at FCCT |
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| B.R.A.T. members at FCCT with Khadra Absughe |
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| B.R.A.T. members with multi-ethnic women representative from Burma at FCCT |
Leaked Documents Implicate Government Actors in Crimes Against Humanity
(Bangkok, February 25, 2014)—
Leaked government documents reveal severe violations of human rights of
Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, including restrictions on the freedom of
movement, marriage, childbirth, and other aspects of daily life in
northern Rakhine State, Fortify Rights said in a new report released
today. The report implicates state
and central government officials as perpetrators of the crime against
humanity of persecution. Crimes against humanity are among the most serious crimes under international law.
“The
impacts of these restrictions are severe and have been well-documented
for decades, but the official orders have been kept out of the public
domain until now,” said Matthew Smith, executive director of Fortify
Rights. “This architecture of abuse contributes to political instability
and violence and must be lifted immediately.”
The 79-page report, Policies of Persecution: Ending Abusive State Policies Against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar,
is based primarily on the analysis of 12 leaked official documents and a
review of public records, as well as interviews with Rohingya and
others in Myanmar and Thailand. The
documents published in the report reveal restrictions that deny
Rohingya basic human rights, including the rights to nondiscrimination,
freedom of movement, marriage, family, health, and privacy. All of the restrictions and enforcement methods described in the report appear to be in effect at the time of writing.
“Regional
Order 1/2005,” obtained by Fortify Rights, lays the foundation for a
two-child policy enforced in Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships,
requiring Rohingya “who have permission to marry” to “limit the number
of children, in order to control the birth rate so that there is enough
food and shelter.” This order—which in practice translates to a strict
two-child policy— also prohibits Rohingya from having children out of
wedlock.
Confidential
enforcement guidelines, also obtained by Fortify Rights, authorize
security forces to use abusive methods to implement these “population
control” measures. One document instructs
officials to confirm women are the birth mothers of infants and to
accurately record the number of children in each family when entering
private homes unannounced. The guideline urges the authorities to force
Rohingya women to breastfeed infants in their presence “if there is
suspicion of someone being substituted” in the family registry.
Some
state and central government officials showed public support for the
Rohingya two-child policy in northern Rakhine State last year, while
others offered the international community categorical denials that
childbirth restrictions ever existed. Information obtained by Fortify
Rights not only confirms the policies existed but also indicates they
are still in effect.
Birth
restrictions violate the human rights of Rohingya couples to marry,
found a family, and determine for themselves the number and spacing of
their children. Fears of penalties for unsanctioned pregnancies have
caused Rohingya to flee the country or undergo illegal and unsafe
abortions, often leading to untreated health consequences and even
death, Fortify Rights said.
“The
government is systematically persecuting Rohingya on the basis of
ethnicity, religion, and at times gender,” Matthew Smith said. “Rohingya
women in particular find themselves in the crosshairs of these targeted
policies, facing severe discrimination because they’re women as well as
Rohingya Muslims.”
Confidential documents published in Policies of Persecution reveal
that official orders issued by Rakhine State authorities from 1993 to
2008 outline a consistent state policy of restrictions on Rohingya
marriage. Rohingya couples cannot live together unless they are married,
and they must meet ten administrative requirements before the
authorities will consider issuing permission to marry. The authorities
typically require applicants to pay high fees as well.
Other
policies curtail Rohingya freedom of movement. Rohingya in Rakhine
State are barred from travelling within or between townships without
authorization, and they are only permitted to travel outside the state
in rare circumstances with additional, difficult-to-obtain
authorizations. Restrictions on movement severely inhibit livelihoods
and access to healthcare, even in medical emergencies, impinging upon
their right to health.
Government
policies described in this report explicitly provide criminal
punishments for Rohingya who violate the restrictions, with penalties
including up to several years in prison, fines, or both.
The
abuses resulting from the policies of persecution explained in this
report are central to the forced migration of Rohingya in Southeast
Asia, Fortify Rights said. The policies appear to be designed to make
life so intolerable for Rohingya that they will leave the country, and
indeed many have. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled to
Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, and elsewhere over the last two decades,
in many cases risking death at sea and abuses by human traffickers,
including killings and ill treatment.
Policies of Persecution explains
how the abuses taking place in Rakhine State rise to the level of
persecution as a crime against humanity, implicating the involvement of
state and central government authorities. Three “regional orders” from Rakhine State—dated 1993, 2005, and 2008—are signed by
state-level government officials and copied to various departments
falling under state and central government jurisdictions. Rakhine State government officials and ministers of the central government have also discussed on record the restrictions against Rohingya since at least 2011.
In
2011, the Minister of Defense at the time, Lieutenant-General Hla Min,
approvingly referenced and explained in Myanmar’s parliament the
restrictive policies against Rohingya. On July 31, 2012, Myanmar’s
Minister of Home Affairs Lieutenant-General Ko Ko told parliament that
the authorities were “tightening the regulations [against Rohingya] in
order to handle travelling, birth, death, immigration, migration,
marriage, construction of new religious buildings, repairing and land
ownership and [the] right to construct building[s]….”
“The reality is that the official state policies and practices against Rohingya are plainly abusive,” said Matthew Smith. “The international
community should unequivocally condemn these policies and practices and
work with the government of Myanmar to ensure they’re abolished.”
Fortify
Rights is calling for an independent investigation by international and
Myanmar actors into human rights abuses in Rakhine State, including
into abusive restrictions against Rohingya.
For more information, please contact:
Matthew Smith, matthew.smith@
Follow us on Twitter: @matthewfsmith, @fortifyrights, @taylormlandis
Background
There are at least 1.33 million Rohingya in
Myanmar; all but 40,000 are stateless due to the country’s 1982
Citizenship Law, which denies Rohingya equal access to citizenship
rights. The government refers to Rohingya as “Bengali” and regards them
as “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh, despite the fact that they have
lived in Myanmar for generations. The restrictions imposed on Rohingya
are ostensibly framed by the government of Myanmar as a response to an
“illegal immigration” problem and threats to “national security.” Tensions
between Rakhine Buddhists—also a repressed ethnic minority of
Myanmar—and Rohingya Muslims have existed for decades. In 2012,
significant waves of violence and well-coordinated arson attacks
erupted, disproportionately affecting the Rohingya population and other
Muslim communities, and in some cases involving killings by
state-security forces. More than
140,000 Rohingya have been displaced to under-resourced internal
displacement camps. International health and aid workers face threats
and obstructions to their work from members of the local Rakhine
population.
About Fortify Rights
Fortify Rights is an independent
organization that strives to strengthen the human rights movement
through the defense and protection of human rights. We provide technical
support to human rights defenders and conduct independent monitoring
and strategic advocacy. By independently documenting and exposing human
rights violations while teaming with activists to advocate for change at
local, national, and international levels, we aim to fortify the human
rights movement. We are a non-profit human rights organization based in
Southeast Asia and registered in Switzerland and the United States.
Follow us on Twitter @FortifyRights.
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