Myanmar continues to deny basic citizenship rights to persecuted Rohingya community, a rights group said on Thursday.
The Bangkok-based Fortify Rights group revealed internal communications in the Myanmar government directing junior officials to issue National Verification Cards (NVCs) to Rohingya in internment camps.
“The document states the team would be tasked with issuing NVCs to ‘Bengali people’ — a term often used by Myanmar officials to refer to Rohingya, implying that they are from Bangladesh and their ethnic Rohingya identity does not exist,” the group said in a statement that included the testimonies of five Rohingya people.
The rights group demanded Myanmar take steps to “urgently restore full citizenship rights to Rohingya”.
“New evidence collected by Fortify Rights […] confirms that Myanmar authorities are continuing to force and coerce Rohingya to accept National Verification Cards, which effectively identify Rohingya as foreigners and strip them of access to full citizenship rights,” it added.
Fortify Rights also assessed a new strategy by Myanmar that it said sought to close camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
“The document instructs authorities to facilitate citizenship verification in camps slated for closure,” it said, asserting that, in practice, citizenship verification in Rakhine State where the majority of Rohingya reside was implemented through the NVC process.
The group said the strategy had been adopted last year by the country’s Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement.
Rohingya, described by the UN as one of the most persecuted community in the world, has been facing systematic state persecution in the northern Rakhine state of Myanmar since early 1970s.
According to Amnesty International, more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women and children, have fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in August 2017, pushing the number of persecuted people in Bangladesh above 1.2 million.
Source: AA
