(21 November 2013)
Arakan Rohingya National Organisations welcomes the resolution of the UN General Assembly’s Human Rights Committee adopted on Tuesday, 19 November 2013, urging the Burmese government to give the stateless Rohingya minority equal access to citizenship and to crack down on Buddhist violence against them and other Muslims in the country.
Reiterating UNGA’s “serious concern” about violent attacks and other abuses against the Rohingya and other Muslim minorities elsewhere, the resolution also urges the government “to undertake full, transparent and independent investigations into all reports of human rights violations.”
Welcoming the resolution the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office said the root causes of the violence in Rakhine State and other parts of Burma must be addressed and those responsible for violence must be held accountable.
But it is appalling that the Burmese government has rejected the call by UNGA’s human rights committee saying the country does not recognize the existence of “a Rohingya minority”.
Rejecting the UN’s call for citizenship, National League for Democracy headed by Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and Rakhine Nationalities Development Party led by Dr. Aye Maung also slammed the rights commission of “interfering” in Burma’s internal affairs.
In an interview with Irrawaddy Dr. Aye Maung said “We won’t give them [the Rohingyas] our land, not even one inch. We will protect our land by giving our lives. These hostile attitudes indicate that they have no consideration of the human rights of Rohingya; they pretend not to know the facts that the violation of human rights cannot be termed as an internal affairs of a country and that the denial of citizenship of a people or Rohingya is an international crime.
The international community has repeatedly condemned the existing oppressive 1982 Burma Citizenship Law as discriminating against the Rohingyas and called for its amendments to conform it to international law standards in order to address the issue of Rohingya citizenship.
However, we still expect that good sense prevails in the minds of the Burmese authorities and political leaders to restore the full citizenship of Rohingya as an ethnic people of the Union of Burma/Myanmar.
For more information, please contact:
Nurul Islam: + 44-7947854652
Habibur Rahman: + 880-1817012919
Email: info@rohingya.org
www.rohingya.org