Rohingya people

The Rohingya are mostly a Muslim ethnic group of the Northern Rakhine State of Western Burma. The Rohingya population is mostly concentrated in two northern townships of Rakhine State (formerly known as Arakan).

Rohingyas history starting in the 7th century, Arab merchants began to settle in Arakan. This process continued also with the Mughals. Later in the century, the British captured control of Burma after the third Anglo-Burman war.^[2]

While some historians write that the modern Rohingya people are the result of migrations that started in the 7th century, the Buddhist Rakhine people and the Burmese military government claim that such migrations started in the 18th century.^[3]

The Rohingya are physically, linguistically and culturally similar to South Asians, especially Chittagonian people. Some of the Rohingya settling in Arakan are descendants of Arabs, Persians and Pathans who migrated to Arakan during the Mughal Empire.^{[citation needed]}

Sultan Mahmood, a wealthy and influential Rohingya, was the political secretary in U Nu’s government and was later appointed as Health Minister. Other Rohingya Muslims in U Nu’s government as parliamentary secretaries were Sultan Ahmed and Abdul Gaffar. Abdul Bashar, Zohora Begum, Abul Khair, Abdus Sobhan, Abdul Bashar, Rashid Ahmed, and Nasiruddin (U Pho Khine) were also members of Parliament of U Nu’s cabinet.

According to Amnesty International, the Rohingya people have continued to suffer from human rights violations under the Burmese junta since 1978, and many have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh as a result:^[4]

"The Rohingyas’ freedom of movement is severely restricted and the vast majority of them have effectively been denied Myanmar citizenship. They are also subjected to various forms of extortion and arbitrary taxation; land confiscation; forced eviction and house destruction; and financial restrictions on marriage. Rohingyas continue to be used as forced labourers on roads and at military camps, although the amount of forced labour in northern Rakhine State has decreased over the last decade."

"In 1978 over estimated number of 200,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh, following the ‘Nagamin’ (‘Dragon King’) operation of the Myanmar army. Officially this campaign aimed at "scrutinising each individual living in the state, designating citizens and foreigners in accordance with the law and taking actions against foreigners who have filtered into the country illegally". This military campaign directly targeted civilians, and resulted in widespread killings, rape and destruction of mosques and further religious persecution."

"During 1991-92 a new wave of the over estimated number of a quarter of a million Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh. They reported widespread forced labour, as well as summary executions, torture, and rape. Rohingyas were forced to work without pay by the Myanmar army on infrastructure and economic projects, often under harsh conditions. Many other human rights violations occurred in the context of forced labour of Rohingya civilians by the security forces."

On February 6, 2009, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda criticized Burma for their abuse of Rohingya, after nearly 400 Rohingya refugees were rescued off the coast of Sumatra in the first month of 2009.^[5]

Subsequent waves of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled Burma and many refugees inundated neighbouring Bangladesh including 250,000 in 1978 as a result of the King Dragon operation in Arakan. In 1991, following a crackdown on Rohingyas, 250,000 refugees took shelter in the Cox's Bazar district of neighbouring Bangladesh. Some were later repatriated back to the nation that denied them citizenship. Some are still in exile, living in Bangladesh,Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. As of 2005, the UNHCR had been assisting with the repatriation of Rohingya from Bangladesh, but allegations of human rights abuses in the refugee camps have threatened this effort.^[6]

Despite earlier efforts by the UN, the vast majority of Rohingya refugees have remained in Bangladesh, unable to return because of the regime in Burma. Now they face problems in Bangladesh where they do not receive support from the government.^[7] In February 2009, many Rohingya refugees were helped by Acehnese sailors in the Strait of Malacca, after 21 days at sea.^[8]

The Rohingya language is the modern written language of the Rohingya People of Arakan (Rakhine) State in Burma (Myanmar). It is linguistically similar to the Chittagonian dialect of Bengali. The first written Rohingya language was 1969. During the long colonial period under British rule, Urdu, English and Arabic were the main languages used. Since then, scholars have written the Rohingya language using the Arabic, Urdu, Hanifi and Burmese scripts. Being the new alphabets, Hanifi script was derived mainly from Arabic, and a few letters added from Latin and Burmese Scripts. It has been developed using only Latin letters to make it compatible with modern technology. Rohingya language has been successfully written using Roman script, known as Rohingyalish which has been recognized by ISO with ISO 639-3 "rhg" code.^[9]

Religion is particularly important to the Rohingya people, who are predominantly Muslims. Mosques and religious schools occupy most villages. Traditionally, men pray in congregation and women pray at home.