Since the military junta seized power in a coup in Burma on 1st Feb 2021, over 1,500 civilians have been killed and thousands more injured.
Security forces are indiscriminately attacking and arbitrarily arresting, detaining and abducting civilians in cities and towns across the country.
Please act now to help support the people of Burma.
Please write to the UN Secretary General, António Guterres and the Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney asking for action to be taken to support the Rohingya people in Burma’s Rakhine State and for those in refugee camps in Bangladesh.
Arakan State
Rohingya refugees fled violence in Western Burma’s Arakan State in 2017, with hundreds of people killed and thousands of homes destroyed. Over 742,000 people were forced to flee to refugee camps in Bangladesh. It is estimated that as of Dec 2020, there are over 860,000 Rohingya now living in these camps.
The Rohingya people are a Muslim minority group residing in North Arakan State in Western Burma. The Burmese authorities have long had discriminatory policies and practices targeting the Rohingyas. Rohingya have suffered restrictions on marriage, freedom of movement, and religious practice. In addition, the regime has routinely subjected Rohingya to forced labour, extortion, land confiscation, and other human rights abuses.
Reports: Arakan State
• A New Shape of Catastrophe: Two years on from the Rohingya Crisis
A report from the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Rights of the Rohingya, it highlights the need to refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court, to impose targeted sanctions on military companies and
to address the issue of citizenship for Rohingya people.
• Report on the detailed findings of the International Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar
Human Rights Watch describes the initial events that triggered the deadly sectarian violence which erupted in Arakan State in June 2012 as well as the acts of violence that followed by both Arakan and Rohingya, and the role of state security forces in both failing to intervene to stop sectarian violence and directly participating in abuses.
• Unrest in Burma’s Arakan State - A Chronology of Events by ALTSEAN Burma
• Forced Labour during the Arakan Crisis
The Arakan Project report provides an overview of forced labour practices in Arakan State over a 6-month period from November 2011 to May 2012.
• Crimes against Humanity in Western Burma: The Situation of the Rohingyas
In 2010, the Irish Centre for Human Rights at NUI Galway found strong evidence that crimes against humanity are being committed against the Rohingyas of Northern Arakan State in Burma.
