With the military coup, almost all the people of Myanmar are suffering the effects of the military coup.
Tens of thousands of people, including the president of Myanmar’s elected people’s government, have been arrested, prosecuted, and unjustly sentenced to prison terms.
Similarly, the Rohingya, who are the most oppressed and the most violated of human rights in Myanmar, are being unjustly arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to prison terms.
All of them are not people who have committed any crime, but they have been unjustly arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to prison while traveling.
The Rohingya say that they are arrested and prosecuted not only when traveling from Rakhine state to other areas, but also when traveling within the state.
The Rohingyas also say that their basic human rights are being violated, and their freedom of travel has already reached for four decades almost.
The Rohingyas also say that all of them have been deprived of their human rights for almost a generation in open-air prisons, so they are fleeing for their lives to seek a better future and a better environment.
The Rohingya are mostly settled in the northern part of the Rakhine state in Myanmar and they practice Islam.
They are a Muslim minority in Myanmar and the second most populous ethnic group in Rakhine state, but they are losing equal rights and are discriminated against and oppressed, so they say many people have displaced their homes and moved.
There are nearly two million people in Rakhine State, and most of them live in the cities of Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Rathaetaung, Sittwe, Pauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk U, Kyauktaw, Thandwe.
They say that they have been discriminated against in Myanmar since the time of dictator U Ne Win.
It is also said that since 1990, the Rohingyas in Rakhine State have been fleeing from their homes and moving to convenient places in Bangladesh.
In Maungdaw District, Rakhine State, where most of them live, they built and established the Border Region Immigration Inspection Command Headquarters(Na-Ka-Sa), issued local orders, and committed human rights violations.
These local ordinances include requiring marriage and divorce permits to be filed and obtained, registering them separately, and classifying children born as illegitimate.
The local orders issued by the Border Region Immigration Inspection Command Headquarters (Na-Sa-Ka) were canceled only on July 12, 2018.
Before this was abolished, religious and ethnic conflicts occurred in Rakhine State with the transition to democracy in Myanmar.
“Between June and October 2012, there was widespread violence between the two communities in Rakhine State. At least 192 people were killed in this violence: (Muslim-134) and (Rakhine – 85),” the final report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine states.
As a result of the conflict, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have been forced to leave their homes and live in temporary refugee camps for more than a decade.
“Both communities were affected by the violence, but the level of destruction of private property was uneven. Out of the 8,624 houses that were destroyed, 7,422 were owned by Muslims, which is about 87 percent of the total damage,” the Rakhine Commission reported.
In addition, “there are nearly 140,000 people displaced by the conflict, of which more than 95 percent are Muslims, and 120,000 of them are living in IDP camps with poor sanitation and bad conditions.
It is also reported that Muslims have been forced to leave their homes in many areas of the state, including Sittwe city and Kyauk Phyu Township.
In addition, the National League for Democracy – NLD government released a report on September 2, 2017, that 163 people were killed and 91 people were missing due to attacks by extremist terrorists in Maungdaw, Rakhine State, from October 9, 2016, to September 26, 2017.
The Kaman people say that not only the Rohingyas who have suffered the effects of the conflict in Rakhine but all the Muslims in Rakhine have been oppressed by successive governments and the military’s unjust laws.
Rohingya IDPs in Rakhine have not been able to return home and have been living in temporary refugee camps for more than ten years, and they are said to be facing worse conditions as international humanitarian aid groups have been banned and restricted since the military coup.
The Rohingya community says that those who cannot feel the effects of such a famine are fleeing their homes and moving around in order to survive, but they are being unjustly arrested and prosecuted by the coup military.
“We want equal rights. We want to be able to move freely. We want to return to our original place,” said a Rohingya from the Darpaing IDP camp in Sittwe.
“Due to the long-term lack of stability and the threat of terrorism and the lack of employment opportunities, Rakhine and Muslims in the state have left their homes and left for other areas, which has led to the problem of labor shortages in various sectors of the state,” said the Rakhine Commission.
“Furthermore, poverty and discrimination have led thousands of Muslims to settle in other countries in the region, such as Malaysia and Indonesia.”
“When they leave for other regions, most of them depend on illegal smuggling networks, and most of them are believed to die during the dangerous sea journey,” the final report of the advisory commission on Rakhine State states.
On the same night as the report was released, the biggest violence occurred in the Maungdaw region, and hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas had to flee for their lives.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) released on March 12, 2018, that 362 Rohingya villages were destroyed by fire and more than 680,000 people fled their homes due to the Maungdaw conflict in 2017.
Although the coup army has announced that they will accept the Rohingyas, the SAC has not officially said that they will accept the demands of the Rohingyas, and most of those areas have already been controlled and dominated by the Arakan Army (AA).
After the military coup against the democratic government, from February 2021 to December 2022, nearly 2020 Rohingya who tried to leave their homes were detained by the SAC and about 500 of them were sentenced to prison terms, Rohingya and observers say.
In this way, while leaving their homes and moving, there are still people who die of starvation, injuries and being killed on the way. The Rohingya say that most of them are victims of fraud by local authorities, traffickers, and brokers.
It is said that not only the Rohingya from Rakhine State but also the Rohingya who are taking refuge in Bangladesh are also facing various difficulties.
The Rohingya community said that a boat carrying nearly two hundred Rohingyas who left the Cox’s Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh in the third week of November is floating in the sea near Indonesia due to mechanical failure, lack of food and water, and their lives are in danger.
The Rohingya refugees left Bangladesh in three boats three days apart in the third week of last November.
He said that the first boat carrying about 160 people had a mechanical failure and was floating in the sea for 10 days. When ten refugees died, a Vietnamese oil company ship found them and rescued them, and handed them over to the Myanmar Navy.
The Rohingyas and the international community are worried that the SAC will take action against those people who have been handed over and impose prison sentences.
The Rohingyas in Rakhine are not recognized as citizens and are restricted by the Citizenship Law of 1982, so the Rohingyas who want to move freely are like a money pit for the local authorities and security personnel.
The Rakhine Commission suggested that the “Government should take actions on illegal restrictions such as paying bribes to gain access to travel, blocking roads, and paying policemen to provide security when Muslims travel. Those criminals should also be prosecuted according to the existing law.”
The Rakhine Commission recommended that to allow the Rohingyas from Rakhine to move freely, “to have equality in the legal system, the national government should find and review the laws and regulations issued by regions that restrict the rights and freedoms of minorities in Rakhine State.”
The international community has also recommended that Rohingyas who have been displaced from their homes and are on the move should not be arrested and prosecuted by the SAC and given full citizenship rights after being verified by law.