Authrotiy Use Threats to Forcibly Bengalize Rohingyas in Northern Maungdaw

MYARF Report | By M.S. Anwar

November 25, 2013

Kamauk Seik, Maungdaw- On 23^rd November 2013 morning, authority of Maungdaw township visited the village of Foira-Bazaar (Kamauk-Seik), northern Maungdaw. During a meeting with Rohingyas in the region, authority threatened them with up to 7-year-imprisonment if they refuse to be registered as Bengalis during the forthcoming population census.

“On 23^rd November 2013 morning, Maungdaw Township Administrator (U Kyi Than), Maungdaw District Administrator (U Tin Aung Myint Soe), Tactical Military Operation Commander in Maungdaw and other high-level officers visited the village of Foira-Bazaar (Kamauk-Seik), northern Maungdaw. They summoned a meeting with the administrator of the village and the administrators of the neighboring villages as well.

During the meeting, they threatened Rohingyas attending at the meeting with up to 7 years imprisonment if Rohingyas refuse to be registered as Bengalis in the forthcoming population census. Myanmar authority has been using different brutal means to forcibly Bengalize us, Rohingyas, in order to make things easier to drive us out of the country some years later. Once they can brand us Bengalis, it will be easy for them to drive us out. That’s their intention.

Though we have some affiliations with the people of neighboring Bangladesh like any other ethnic people at other borders of Myanmar and those of any other countries in the world, we are not Bengalis. They are trying to strip off our human rights and ethnic rights.

And in the evening of the day, Rakhine terrorists burnt down Rohingya shops at Maungdaw Municipal Market and a historical mosque” said an elderly Rohingya in the region.