Page 96 - Beautiful Rohingyas

94 Beautiful Rohingyas

Restrictions on the movements of Muslims were imposed follow-
ing Burmese independence in 1948, the aim being to eliminate the
Muslim population of Rakhine entirely. A military regime that took
power following a coup in 1962 entirely rejected the identity of the
Muslim people and began using propaganda to depict them as for-

eigners. They were removed from their posts in the police and the
civil service and were prohibited from moving freely in the province
of Rakhine.

Muslims, to whom Rakhine actually belongs, have been living
under very harsh conditions again since 1990. There has been system-
atic pressure intended to reduce the population. They are unable to

engage in agriculture or raise livestock because of arbitrary local tax-
ation. Their lands are being taken into public ownership. Other exam-
ples of the persecution of Muslims include arrests, torture, the
destruction of mosques and cemeteries, Muslim girls being taken
away from their village under the pretext of 'development of the sta-
tus of women,' and their being deprived of their rights to education. 4

The Rohingya Muslims have been forced from their own lands,
their true homeland to migrate to other countries in search of safety.
The people to whom these lands really belong are today abandoning
their roots, culture and history and struggling to survive under harsh
conditions as refugees in other countries. More than 240,000 Muslims
in Burma are living as refugees inside the country, and citizenship

rights are denied to more than 810,000 Muslims living in the country.
5
There are 120,000 refugees on the border with Thailand. There are
also Rohingya Muslims with refugee status in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia,
Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh and some European countries. One

and a half million Rohingya Muslims are living at the hunger thresh-
old in Bangladesh alone, trying to survive in the jungles and valley
margins.