Burma

“Caged without a roof : Apartheid in Myanmar’s Rakhine State” is the title of Amnesty International’s latest report on Myanmar/Burma, covering the background to the crisis which has seen hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from Rakhine State into Bangladesh.

Over the past two years Amnesty International has documented discrimination, in law, policy and practice, against the Rohingya and other Muslim communities living in Rakhine State. Our research findings reveal that in Rakhine State virtually every aspect of Rohingya and other Muslims’ lives is restricted.

The report describes how the recent wave of violence in northern Rakhine State occurs in a wider context of long-standing, systematic discrimination and segregation. It demonstrates in detail how the Rohingya are denied the right to a nationality and the ability to participate in public life, and how all Muslims in Rakhine State face severe restrictions in law or practice on their rights to freedom of movement, access to healthcare, to education, and to an adequate standard of living, both in terms of livelihoods and in terms of food security. It further explains how Muslim communities also face violations of their right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

The report concludes that because of the racial and religious base of the discrimination against the Rohingya and other Muslims, and the policies’ clear aim of dominating, segregating and isolating these communities they amount to the crime against humanity of apartheid. In its conclusion the report offers a long list of detailed recommendations to the Myanmar authorities, the international community and the UN on how to dismantle the system of apartheid in Rakhine State.

There is a link to a press release about the report here and a link to the full report here, together with a petition demanding that the Myanmar authorities end the armed forces’ campaign of violence and human rights abuses.