The Plight of the Rohingya

                                                                                                        Isaac & Mike 

The Muslim Rohingya population in Myanmar is treated so poorly that they must flee the country, where their prospects are still very bleak. The Rohingya people have been in in Myanmar many generations, but the Burmese treat them as if they were all illegal immigrants. This is apparent when “there are 1.33 million Rohingya in Burma" and "only 40,000 have citizenship". This lack of citizenship allows them to be discriminated against in a society that strongly dislikes them. In 2013 there was a massive wave of violence against the Rohingya people by “radical Buddhist monks ". This has forced over 100,000 people into government camps where they are then not allowed to leave. This isolation cuts the Rohingya people away from the general population, and deprives them of “education, healthcare, employment" and many other things. Besides just a physical separation of the group, there are also social separations.  The Burmese government passed a law that forces the Rohingya to apply for permission to marry where they are faced with unfair requirements and prevented from marrying the main population. This mistreatment of the Rohingya is so wide spread in Myanmar that "even Aung San Suu Kyi, a leader known as a model of political courage and moral probity" refuses to acknowledge the issue. The massive amount of discrimination causes the Rohingya people to attempt to flee Myanmar. Due to being held hostage by their own government, they must rely on smugglers to attempt to flee. Now many Rohingya are stuck in a limbo between foreign countries that refuse to accept them and their home witch they cannot return to. The smugglers who took them out of Myanmar mainly seek profit, leaving these stranded refugees in hazardous and often deadly situations.

What is happening in Myanmar violates the UDHR and many other UN covenants that Myanmar has ratified. The rights to live as part of a society, the right to hold public office, the right to vote, the right to work, the right to own property, the list goes on. These and many others are being directly violated by the Buddhist majority in the country. A major source of their woes is the lack of citizenship for these people. The government denies citizenship for the Rohingya because of the lack of official paperwork even though many had been living in the area for hundreds of years. The denying of citizenship violates the UN convention on the rights of children by denying them the right to be a citizen of their nation of home birth, a document the Myanmar ratified. 

Another right that is of great importance that is violated is the right to life. In Myanmar the government does nothing to protect the Rohingya from Anti-Muslim riots.   “120,000 asylum seekers have left from Myanmar and Bangladesh this year.” Many of these people who are smuggled across the Indonesian Sea die in route to their destinations.  Then when they reach Malaysia or Thailand, hundreds die at the hands of the respective governments because they refuse to let them ashore. The plight of these refugees is in some ways similar to that of the Syrian refugees. 

Questions:

1.  How should the U.N intervene in helping the Rohingya people .
2. should the U.S rethink it's 2012 lifting of sanctions from Myanmar, or take another approach?
3.  Should Buddhist leaders in other countries be responsible for trying to calm the Buddhist population of Myanmar. 

Links

1.https://uscampaignforburma.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/racism-in-burma-4-discriminatory-laws-against-rohingya-muslims

2.http://www.fortifyrights.org/downloads/Policies_of_Persecution_Feb_25_Fortify_Rights.pdf

3.http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/06/burma-rohingya-migration-ban/395729/

4.http://www.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-thxOjFCJVec%2FVNu1vx0UF2I%2FAAAAAAAAzIY%2FIjQ8HUHtZ6o%2Fs1600%2Fapkmw9.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rohingyablogger.com%2F2015%2F02%2Fmyanmar-leader-voids-temporary-id-cards.html&h=663&w=959&tbnid=73wislzdVEDEUM%3A&docid=0rSBQ-7wSVP1VM&ei=3RkLVrDpD8qSyAT7paxI&tbm=isch&iact=rc&uact=3&dur=879&page=1&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=0CCYQrQMwAmoVChMI8Muhm66dyAIVSgmSCh37EgsJ

The Migrant Crisis

           

            The migrant crisis in Europe has been dominating headlines lately, mainly due to the sheer number of immigrant flooding over onto the continent. Europe has always drawn people seeking safer and more prosperous regions. Africans and Middle Easterners frequently try to gain entrance and Visas to European nations in search of better jobs and living conditions.  It was an issue of contention years ago, but the civil war in Syria and the destabilization in the Middle East due to the ISIS and following the Arab Spring has exacerbated the trend until Europe finds itself overwhelmed. There are over 4 million people displaced just from Syria, the majority of which have been taken in by very poor nations such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq, Egypt, and the slightly better off Turkey. These countries are not able to handle such an influx, due to their small size and lack of funds. In these countries, the Syrians live in refugee camps and are unable to legally find jobs and are often unable to access even the most basic education. Obviously not content with this, they are searching for a better life elsewhere in nations that are able to support them. While a logical area for these refugees may be the Gulf States, these oil-rich countries are refusing to help. Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE have not offered any kind of resettlement and have put into place complicated and expensive application processes in order to deter Syrians from trying to gain asylum. Since the only countries capable of hosting the immigrants are refusing to help, the Syrians and other migrants are crossing the sea into Europe. This is a dangerous journey, and thousands of lives have been lost when run down, overcrowded, ships led by inept captains have capsized. Those that survive arrive in Europe, where they are shepherded from camp-to-camp, and country-to-country.  A quota system is being worked on, but not all of Europe has accepted it, and some are openly rejecting it. Germany, which is the favored destination due to its generous social programs, is already holding hundreds of thousands, and cannot continue to shoulder the burden alone. Sadly, the US is essentially refusing to help, and has pledged to take in just 10,000 refugees this year, which will hardly make a dent in the problem. The US application process also takes 18 months to complete and is highly inefficient. Overall, Europe is on its own in trying to resettle so many refugees and economic immigrants. It is going to be an expensive and painful process in the years to come, and there is always the looming threat that extremists are pretending to be migrants in order to gain access to Europe. This fear, exasperated by attacks this year in France and other countries, help turn people against the immigrants. No one knows what will happen next, but it is clear that something must be done to help the refugees and those simply seeking a better life.

Since 2014 when Syria’s armed conflict intensified, with increasing bloody government attacks on civilians, human rights in Syria have only declined; at the same time, those who flee Syria in search of peace are often only met with further human rights violations. The Syrian government has been accused of abducting civilians and torturing detainees that often die in detainment.  During warfare, the government has persisted in dropping illegal, highly explosive bombs that are “in defiance of UN Security Council resolution 2139 passed on February 22.” Groups that are against the government commit similar crimes, and even have been accused of using child soldiers.  Therefore it is evident that both those for and against the Syrian government have violated not only many core human rights treaties, such as the convention proclaiming the rights of children of 1989 (which bars children from armed conflict), but even have violated pre-UN documents, such as the Geneva convention of 1863 (which limits the brutality of warfare), along with more recent UN resolutions.  These are just two examples of violations of international human rights law by the Syrian government and anti-government militias, so it is obvious why so many citizens have fled to take refuge in other countries.  However, life as a Syrian refugee in Turkey, Iraq, and other neighboring countries can be a life without support and without important resources, such as medical services.  In refugee camps, there is more structure, however families can begin to feel trapped and crowded in such circumstances.  Recently, in the news, we have seen many Syrians attempt to make the long journey to European countries, which can be dangerous and harrowing in and of itself.  Once the refugees make it to European countries such as Hungary and Greece, they are unwanted; for example, the Hungarian government, overwhelmed by refugees in recent weeks, has given up trying to stop people from crossing its border, despite its attempts at building an actual razor-wire fence, and constant anti-immigrant sentiment. Even in the developed world, they are unable to handle the amount of refugees, and often governments resort to inhumane and inexpensive methods of handling Syrians. There is a certain degree of Islamophobia at work here, considering almost all of the Syrian refugees are Muslim, and there has been some hostility recently in Europe towards the Islamic faith.  Some countries outright have barred Muslims from entering, but others are more indirect in their rejection, allowing refugees in but sometimes detaining them unfairly for days on end.

Discussion Questions: 

1) Whose responsibility is it to help the Syrian refugees?

2) Should the migrants be expected to assimilate or should Europe accommodate them?
3) Does the US have a right to place its security over the safety of Syrian refugees?
4) Are the Gulf States obligated to accept Syrian refugees? Economic immigrants?
5) How much should a fear of extremists and terrorists influence domestic immigration policy?

                                                                                                                                                                      Sources for further reading:

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/country-chapters/syria

http://www.mercycorps.org/articles/turkey-iraq-jordan-lebanon-syria/quick-facts-what-you-need-know-about-syria-crisis

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters-notebook/migrants/hungary-treatment-refugees

http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/130008668021/the-island-we-landed-on-was-called-samothrace

By Emma Ritz and Emily McBride