Myanmar disqualifies Rohingya politicians from contesting elections
Authorities in Myanmar have disqualified six Rohingya politicians from contesting the upcoming general elections for the lack of ID documents in Rakhine State, where the Muslim community has faced state-sponsored violence and apartheid-like conditions.
At least a dozen Rohingya with Myanmarese citizenship had applied to run in the November 8 general elections. At least six of them were rejected after officials said they failed to prove their parents were citizens at the time of their birth, a requirement under the election law.
“We have all these documents that the government issued, and they don’t accept the fact that my parents are citizens. I feel bad about that and concerned,” one of the rejected Rohingya candidates, Abdul Rasheed, said.
Aye Win, a Rohingya candidate who has been approved to stand in the elections, said there was little hope of victory unless many more Rohingya were granted citizenship before the vote.
While voter lists have been posted across the country, none has appeared at the camps outside Sittwe, the capital of the country’s Rakhine State. About 130,000 Rohingya Muslims live in what rights group Amnesty International has described as “apartheid” conditions in camps around Sittwe.
Successive governments in Myanmar have stripped the Rohingya of their identity documents.
“Everyone in Myanmar, regardless of their ethnicity or religion, must have the same opportunity to contest in elections,” said Tun Khin, the head of the Burma Rohingya Organization UK, urging international donors to halt funding to Myanmar.
Rakhine, home to the persecuted Rohingya Muslims, came to global attention in 2017 when more than 750,000 Rohingya, mostly women and children, fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape a military crackdown that UN investigators have said was carried out with “genocidal intent.” Bangladesh was already hosting some 200,000 Rohingya when the exodus began.
Thousands of Rohingya Muslims remain in Myanmar, confined to camps and villages and denied access to healthcare and education.
The Rohingya have inhabited Rakhine for centuries, but the state denies them citizenship. Bangladesh refuses to grant them citizenship, too.
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