Kyauktaw’s Rohingya Community Rejects NV Cards

The Rohingya community in Kyauktaw unanimously rejected the NV Cards also known as the National Verification Cards on Thursday (Mar 30) after their compatriots in Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Sittwe (Akyab) Townships, it has been reported.

The Mrauk-U District Immigration Chief, U Myint Thein; the Kyauktaw Township Administrator and Immigration Chief; and other administrative bodies held a meeting with the local Rohingyas at the village of ‘Khong Touk’ locally known as ‘Hondol’ in Kyauktaw at around 12:00 noon regarding the issue of the NV Card.

During the meeting, the authorities lured the locals to accept the NV Cards. The District Immigration Chief U Myint Thein said “if you take NV Card, you can travel and do all other things. You can apply for citizenship, too, after receiving the NV Cards.”

Meanwhile, an elderly Rohingya man stood up and said “the 1982 Citizenship Law has nothing to do with us. It’s not for us. We were one of the indigenous groups even before the establishment of 1982 Citizenship Law.” As he continued to express his views, the authorities abruptly stopped him and insulted him “are you a lawyer or something? You don’t need to be a busybody. So, be quiet.”

Then, the authorities asked the remaining people in the meeting if they wanted to accept the NV Cards, to which all of the people unanimously replied ‘NO.’

Before leaving the meeting at 1:30 pm, the authorities did try to coax the people saying “those who have National Registration Cards (NRCs) can apply for the Citizenship Cards. Those who don’t have NRCs must accept the NV Cards.” But the people present didn’t seem interested in the inducement.

The Rohingya people as a whole categorically reject the NVC as it is meant to issue to the foreigners recently arrived in Myanmar and valid for only two years. Therefore, accepting these cards will automatically deprive the Rohingya people of their indigenous status with the identity ‘Rohingya,’ disqualify their citizenship rights by birth and deny them their full rights as citizens.

The Myanmar authorities have severely restricted Rohingya movements and access to their livelihoods since March 19 for refusing to accept the NV Cards in order to force them cease their resistance against the NV Cards.

Myanmar Armed Forces Raid Rohingya Village in Northern Maungdaw

The Myanmar armed forces launched a surprise raid on a Rohingya village called ‘Dudan’ in Northern Maungdaw this morning and have detained at least one hundred villagers since then, according to the reliable sources.

Approximately 1,000 members of the Myanmar military and Border Guard Police (BGP) jointly began to round up the village of ‘Dudan’ locally known as ‘Ludain’ at around 10:00 AM and arbitrarily detained more than 100 people in the village’s school.

While the raids are still going on, the villagers detained are being interrogated with at least two people reported to have been arrested thus far. They are:
1) Idiris (20), s/o Mohammed Hakim
2) Auli Ullah (35), s/o Sayed Amin

“We don’t know why the military and the BGP are raiding our houses and detaining the villagers. It was all of a sudden. We couldn’t offer Friday prayer. We are really terrified”, said a villager while fleeing to escape the arrests by the military.

The exact numbers of the arrestees can not be verified from any sources at the moment and two people have been released from being held.

No harassments or molestations of the Rohingya women by the Myanmar armed forces have been reported yet.

Border Guard Police Tortures Rohingya Villagers in Buthidaung

The Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) has recently started to subject the local Rohingya villagers in southern Buthidaung to arbitrary tortures and money extortions, according to the local sources.

On Tuesday (Mar 28), five Rohingya workers from ‘Mraung Na’ village were severely tortured by the Commander of the BGP Camp based at ‘Aaka Pyan’ Rakhine village in southern Buthidaung.

“The five people were hired by the abbot of the monastery at a Mro village called ‘Yon Khone’ for cutting trees. While they are working on it, the ‘Aaka Pyan’ based BGP Commander arrived at the place; and began to racially insult them and beat them. Although the six workers said to the Commander that they were working for the monastery, still he continued to brutally beat them.

“Finally, the BGP stopped torturing the people only when each of the victims agreed to pay the Commander Kyat 60,000”, said an eyewitness on the condition of anonymity.

The victims are identified as:
1) Junaid (18), s/o Kadir Hussain
2) Dudu Meah (25), s/o Shuna Ali
3) Abdul Malik (20), s/o Mohammed Hussain
4) Mohammed Amin (18), s/o Habibullah
5) Ayat Ullah (20), s/o Khala Meah

Of the give people tortured, Abdul Malik (30) was critically injured and hasn’t been recovered yet.

On Wednesday (March 29) afternoon, another Rohingya man from ‘Thabbyay Taung’ village locally known as ‘Kiyaa Zongya Fara’ was tortured by the same BGP Commander based at the ‘Aaka Pyan’ village.

The victim identified as Shomsul Alam (28), s/o Noor Islam makes his living after collecting firewoods in the village and selling them in the market. He was stopped and tortured by the BGP while he was on his way to the forest I collect firewoods.

The victims suffered severe injuries on his face and mouth; and has since been vomitting blood from his mouth, reports said.

The Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) robbed goats belonged to a helpless Rohingya woman in northern Maungdaw on Tuesday (Feb 21), it has been reported.

At around 12:00 noon on Tuesday, a group of the BGP personnel from the Region 6 camp in northern Maungdaw travelling towards the downtown on a van. The BGP caught some goats grazing by the Kyikanpyin (Hawar Bil)-Maungdaw Expressway post the Kyikanpyin checkpost, put them on the van and took them away.

The livestock belonged to ‘Ms. Mariam d/o Noor Ali, 32, from Kyikanpyin, a helpless mother of three children estranged from her husband when he got jailed in Malaysia after he fled from Myanmar to escape violence.

She, after the BGP had robbed her goats, said “the BGP and the military are not public servants but trained and licensed robbers.”

On Thursday (Feb 23), Sub-lieutenant Myint Kyu, the In-charge of the BGP Camp at Maung Ni village, arrested a poor man from the village on an arbitrary accusation of gambling and detained in the Camp. The next day, the BGP In-charge extorted Kyat 400,000 from him for his release.

A local man in the village said “this sub-lieutenant policeman was here as the in-charge of the cano during **Nasaka time too. Then, also, he was notorious for money extortions. Now, he has been enough posted here again as the BGP In-charge. So, he has resumed his money extortion business. We request the higher officials or the concerned quarters to take actions against the corrupted officers like him.”

**Nasaka is the former Border Security Force and the preceding department of the Border Guard Police.

More than 200 Rohingya civilians arrested in northern Maungdaw on 14th November 2016 are now facing arbitrary trials and subjected to long-term imprisonments, reports say.

On the November 14 last year, the Myanmar military rounded up the village of ‘Ye Dwin Chaung’ and arrested more than 200 innocent Rohingya men taking refuge in the village to escape from arbitrary arrests in its neighboring villages — such as ‘Pwin Phyu Chaung’ and ‘Kyar Gaung Taunt.’ They were detained without sufficient foods to eat and brutally tortured in the cells of the Border Guard Police (BGP) headquarter for two weeks.

Afterwards, they were transferred to the Buthidaung prison, where the authorities have tortured them less but detained them without providing critically required medical treatments; and regular and proper meals since then.

It has been learnt that the authorities are now putting the victims on arbitrary trials under four criminal charges — such as Section 302 (Murder), Section 17/1 (Unlawful Association Act), Section 324 (Voluntarily Causing Hurt by Dangerous Weapons) and one more — and using the office of the clerks of the Buthidaung Township Administration as an alternative courtroom for the trial.

The victims were apparently given the rights to hire their own lawyers.

“The victims have been allowed to hire their own lawyers. But winning margin of their cases are extremely slim, according to some lawyers, as all the prosecutors and the witnesses are the military themselves”, said a man, related to a victim charged under the false cases, while speaking to Rohingya Vision on the condition of anonymity.

The man further added “hundreds of other victims arrested and sentenced to long-term imprisonments earlier didn’t even get the right to know under what charges they were jailed. Neither did the lawyers working for Maungdaw High Court. The Judge made to the place of the detention and just read out the verdicts and terms of the imprisonments to the victims”

More than 1,500 innocent village men have been arrested and detained or imprisoned since the Myanmar military and the Border Guard Police began the so-called “Region Clearance Operation” in Maungdaw on October 9, 2016. Many of whom have been reported to have either died by falling sick due to ruthless tortures or been mercilessly killed after the arrests.

The displaced locals at the village of ‘Kyikanpyin’ will likely be able to return to their original places according to the verbal permission given by the Border Guard Police (BGP) in Maungdaw on Friday (Feb 17) afternoon, sources have reported.

The Myanmar military and the BGP conducted sporadic attacks on ‘Wapeik’ hamlet of the village of ‘Kyikanpyin’ in northern Maungdaw and burnt down the locals’ homes in October 2016, while ‘Middle hamlet’ (of Kyikanpyin) was entirely removed with the order of the BGP Commander ‘Brigadier General Thura San Lwin’ on October 23, 2016, displacing several hundreds of local people in the village.

At around 2:30 PM on February 17, ‘Brigadier General Thura San Lwin’ summoned the displaced people from these two hamlets for a meeting and told them they could return to their original places.

“The BGP Commander ‘Thura San Lwin’ said that they had to burn down homes in the Wapeik hamlet and expel people from the Middle hamlet because the terrorists were hiding in there and we could now return to our original places. According to him, the villagers of Wapeik can rebuild their houses, but the villagers of the middle hamlet can only repair their houses as they were not burnt down but damaged by the Natalas, illegal Rakhine settlers.

Besides, some displaced families of Wapeik whose houses were near to the BGP headquarter won’t be able return to their original lands but will be relocated somewhere else. He also threatened the people attending the meeting that the whole Kyikanpyin will be wiped out from the map if incidents like October 9, 2016 attacks happen again”, said a local, who attended the meeting on the condition of anonymity.

“However, we are still skeptic. We don’t know if we are permanently allowed to return to our original places or it was just an attempt to create news headlines on it and reduce international pressures,” he added.

During the meeting, the BGP Commander also accused three ordinary villagers of Kyikanpyin as people linked with insurgents in the region. Locals have confirmed them to be just simple and innocent people targeted and blacklisted by the BGP because they met with the UN-led Diplomats on November 2 and other UN representatives. They are:

• Salimullah (s/o) Abdu Gaffar, a shopkeeper from the middle hamlet
• Shafiur Rahman, a volunteer school teacher from Wapeik
• Haarsoo, a fishery pond owner from Wapeik

Although the BGP Commander allowed the displaced people of Wapeik to return their home lands, the village administrator of Kyikanpyin, U Zaw Phyo Tun (a Rakhine), stopped the people on the way to the northern part of Wapeik, which is the main section of the village, mentioning that the village section is near to ‘Aung Zay Zayar’ village, an illegal Natala Rakhine settlement.

At around 6:45 PM yesterday (on Feb 17), the house of Hussain (son of) Abdu Karim at the Middle Hamlet was set on fire. When the neighboring Rohingya villagers rushed to the place to extinguish the fire, they saw a group of Natala Rakhine extremists including the one identified as U Tun Kyi (27), s/o U Thein Maung fleeing from the scene on motorcycles. Earlier, at around 6:00 PM, a Rohingya from the Kyikanpyin village also witnessed the group of Rakhine extremists sitting by the road before the house set ablaze later.

The Myanmar Border Guard Police (BGP) arrested six Rohingya figureheads in southern Maungdaw for skipping a meeting held on Sunday (on Feb 19) in relation to National Verification Card also called NVC, it has been reported.

The Rakhine (formerly known as Arakan) State minister, Colonel Htin Lin; and the Maungdaw Township Administrator and his team visited the village of ‘Alay Than Kyaw (locally called Haishshu Rata)’ yesterday afternoon. Then, they summoned the local figureheads and representatives of the village for a meeting related to the NVC at the village administration office at around 2:30 pm.

Some local figureheads attended the meeting, while the most skipped it, according to a local source. The Rakhine state minister ordered the villagers through the meeting to accept the NVC. A Rohingya cleric as well as other figureheads that attended the meeting questioned and opposed the order.

After the meeting was over, at around 6:00 pm of the day, the Border Guard Police from the Region 7 Camp conducted raids on the residences of the six Rohingya figureheads that had been absent in the meeting and arrested five of them (i.e. six figureheads). Meanwhile, the Border Guards arrested the wife of another figurehead as he was not present in his house at the time of the raids. They detained her in the police camp until her husband came and handed himself over to the BGP to release her.

Three of them released later having forced them to agree to accept the NVCs.
They are:
1) Lalu (30), Jamil
2) Nabi Uddin (50)
3) Fayazu (70), Nurul Jamal

Meanwhile, three others have still been detained in the BGP. They are:
1) Dr. Rashid (75)
2) Sayedullah (52), Moghul (he has been detained since he surrendered himself to release his wife on February 19 evening.)
3) Sayedullah (70), Ali Akhbar

The Rohingya people as a whole categorically reject the NVC as it is meant to issue to the foreigners recently arrived in Myanmar and valid for only two years. Therefore, accepting these cards will automatically deprive the Rohingya people of their indigenous status with the identity ‘Rohingya,’ disqualify their citizenship rights by birth.

Additional Report: The Myanmar government has severely restricted the movement of Rohingya people in Maungdaw for refusing to accept the NVC. The BGP is not allowing the people to go past the checkposts across Maungdaw without NVCs in their possessions.

[Edited by M.S. Anwar]