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Rohingya Policies and Restrictions under Myanmar’s New Government
Joint Briefing Paper of FIDH - International Federation for Human Rights, 26 October 2016.
Since taking power on 30 March 2016, Myanmar’s new government, which is dominated by Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, has done little to address the situation of Rohingya in the country. While the government has taken a number of steps to improve the Human rights situation in the country, it has failed to adequately address the long–‐standing discriminatory and abusive practices against Rohingya in Rakhine State.
The NLD has made no attempt to remove the legal obstacles that seriously restrict the fundamental rights of Rohingya. Shortly after the NLD’s victory in the November 2015 election, NLD Central Executive Committee member Win Htein said that addressing the situation of Rohingya was not among the party’s priorities and maintained that most Rohingya were illegal immigrants who had to be “returned” to Bangladesh.
Parliament, dominated by NLD lawmakers, and the executive branch, headed by President Htin Kyaw and State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, have failed to take any action towards the review and amendment of the 1982 Citizenship Law. The law is not in line with international standards and restricts access to citizenship for Rohingya. In June and September 2012, Aung San Suu Kyi stated that Myanmar’s citizenship laws needed to be reviewed in order to be in line with international standards. Instead of encouraging a parliamentary review of the 1982 Citizenship Law, the government has pursued the previous administration’s flawed approach to the issue of Rohingya citizenship. [See below, Pilot citizenship verification launched].
In addition, during its first and second regular sessions (1 February -‐ 10 June 2016 and 25 July 2016 -‐ present ), Parliament failed to introduce any proposals to repeal or amend the four so-‐called ‘Race and Religion Protection Laws.’ The four laws, adopted by the previous Parliament between April and August 2015, are discriminatory towards Myanmar’s religious minorities, including Rohingya, and contravene the country’s international legal obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
