Nasaka (Burma border security force) commander of Area 7 threatened to shut down Rohingya-owned businesses if owners refuse to participate in ethnic profiling, according to a village administration officer at the May 24 meeting in Alay Than Kyaw, Maungdaw. The profiling project that began after last year’s sectarian violence requires digital signatures and photographs of Rohingya residents, who are being pressured to register as Bengali, according to the village administration officer.
“The commander called all Rohingya villagers and village admin officers to Alay Than Kyaw high school, where he had given a speech (to join the program).” The commander also threatened the villagers; he will shut down all businesses – fishing, farming [etc.] - if they do not join the program.
“If anyone doesn’t comply with the order, he/she will be punished according to the law and be imprisoned five years,” the commander was reported as saying.
While UNFPA has stated that any independent household data collection currently underway is unrelated to the 2014 census, many have expressed fear that the information gathered will be used against them, as the survey forces Muslims to be on record as ‘Bengali’, though most Muslims in the area identify as Rohingya, an ethnic minority from Arakan state rendered stateless by the 1982 Citizenship Law. Data collection for the 2014 National Population Census will take place from March 29 to April 10, 2014 in all parts of Myanmar.
Following allegations of government complicity in “ethnic cleansing” by Human Rights Watch and others during last year’s communal violence in the state, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships authorities recently reaffirmed a regulation imposing a two-child limit for Rohingya families in Arakan state; a policy that does not apply to Buddhists Arakanese. The regulation was a 2005 amendment to a 1994 law imposing restrictions on Rohingya marriages and birthing rights. This policy has caused outrage among politicians and rights group alike; in an address to the NLD on Monday, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi condemned the regulation as “Illegal” and “not in accordance with human rights”.
The central government and Arakan state authorities have long claimed that the Muslim population in the state is rapidly growing and threatening local Buddhist communities, but their fears are entirely based on speculation and in some cases outright rumors. Population growth in Burma has not been well documented. Prior to the latest census, the last one was completed in 1983 and failed to include conflict zones. Before that a nation-wide census was conducted when the country was ruled by Britain in 1931.
