The Burmese Rohingya Organization UK (BROUK) and People in Need Foundation denounced both the new “two-child-policy” law, which only applies to Rohingya, and recent attacks on Muslims. Both groups were meeting with EU officials for 2 days during a joint advocacy trip.
During the trip they met with Eduard Khan; MEP, Plilip Kaczmarek: MEP, Ranieri Sabatucci head of Southeast Asia Division from European External Action Service and many other prominent EU officials.
Tun Khin, the president of BROUK said that the EU needs to take “immediate actions” to protect the rights of Muslims in Burma. Policies undertaken by President Thein Sein Government “will wipe out the whole Rohingya minority”, and also hurt other Muslims in the country.
“It is time for EU to support an independent international investigation into what happened in Arakan state in June and October (2012). Removing sanctions is encouraging (the new government) to move forward with the (ethnic) cleansing of Muslims of Burma”.
The joint delegation urged the European Parliament to put pressure on the Thein Sein government to stop attacks against Muslims and all anti-Muslim campaigns in Burma. International observers are required in areas where advocators of 969 have attacked Muslim communities. They also called for the government to stop blocking humanitarian aid to Rohingyas and amend the 1982 citizenship law which renders thousands of Rohingyas as stateless.
The two child policy that applies to Rohingya living in Maungdaw and Buthidaung in Arakan state is a violation of fundamental human rights, according to a statement by Eduardo del Buey, deputy spokesman for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on May 30.
A Human Rights Watch press release issued on May 28, stated “the two-child regulation is a further example of state persecution of the Rohingya”.
“Implementation of this callous and cruel two-child policy against the Rohingya is another example of the systematic and wide ranging persecution of this group, who have recently been the target of an ethnic cleansing campaign,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“President Thein Sein says he is against discrimination. If so, he should quickly declare an end to these coercive family restrictions and other discriminatory policies against the Rohingya...Fear of punishment under the two-child rule compel far too many Rohingya women to risk their lives and turn to desperate and dangerous measures to self-induce abortions…Governments who care about reform in Burma need to speak out about the persecution of Rohingya Muslims…If this policy had been announced by a Burmese government official before the reform process began, donors would have denounced it in the strongest terms. Now, when the international community’s influence is much greater, governments and donors need to find their voices.”
NLD opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Ms. Suu Kyi, said that the new law “is discriminatory and also violates human rights.”
The new law is just example of the government restricting the rights of Rohingyas, according to Ye Lwin.
“The 2005, two-child regulation was an addition to longstanding discriminatory marriage restrictions on Rohingyas in Arakan state. Advance permission to marry came from the Na Sa Ka (Burma border security force), a corrupt interagency border guard force comprising military, police, immigration, and customs. Rohingya couples seeking to marry have had to give a written undertaking that they will have no more than two children. Flouting the two-child restriction is punishable with fines and imprisonment
The government is also making Rohingya register in government data bases as Bengali, which implies they are from Bangladesh. These new policies are aimed to drive them out of the country, said Ye Lwin, from Rangoon.
Arakan state officials announced a mandatory two-child policy to ‘help ease tension’ in Buthidaung and Maungdaw provinces where the majority of the population is Muslim after a 186-page government report on the sectarian violence was rejected by the international community.
"The state government is trying to use the Rakhine investigation recommendation, which is outrageous, to justify a policy of limiting births of Rohingya," said Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director of Human Rights Watch.
“If we are talking about genuine reform, if we are talking about reform for all the people for the better of our lives, for the people of Burma, these Rohingya people are also the people of Burma. These reforms have to also benefit them. But at this point we haven't seen anything, anybody that will be pushing the Burmese authorities and Aung San Suu Kyi to do more than what they are doing now,” said Myra Dahgaypaw, from US Campaign for Burma, during a May 30 interview.
After two bouts of sectarian violence in Arakan State last year, the 2 child policy that only doesn’t affect Buddhists is perhaps the most obvious example of ethnic cleansing that has been voiced by groups like Human Rights Watch and many others.
