Arakan News Agency
A group of ethnic Rakhines who are mainly Buddhists are up in arms after the Myanmar government approved citizenship applications by more than 200 Muslims dislodged from their homes due rising violence in the area.
Residents in Myebon town in Rakhine state stayed at home, while business owners’ closed shops, to protest the decision of the government to award citizenship to 209 Rohingya Muslims.
“Our Rakhine community doesn’t accept that more than 200 Bengalis have been granted citizenship,” said Lower House member of parliament Pe Than, using a widely employed term for Rohingyas that implies the Muslims are illegal aliens from Bangladesh.
“The verification process has been so quick and the township level board didn’t listen to the voices and recommendations of the Rakhine community leaders,” he continued.
Rights groups have pushed the Myanmar government to provide legal citizenship documents for the country’s estimated 1.3 million Rohingyas, whose statelessness has left them vulnerable to severe abuses. Hundreds of thousands have fled targeted attacks, resulting in the overcrowding refugee camps on both sides of the border with Bangladesh and prompting humanitarian crises.
Khin Soe, a Sittwe state immigration officer, said citizenship for the 209 Muslims, following a trial ethnicity verification process, was only the first phase and promised that more people would be offered full rights in the coming weeks.
Another 299 people on a township-approved list will be submitted to the state for approval this week during a second phase, he said.
But the move may well inflame tensions and the newly minted citizens have already been urged to remain in the camps.
