EC orders 72-hour ban on Rohingya movement

Send
Bangla Tribune Report
Published : 22:50, Dec 21, 2018 | Updated : 23:02, Dec 21, 2018

A banyan tree is seen at Balukhali camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, November 16, 2018. REUTERSWith less than two weeks left for the 11th Parliamentary Election, the Election Commission has instructed to impose a 72-hour ban on the movement of Rohingya refugees.
The EC sought a ban starting at 7am on Dec 29 and ending at 8am on Dec 31.
The 11th Parliamentary Election will be held on Dec 30.
On Friday, a letter, undersigned by EC’s Election Management and Coordination Deputy Atiar Rahman, sent letters to different government offices including that of inspector general of police’s and Cox’s Bazar returning officer’s.
In the letter, the EC instructed to take necessary arrangement to implement the ban.
The letter said, “Special surveillance is necessary so that Rohingya refugees, living in Bangladesh, can’t join the polls campaigns in favour or against any candidates as well as carry no violence.
No Rohingyas will leave their camps or go any place between 7am on Dec 29 and 8am on Dec 31, the letter instructed.
No member of any NGO or voluntary organisation will be allowed to enter the camps during this period.
The EC, however, instructed food, relief and emergency health services to exclude from the ban.
A Rohingya woman at a refugee camp. FILE PHOTOMore than 700,000 Rohingya fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state for Bangladesh since August 2017, when attacks on security posts by Rohingya insurgents triggered a military crackdown that the United Nations, the United States, Britain and others described as ethnic cleansing.
These Rohingya are now living in refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar
Rohingya say soldiers and local Buddhists massacred families, burned hundreds of villages, and carried out gang rapes. U.N-mandated investigators have also accused the army of “genocidal intent” and ethnic cleansing.
Myanmar denies almost all of the allegations, saying security forces were battling terrorists. Attacks by Rohingya insurgents calling themselves the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army preceded the crackdown.
Rohingya regard themselves as native to western Myanmar’s Rakhine State but Myanmar authorities and many citizens regard them as illegal immigrants from the Indian subcontinent.
The Myanmar government refuses even to use the word “Rohingya”, as that would imply a distinct identity, instead of calling them “Bengali”.
More than 1 million Rohingya lived in Rakhine before the August exodus year.
The state has long been riven with tension between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the Rohingya, who are mostly denied citizenship and face severe restrictions on their movement
Many are stateless as a 1982 law restricts citizenship for the Rohingya and other minorities not considered members of one of Myanmar’s “national races”.

/ehs/hb/
Top