Attachments
Executive Summary
In August 2017, Myanmar security forces advanced upon the village of Garator Bil (Pa Da Kar Day War Nar Li), located in Maungdaw, Rakhine State, from their station at a school. The 100-300 assailants were the Myanmar military, Border Guard Police (BGP), and mobilized civilians from the Rakhine, Morong, and Kui peoples. They killed and injured Rohingya people. They committed arson and looting.
Prior to that, in October 2016, 40-50 assailants from the military attacked the village, forced the Rohingya to uproot the fences around their homesteads, and beat them.
In the terror after such mass-scale violence and killing, Garator Bil villagers escaped to Bangladesh, where they now live in temporary tents inside sprawling refugee camps.
Yet the systematic destruction of the Rohingya people began far earlier than August 2017. Starting from decades earlier, the government confiscated land from Rohingya villagers and appropriated it for Thanakyut (law enforcement headquarters) as well as to build a road, and allocated it to Rakhine settlers.
And during the time period of 2012-2016, Rohingya experienced multiple and successive forms of religious discrimination and persecution. This included prohibitions on giving religious sermons, on practicing Jumma (Friday) prayers, on holding religious events, on practicing Qurban (ceremonial sacrifice of livestock animals), and on using a microphone for azan (to make calls to prayer). They were forbidden to gather in groups of five or more people, which abrogated religious fellowship. Nor could they freely use their mosque for prayer or provide Islamic education to their children at the madrasa. Security forces physically beat, arrested, extorted money, and detained those found in prayer or religious practice.