Attachments
Executive Summary
On August 25, 2017, security forces from the Myanmar military and Border Guard Police (BGP), as well as Rakhine civilians, attacked the village of Nwar Yon Taung, located in Maungdaw, Rakhine State. The 50-100 assailants besieged the village from their deployment stations at Thanakyut (law enforcement headquarters) and the BGP camp. They killed and injured Rohingya villagers with indiscriminate gunfire, looted Rohingya property, and burned down Rohingya homes.
In the terror after such mass-scale violence and killing, Nwar Yon Taung 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 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 holding religious events, on practicing Qurban (ceremonial sacrifice of livestock animals), on gathering in groups, and on using a microphone for azan (to make calls to prayer). They were forbidden to assemble 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 jailed those found in prayer or religious practice.
Marriage required payment of high fees, of up to 500,000 kyat, in order to obtain permission from the authorities. As the permission was issued, the authorities directed the Rohingya to have no more than two or three children, under threat of punishment.