BURMA: The Rohingya
The Rohingya are a Muslim minority from the Rakhine State in Burma. Over the past forty years, the Burmese government has systematically stripped over one million Rohingya of their citizenship. Recognized as one of the most oppressed ethnic groups in the world the Rohingya granted few social, economic and civil rights and are subjected to a number of human rights abuses such as forced labor, arbitrary land seizure, religious persecution and arrest. Most Rohingya in Burma are denied the freedom to travel beyond their village. Over the past 15 years, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled Burma to neighboring Bangladesh. Blind in one eye after being beaten in the head during forced labor, the man fled from Burma in the mid 1990's.
