By Joseph Allchin

Muslims have lived in the Arakan region since at least the 9th century BCE whilst today Cox’s Bazar, in Bangladesh is home to some 200,000 Burmese Muslim refugees as well as significant numbers of Arakanese Buddhist refugees.  However systemic persecution on the basis of race has been experienced not just in border areas. Such laws or policies are regularly used against Muslim Burmese.

The Muslim population of Northern Arakan state are known as Rohingya people. They were specifically targeted by the military party, the Union Solidarity Party (USDP) in last year’s controversial elections, to garner votes. Matheison states that they were given temporary ID cards to allow them to vote.

Despite being able to vote for the USDP they are now denied what Matheison describes as a “basic human freedom”, the freedom of movement.

As a result groups such as Refugees International describe the ethnic group as; “one of the most persecuted in the world”.

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