rehabilitation of those who live in the camps and have a national identity card. Despite this High Court verdict, in May 2017, Dhaka North City Corporation evicted Kashmiri Mohallah Camp in Section-11 Mirpur and in August 2017 they evicted two more camps in Pallabi, Mirpur. Now the camp residents are living under the open sky. This exclusion from land rights makes it difficult for this community to access economic opportunities and engage in livelihood activities.33 35. Despite these challenges, there have been some efforts to address the discrimination faced by the Urdu Speaking community. In addition to the 2008 High Court judgement confirming Urdu-speakers as citizens, resulting from a petition driven by the community itself, other initiatives aim to at improve the Bihari Community’s access to education and healthcare. Some members of the community have also been able to obtain citizenship documents through support from community paralegals working under NGO initiatives, although for some documents such as passports this remains a slow and difficult process.34 36. The Bangladeshi Government has taken some steps to address the plight of the Urduspeaking community, including providing identity cards and citizenship to some. 35 However, most members of the community still lack legal recognition and face significant barriers to accessing basic rights and services. For example, when using a national ID card, a camp-dwelling Urdu-speaker can be identified via their “camp” address, which can lead to other public and private service providers to deny services such as passports, bank accounts, and health cards otherwise availability to pregnant women and the elderly. 37. While there have been some efforts to address the issue, much more needs to be done to ensure that members of the community can access their rights and live free from discrimination and marginalisation. This will require a commitment from the Government, civil society organizations, and the wider population to address the root causes of structural discrimination and create a more inclusive society for all. Issue II – Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh 38. The Rohingya community was stripped of its citizenship in Myanmar in the 1980s, subsequently persecuted in the country and neighbouring countries have failed to protect them as refugees and stateless persons. During the mass exodus of Rohingyas from Myanmar to Bangladesh in 2017, it was estimated that three quarters of a million fled the country. 36 Nowadays, Bangladesh hosts more than a million Rohingyas who reside in the refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar and over 30,000 in Bhasan Char island.37 39. Since Bangladesh is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention nor the 1954 Statelessness Convention, Rohingyas are recognised as irregular migrants by the 33 Ibid. O. Shadman and R. Schönbauer, ‘How a Bangladesh Court Ruling Changed the Lives of More than 300,000 Stateless People’, (23 February 2015), available at: https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2015/2/54ec22869/bangladesh-court-ruling-changedlives-300000-stateless-people.html. 35 Geoffrey Macdonald, ‘Bangladesh: Urdu-Speaking ‘Biharis’ Seek Recognition, Respect and Rights,’ (4 February 2021), available at: https://www.iri.org/resources/new-bangladesh-report-reveals-priorities-of-the-bihari-minority/. 36 UNHRC, ‘Report of the independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar’, (September 2018), available at: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/FFM-Myanmar/A_HRC_39_64.pdf. 37 ‘963 more Rohingyas relocated to Bhasan Char’, The Daily Star, (17 October 2022) available at: https://www.thedailystar.net/rohingya-influx/news/963-more-rohingyas-relocated-bhasan-char-3145186. 34 8