Summary 25 Since the coup, soldiers led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing have murdered and imprisoned thousands of people throughout the country while intensifying attacks on ethnic armed organizations and the People’s Defence Force (PDF)—civilian-led militias formed in self-defense of the military’s attacks. Amid these attacks, Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where the majority of more than 600,000 Rohingya remaining in the country reside, told Fortify Rights how the junta is using NVCs to prevent them from identifying as “Rohingya.” Instead the junta identify the Rohingya as “Bengali” or another foreign identity, fueling a dangerous falsity that Rohingya are interlopers from Bangladesh. Rohingya refugees burying in Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh Rohingya children and adult victims who died when their boat sank in the Naf River while they were attempting to flee Myanmar. Patrick Brown ©Panos/ UNICEF 2018 The junta has continued the campaign to erase and destroy Rohingya people by imposing increasingly oppressive restrictions on the population to prevent Rohingya from exercising basic rights. For example, a leaked administrative order obtained by Fortify Rights and issued by the junta-run General Administration Department of Buthidaung Township in Rakhine State on November 25, 2021 reiterates longstanding restrictions that deny Rohingya residents freedom of movement, stating that “Bengali [Rohingya] people can only travel after obtaining legal permission” and that breaching the order will result in “strong action being taken as per the existing law.” Like other genocides, the Myanmar military has attempted to justify these restrictions in the name of national security. For instance, the above-mentioned order states that the restrictions against “Bengali” are necessary to protect “township security and the rule of law.”

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