for Rohingya and many others who lack evidence of their citizenship about a digital identity card system linked to services and rights access. Aadhaar in India, has shown that the combination of service-access digital IDs and exclusionary systems of citizenship registration can have a devastating impact on the survival mechanisms of those who are left out. rights attached to it.109 For these reasons, the expansion of naturalised citizenship provisions without addressing the exclusion of Rohingya as a recognised national group, or overhauling the 1982 Citizenship Law, is often opposed by Rohingya. Many Rohingya are concerned that this would contribute to the erasure and destruction of their identity as a group belonging to Myanmar, with an equal right to Myanmar citizenship. Citizenship Registration and Identity Cards in Myanmar Citizenship cards currently record both ethnicity and religion, whereas identity cards issued prior to the implementation of the 1982 Citizenship Law did not. Both the colour coding and the recording of ethnicity and religion on identity cards entrenches systems of discrimination through stigmatising and “othering” ethnic and religious minorities. Carrying ethnicity or race on identity cards has, in various international contexts most notably Rwanda, enabled persecution or genocide.110 The current personal identification system is paper based. Since 1989, it has followed the discriminatory framework set out by the 1982 Citizenship Law. Citizenship cards are colour coded according to a tiered hierarchy of citizenship. “Pink cards” or Citizenship Scrutiny Cards (CSCs): • • Issued to “full citizens” (primarily those who belong to an arbitrary list of ethnic groups considered by the state to be “national”.) 106 This list of groups is decided by the state without consultation.107 Rohingya (and various other groups) are excluded. “Green cards” or Naturalised Citizenship Scrutiny Cards (NCSCs): • • • Issued to those recognised under the law as “naturalised citizens”. ‘Naturalisation’ is the pathway to citizenship for those who do not belong to one of the 135 recognised national ethnic groups but have evidence of residency since before Myanmar’s independence in 1948 and those who have parents to whom the lower categories of citizenship apply. 108 Naturalisation is not available to foreigners through marriage, residence, etc. A small number of Rohingya in Myanmar hold green cards. It is not possible to obtain these cards using the ethnic category of Rohingya. Instead they are recorded under the imposed and contextually derogatory term “Bengali”. Further, naturalised status is not automatically acquired as of right, but instead, is subject to the extensive discretion (and abuse) of decision makers. Even if such citizenship is acquired, it is less secure and has fewer “White cards or Temporary Registration Cards (TRCs)111: • • • • From 1995 to 2015, the vast majority of Rohingya in Rakhine state were issued these cards. In the rest of the country, white cards were issued as a stop-gap measure for citizens who needed replacement citizenship cards, but for Rohingya they became a mandatory and long-term form of identification which singled them out as non-citizens. They most often carried the derogatory term “Bengali” to refer to Rohingya. They were nullified in 2015, preventing Rohingya from voting. National Verification Cards (NVCs): • • • • For individuals who are not recognised as citizens, and whose nationality must be verified. In practice they are mostly issued to Rohingya and other Muslims in Rakhine State From 2015, Myanmar has attempted to issue Rohingya with NVCs, despite large-scale resistance in Rakhine State. The cards have changed colour and are currently blue. They no longer carry an ethnic category. However, it is understood that the term “Bengali” is either recorded or implied by omission in state databases. Burma Citizenship Law, Chapter II Article 3 (October 1982) available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b4f71b.html [accessed 13/11/2020] Ibid, Article 4. NB: It is possible, though in practice very difficult to obtain full citizenship over multiple generations for those with parents who have “naturalised” or “associate” citizenship” (Article 7). 108 Ibid, Chapter IV. There is also a third category of citizenship, “Associate citizenship” for which a blue card is issued. This is reserved for those who applied for but were not get granted citizenship before the law the changed in 1982 and is not widely applicable in the contemporary Rohingya context. 109 Ibid, Chapter II, Article 8. 110 G. Stanton, ‘The Ten Stages of Genocide’, see Stage 1: Classification and Stage 2: Symbolization (2016) available at: http://genocidewatch.net/genocide-2/8-stagesof-genocide/ [accessed 11/11/2020]; See also Ms. E. Tendayi Achiume, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, A/75/590 (November 2020) available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/racism/srracism/pages/indexsrracism.aspx [accessed 13/11/2020] 111 These were issued according to the 1951 Residents of Burma Registration Rules, unofficial translation available at: https://www.burmalibrary.org/docs12/Residents_of_ Burma_Registration_Rules-1951.pdf [accessed 13/11/2020] 106 107 22