background 14 Systematic restrictions in myanmar The Rohingya in Rakhine State, Myanmar have been the target of systematic persecution by the Myanmar government through discriminatory policies and severe restrictions that have been in place for decades. In 1982, the former military junta passed a new citizenship law effectively stripping Rohingya of citizenship. By stripping their citizenship01, Myanmar effectively barred the Rohingya from their right to civil, political, economic, social, and cultural freedoms while exclusionary practices continued to escalate over the following years. As part of a strategy to enforce more extreme restrictions, the Myanmar government deployed a special border guard force, ‘NaSaKa,’ to Rakhine State in 1992. NaSaKa, composed of security forces, immigration, and customs officials, was tasked with imposing strict systems of draconian restrictions on the Rohingya population02. These included restrictions related to documentation, freedom of movement, marriage, childbirth, work, education, religion, and healthcare03. Rohingya in Myanmar were not allowed to travel from township to township, limits were placed on the number of children they could have, and they were unable to build mosques or repair those that were damaged. Restrictions were enforced through checkpoints, extortion, arrest, torture, and violence04. Though NaSaKa was disbanded in 2013, as of 2023, these severe restrictions are still in effect in Rakhine State and are enforced by the police, army, and immigration officials05. Human rights organizations have determined that these restrictions amount to crimes against humanity, and a 2015 legal analysis by Yale Law School of the situation in Rakhine State found “strong evidence that genocide is being committed against Rohingya.” 06, 07 Citing these restrictions as well as violence perpetrated against Rohingya in Myanmar, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar concluded that “the factors allowing the inference of genocidal intent are present,” and that “there is a serious risk that genocidal actions may occur or recur, and that Myanmar is failing in its obligation to prevent genocide, to investigate genocide and to enact effective legislation criminalizing and punishing genocide.”08 Over the last several decades, the Myanmar government also targeted Rohingya culture and identity both through their own policies of persecution and by supporting ultranationalist Buddhist organisations that used anti-Muslim messaging to spread hate towards Rohingya09. An investigation by The New York Times also found that the Myanmar military implemented a years-long covert operation to disseminate hate against Muslims and the Rohingya through popular lifestyle Facebook pages and profiles10. One Rohingya civil society organisation (CSO) conducting research on this matter has called the campaign targeting Rohingya identity ‘cultural genocide.’11 A main feature of this identity erasure was to disenfranchise Rohingya as an ethnic group native to Myanmar. One strategy used to accomplish this was brand01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Study on Community Perceptions of Citizenship, Documentation and Rights in Rakhine State. 2016. International Crisis Group. Myanmar’s “Nasaka”: Disbanding an Abusive Agency. 2013. Fortify Rights. The Torture in my Mind. 2020. Fortify Rights. Policies of Persecution. 2014. Democratic Voice of Burma. Rohingyas Continue to be Persecuted Despite Nasaka Disbandment. 2013. Fortify Rights. Policies of Persecution. 2014. Fortify Rights. Persecution of the Rohingya Muslims: Is Genocide Occuring in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. 2015. Human Rights Council. Detailed Findings of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar. 2019. The Irrawaddy. Ma Ba Tha is a Necessity: Military. 2019. The New York Times. A Genocide Incited on Facebook, With Posts From Myanmar’s Military. 2018. Rohingya Language Preservation Project. First They Targeted our Language and Culture: Threats to Rohingya Language, Culture, and Identity in Myanmar and Bangladesh. 2022.