2022 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 4(2) The media has arguably played a key role in constructing this image.115 Begum was racialised by being portrayed as a remorseless Muslim terrorist all along.116 For instance, ‘[t]he ‘Bring me Home’ Loyd/Begum interview occupied media reports for several weeks, where Begum was always represented across all media reports as extremely dangerous’.117 During this time, Begum was also on the front page of The Times, with a cover story that aimed to dehumanise her by focusing on the following remark she had made: ‘When I saw my first severed head it didn’t faze me at all’.118 Furthermore, on 7 February 2020, the media accused her, with little evidence, of stitching suicide bomber vests for ISIL.119 Besides denationalisation, persecution is another tool by which the country of origin may render someone stateless; that is, as indicative of the close connection between legal and social non-recognition. The case of the Rohingya is exemplary and also worth discussing in more detail. From 1948 to 1962, they were legally recognised as nationals of Burma Proper by the Union of Burma. Their legal status was reinforced in several public statements made by leading politicians. For example, Sao Shwe Thaik, the first President of Burma, and of Shan ethnicity, argued that the ‘Muslims of Arakan certainly belong to the indigenous races of Burma. If they do not belong to the indigenous races, we also cannot be taken as indigenous races’.120 In 1954, this multi-ethnic vision of Burma was also supported by U Nu, the first Prime Minister of Burma, who said that ‘[t]he people living in Buthidaung and Maungdaw Townships are Rohingya, ethnic of Burma’,121 and in 1958, the then Prime Minister of Burma, U Ba Swe, contended that ‘[t]he Rohingya has the equal status of nationality with Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Mon, Rakhine and Shan’.122 This understanding was challenged, however, by the military coup d’état in 1962. The military Government not only began to restrict the Rohingya’s freedom of movement, but also to confiscate their identity cards. During Operation Dragon King in March and August 1978, which was euphemistically announced as an attempt to register nationals in northern Arakan and deport foreigners prior to the national consensus,123 250,000 Rohingya were forced to escape to Bangladesh.124 In 1982, the Rohingya’s situation drastically worsened when the Union Citizenship Act was repealed by the Burma Citizenship Law. In its aftermath, a 115 For a discussion of the media’s key role in vilifying and denying the social recognition of 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 Muslim individuals, see Kapoor, Deport, Deprive, Extradite (n 58) 11; Susan S M Edwards, The Political Appropriation of the Muslim Body: Islamophobia, Counter-Terrorism Law and Gender (Springer International Publishing 2021) 50–53. See also Joumanah El-Matrah and Kamalle Dabboussy, ‘Guilty When Innocent: Australian Government’s Resistance to Bringing Home Wives and Children of Islamic State Fighters’ (2021) 10(6) Social Sciences 202. Susan Edwards, ‘Muslim Racialised Tropes’ in Susan Edwards (ed), The Political Appropriation of the Muslim Body (Palgrave Macmillan 2021) 21, 51. ibid 51. ibid 52. Nay San Lwin, ‘Making Rohingya Statelessness’, New Mandala (Blog Post, 29 October 2012) https://www.newmandala.org/making-rohingya-statelessness/, archived at <https://perma.cc/7PDW-BSHF>. ibid. ibid. Syeda Naushin Parnini, Mohammad Redzuan Othman and Amer Saifude Ghazali, ‘The Rohingya Refugee Crisis and Bangladesh–Myanmar Relations’ (2013) 22(1) Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 133, 136. Md Mahbubul Haque, ‘Rohingya Ethnic Muslim Minority and the 1982 Citizenship Law in Burma’ (2017) 37(4) Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 454, 458. 254