- Photo by IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation/TURKEY
Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that the Myanmar military has failed to protect both Muslims and Buddhists and has instead continued in violence and arrests against Rohingya Muslims.
These ethnic clashes in Rakhine state have left about 80 people dead on both sides. However, the Myanmar government has denied the accusations.
“Myanmar strongly rejects the accusations made by some quarters that abusive and excessive uses of force were made by the authorities in dealing with the situation,” said Foreign Minister Wunna Muang Iwin.
More than 100,000 people have been displaced due to the violence brought concerns over the estimated one million Rohingya who live in Myanmar but are not accepted as citizens.
Burmese President Thein Sein said the government is only responsible for third-generation Rohingyas whose families had arrived before independence in 1948, and that it was impossible to accept those who had “illegally entered” Myanmar.
Thein Sein suggested that the UN refugee agency UNHCR take care of them in camps or resettle them in third countries; a move that HRW states would be a “disaster.”
Deputy Asia Director of HRW Phil Robertson said Myanmar needs to rewrite its citizenship law to include the Rohingya and count them in its 2014 census.
The HRW is not only critical of Myanmar. The organization has also criticized the U.S. immigration laws. In 2005 HRW wrote to members of the U.S. House of Representatives urging them to oppose HR 4437, a bill with tighter restrictions on border protection, antiterrorism, and illegal immigration.
In the past HRW has asked the U.S. government to pull back on illegal immigration. In 2005 the organization opposed HR 4437 , the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act. HRW argued that this “undermines basic due process protections, human rights obligations, and principles of fundamental fairness.”
In more recent developments, the U.S., pursuant to an executive order issued by President Obama, has authorized a path to attain amnesty for illegal aliens who have met certain benchmark requirements. According to Joe Leeds, U.S. Immigration lawyer in Thailand, this grant of amnesty has proven to be very controversial in the U.S. not only for its effect on illegal immigrants in the country but also in regard to the use of presidential executive orders to create new laws which is a power normally reserved to Congress.
To be eligible for amnesty, immigrants must have been in the United States for five years, have no criminal record, and attend high school or college or be a military veteran. The policy does not provide permanent legal residency, but it protects those who qualify from being deported and gives them a chance to renew their new status every two years.
