Press Release

International Campaign: “Rohingya: Stateless at Sea OR Part of Khairu Ummah”

Launched by the Women’s Section in the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir

The Women’s Section in the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir has launched a global campaign to bring international attention to the worsening, horrific plight of Rohingya Muslim women and children. The campaign entitled, “Rohingya: Stateless at Sea OR Part of Khairu Ummah” will highlight the escalating persecution, apartheid repressive policies, and state-sponsored slaughter that Myanmar’s Rohingya women and children are facing which has forced thousands to flee their homeland. In addition to being refused citizenship by the brutal Myanmar regime and being forced to live in prison-like enclaves where they have restricted access to education, healthcare and other basic rights, the government has also placed restrictions on Rohingya marrying and has recently drafted a Population Control Healthcare Bill which will limit the number of children Rohingya women can have. Additionally, many regional media and rights organisations have reported abductions, rampant sexual abuse and violence against Rohingya women by Myanmar authorities guarding villages and camps. Many families have cited such abuse as the main motivating factor driving them to send their girls and women away to countries such as Malaysia. The campaign will also address the appalling reality facing the thousands of desperate Rohingya women and children who risk their lives in undertaking the treacherous journey across the seas to seek refuge in neighbouring states. According to the International Organisation for Migration, more than 88,000 Rohingya have made the dangerous journey by sea since 2014. And as seen in recent weeks, hundreds of Rohingya women and children have been amongst the thousands stranded for months on rickety, overcrowded boats in waters around the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. They have suffered from starvation, dehydration and sickness, leading to dozens of deaths, including of children because neighbouring regimes, including those governed by Muslim rulers, which are afflicted by the rotten concept of nationalism in the Muslims lands, refused to rescue and provide them sanctuary. Some Rohingya women, having abandoned their hopes for asylum in neighbouring states have returned to their squalid, disease ridden refugee camps in Myanmar, where food and clean water is scarce and where they are denied humanitarian aid and assistance.

Despite governments such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and others in the Muslim world, being fully aware of this heart wrenching reality, they have played a repugnant game of ‘push-back’ with the Rohingya women and children who have approached their shores, competing to abandon these desperate Muslims. Due to their corrupt nationalistic, capitalist, and secular ideals, they view the Rohingya as people from a foreign nation who are a burden to their economy rather than as brothers and sisters to whom they have a great Islamic obligation to protect and support. Furthermore, the reluctant agreement reached by the Malaysian and Indonesian governments to give temporary refuge to the 7000 migrants currently stranded in the Andaman Sea offers no relief to those thousands of Rohingya women and children facing continued persecution in Myanmar, nor to those given temporary asylum in those Muslim lands for whom the prospect of being returned to Rakhine’s killing fields looms over their heads. Hope can neither be placed in the hypocritical and defunct international community which has embraced the Burmese regime and praised it as a ‘success story’ for its democratic reform.

These Muslim women and children should not be unwanted and ‘Stateless at Sea’. They are part of the ‘Khairu Ummah’ and should be treated as such. This campaign will therefore also highlight how it is the Khilafah "Caliphate" upon the method of the Prophethood alone which will mobilise its army against those who dare to suppress the Rohingya. It will also embrace them as full citizens of the state, providing them with the protection and sanctuary they deserve. The Prophet (saw) said, «المسلم أخو المسلم لا يظلمه ولا يسلمه» “A Muslim is a Muslim’s brother: he does not wrong him or abandon him….”

The campaign will include a roundtable discussion to be held on the 6^th June in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to address this important subject. It will be attended by female opinion makers from across Southeast Asia as well as female members of Hizb ut Tahrir from Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, and the Arab world. The gathering will be preceded by a press conference and will be live-streamed to viewers internationally.

Dr. Nazreen Nawaz

Director of the Women’s Section in the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir