Is India contributing to Ringaya Muslims' catastrophe?

At Dalai Laman border, mentally and physically tired, an Indian official had received him.

“As soon as I saw his face, it was a feeling of reunification and then I knew I was safe and there was no risk to”, Dalai Lama said of a group of journalists in 2009.

Whether the Tibetans, or the Tamams of Sri Lanka, Afghans, or Bengals who fled what was East Pakistan in 1971, India has had a long history of providing refugee asylum. Give them a space they can call themselves. This, despite India's refusal to become a member state of the United Nations Convention regarding the status of refugees in 1951 and the 1967 refugee status protocol.

However, the Indian government's recent attempts to tarnish all of Roggya in India as “illegal immigrants”, expel them en masse and prevent Rohingy from entering the country, which is an alarming development, and risk breaking up the safe space India has historically offered refugees.

India's Interior Ministry has suggested that 40,000 Roingya are in India and that those who could potentially enter the country pose a threat to the <x0 national security “ ”.

This attitude stigmatizes members of the community who have fled their homes from the violence and persecution exercised by Myanmar. It is a position of a moral or legal compass that feeds on the wave of an increase in Islamophobia in India.

India's true face for refugee rights seems to be a mixture of paranoid and xenophobia. This is an approach that welcomes Hindu refugees from neighboring India, but closes the door to Roingy, who are mostly Muslims, in the name of national security. But this move goes against India's international legal obligations as well as its constitutional guarantees of human rights.

In August of this year, following the attacks of an armed group of Roingya in dozens of countries, Myanmar's security forces have engaged an illegal and unproportionate campaign of violence against Roingya, which has led 436,000 of them to flee to Bangladesh. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein has rightly said: “I hate India's current measures to deport Roingyas at a time of such violence against them at their place”.

India's Legal Obligations

Amnesty International has provided evidence of a brutal campaign of what can be described as ethnic cleansing, with Rohingyt aiming for their ethnic and religious affiliation. Legally, these are crimes against humanity involving murder and deportation or forced transfer of the population. And if India expels Roggaya refugees, they will face the risk of such crimes.

India should push Myanmar to stop violence, allow missions to find UN facts and provide full and unhindered humanitarian aid to all affected communities.

In a battle fought by the High Court against India's proposed Ringyave expulsion, the Indian government states that the principle of disobedience ʹ a fundamental principle of international law that prohibits countries from turning refugees into a country where their lives or well-being would be in danger of it, since it is not a signatory of the United Nations Convention on Refugees.

This interpretation is wrong. As stressed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the principle of failure is part of international law that is binding for all countries, regardless of whether they have signed the UN Convention.

India, unfortunately, does not have an internal legal law on refugee protection. Its treatment for refugees falls largely under the 1946 Foreign Act, which does not distinguish between asylum seekers, refugees and other foreigners. This law also penalises physical presence without documents in the country.

About 14,000 Roggya in India are known as refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This recognition, in some cases, has allowed refugees to obtain a long-term visa and has helped them to have access to education, health care, and housing. However, the last fall of all Roggaya like “illegal immigrants” puts these at risk. Two of India's North East states, Assam and Manipur, have issued calls saying the police should be hitting “ ” Rohingyt trying to get into India and there are reports that this is already happening. There's not much to help xenophobia.

Nowhere to go?

Myanmar's Rakhin State is home to a little more than a million Roingayave, mainly ethnic Muslim minorities, who have faced decades of discrimination and state-sponsored violence. For years they have been denied the right to citizenship under the discriminatory law of citizenship 1982 and its implementation, and suffer severe restrictions on their other rights, such as freedom of movement and access to health care, education and living opportunities.

Most of those who fled last month have been forced to cross the Naf River that separates Myanmar and Bangladesh to seek refuge there. As Myanmar's security forces and unauthorised crowds continue to burn villages and shoot civilians, international investigators are impeding, and in particular, the UN Mission to find warranted evidence. You can only get a sense of terror from the smoke that falls from burnt villages or satellite images or stories of those who have managed to escape.

Against this toxicity, India has a legal, ethical, and moral responsibility to help people escape persecution. It should not expel Rüllayat in Myanmar, or prevent them from coming to India and should suspend the transfer to Myanmar of all military and security equipment and aid. India should push Myanmar to stop violence, allow missions to find UN facts and provide full and unhindered humanitarian aid to all affected communities./Periscopi/

It says: Arriet Sen

Subtitle by: Periscope