Police in Burma Accused of Raping Muslim Women in Pretext of Checking Family Lists

Activists say it is necessary to stop this level of police misconduct immediately.

Rohingya families fear the threat of rape from Burma (Myanmar) government forces.

(LONDON) - Some elders from Burma's Maungdaw advised over the telephone that police from Maungdaw town in Arakan state, are raiding Muslim villages almost every day.

They are not only surrounding Maungaw town, but also communities south and north of Maungdaw. The pretext is that they are checking family lists, but in reality the police are using it as an excuse to rape women, if they confirm that no male is available in the house.

So, to avert such a harassment and the rape of Muslim women, the villagers are demanding international protection because the they cannot trust Myanmar govt. due to consistence of their hidden intention.

Now, the security forces are using the technique of rape as an effective weapon of Rohingya ethnic cleansing which they used for Karens (Christians).

Recently, the British ambassador to Burma visited Sittwe, Buthidaung and Maungdaw, Arakan and it learned of the existence of this scenario, after meeting with some rape victims in Maungdaw and discussing the police persecution problem with Rohingya elders.

Hopefully a public statement on the Arakan visit will soon available to all.

Time is running out, but so far no demands of the Muslim Rohingyas is being fulfilled. Their demands to the United Nations are for the UN to deploy forces in Arakan and for those individuals to help them in order to retrieve their citizenship. There is no scope to deny them as ancient rehabitants of Arakan and the world knows that they have been living in Arakan generation by generation and there was no scope of Bengali infiltration into Arakan and which was never occurred. This idea, that these native people are 'illegal immigrants from Bangladesh', has been the central theme of the majority Rakhine Buddhist community in their attempt to expel the Rohingya Muslims.

Sadly, it is the alleged rape of a Buddhist woman that caused the current ethnic cleansing to escalate.

Nurul Islam is a Human Rights Activist

Information in this article was confirmed through a telephone conversation.