18th, July 2017
M-Media
Reported by Aung Thura
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee was told that Myanmar will issue national registration cards without delay for only officially recognized ethnic groups according to the comments posted today on Facebook page of Union Minister of Labour, Immigration and Population U Thien Swe.
– Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar Yanghee Lee was told that Myanmar will issue national registration cards without delay for only officially recognized ethnic groups according to the comments posted today on Facebook page of Union Minister of Labour, Immigration and Population U Thien Swe.
National Verification Card (NVC) will be issued for those who cannot be verified whether they are member of ethnic groups or living in the country’s territory minister told in the meeting with Ms.Lee.
Myanmar immigration has been arranging to issue NVC cards to Rohigya Muslims in Rakhine State who were denied citizenship even though they have been living in the country for generations.
International and local experts criticized the effort saying NVC is aimed to exclude Rohingy community from their native land. Myanmar officials also tried to issue these cards to Muslims in mainland Myanmar.
Myanmar’s 1982 citizenship law controversially defined different types of citizenship based on ethnicity, religion or race and deprived certain groups of that right especially Indian, Chinese and Nepalese descendants most of them have arrived in the time of British colonial rule.
Although many Muslims in mainland Myanmar are Indian and Chinese descendants, some Muslim groups belong to officially recognized ethnic groups.
In the Immigration system of Myanmar, there is an unwritten policy to deny full citizenship of ethnic Muslims.
‘Muslims must not be members of official ethnic group and they must be Indian, Pakistan, Bangali or mixed-blood’
