The Rohingya Refugee Crisis of Myanmar: A History of Persecution and Human Rights Violations

The United Nations refers to Rohingya as one of the most persecuted ethnic minorities in the world, and this minority community from the Arakan state of Myanmar crossing by land into Bangladesh, while others take to the sea to reach Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Thailand to escape from persecution. They first arrived in the Arakan on 8th century and ruled this area from 1430 AD to 1784 AD. Rohingya Muslims, along with Burmese Muslims and Buddhists together participated in their Independence movement, participated in the national election and elected as parliament member. But all the achievements and collaboration became failed after a few years later of independence. This study aims to find out the origin and historical background of Rohingya Muslim and chronological state persecution against them. This paper concludes that Rohingya are not illegal settler and their presence in Rakhine state of before the arrival of Mongolian and Tibeti Burmans. After the independence, they are victims of numerous types of oppression, such as denied citizenship, excessive taxation, confiscation of property, mosque destruction, torture, extrajudicial killing, restrictions on freedom of movement and marriage, forced deportation, destruction of houses and villages.