About Us

About

Burmese Rohingya Community in Australia Inc. (BRCA) was established on 10th November 1999; however it was officially registered on 1st May 2000 by Rohingya residents in Australia. It is a non-profitable organization; moreover, it is not affiliated with any other political parties but it is very keen to cooperate with any other organization that has a greater degree of emphasis in enhancing the activities regarding the restoration of democracy and the improvement of the human rights in Burma.

The Rohingya, the Muslim ethnic minority, are amongst one of the ethnic minorities who are always subjected to persecutions by the ruling junta in Burma. The Rohingyas are generally living in the northern Arakan State, western Burma whereas they are majority inhabitants however the authorities in Burma do not acknowledge the Rohingyas as the citizen of Burma. As a result of the maltreatment by the Burmese government, there have been two major Rohingya refugee crises that took place in 1977 and 1992.

The Current Situation of Rohingyas

Since last 25 August 2017 Myanmar military force, supported by local extreme Rakhine Buddhists and the government, who are allegedly claiming to be fighting armed Rohingya forces, have been massacring and killing innocent Rohingya Muslims. As a result, more than 700,000 Rohingyas become refugees in Bangladesh and more than 14,000 were murdered, slaughtered, raped and killed. There are 27,000 children without both their parents as their parents were killed. Hundreds of villages, thousands of Rohingyas’ houses were burnt down. It is more than ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Rohingya people in Rakhine state, Myanmar.

Al-Jazeera reported on the 26th of August that the Myanmar military forces are shooting indiscriminately at innocent Rohingyan civilians, including elders, women and children.

The rest of the Muslims are scattered all over Burma. Due to continued persecution and ethnic cleansing about 1.5million Rohingyas have been living in exile, particularly in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Malaysia, Thailand etc.

Denial of Citizenship

The military regime has declared the Rohingya as the non-national under the pretext of the Burma Citizenship Law of 1982, which is just a tool for isolating and alienating the Rohingyas from benefiting the privileges as a citizen of Burma and in addition, the so-called the 1982 law violates the fundamental rights of human rights. Furthermore, it has stripped the citizenship from the Rohingyas and labelled them as the stateless people.
The National Registration Cards (NRC) was issued to the Rohingyas earlier had been confiscated under the pretext of issuing new ones to them and as the replacement of the NRC cards the authorities have issued the Temporary Registration Cards (TRC) known as �White Card� to some Rohingyas. The most drastic point is that it downgrades the national status of Rohingya by putting them in a state of uncertainty.

Religious Persecution

The SPDC troops have intensified their attacks on Rohingya. Many mosques and Madrasas (religious schools) have been demolished. Repairs, renovation and construction of any mosques or religious institutes are prohibited. Many Waqf lands (religious Land) and graveyards are taken over by the authorities.
Furthermore, Buddhist-Muslim riots have been engineered by the ruling junta and often end up in heavy casualties of Muslims� live and properties. Anti-Muslim propaganda has been projected in media for example in February 2003, books and taped speeches that support in the anti-Islamic activities, such as insulting Islam and Muslims had been publicly sold and distributed throughout the country.

Confiscation of land

Many lands that belonged to the Rohingyas� which includes farmlands, Waqf properties and numerous numbers of private properties were confiscated by the local authorities. Most of the Rohingya villagers were evicted from the villages where they were living for at least few couples of decades and forcibly relocated into the more remote area quite often. In addition, those confiscated lands were distributed to the Buddhist settlers, who migrated to Maungdaw and Buthidaung from various parts of Burma and some Buddhist immigrants even migrated from the Bangladesh who were very much encouraged by ruling junta in settling down in the territories where the Rohingya people are living. The Rohingya, therefore, have become increasingly displaced, homeless and very much compelled to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh.
In order to have a tight control in reducing the number of population of Rohingya and preventing the prosperity of Rohingya the ruling junta is very determined in increasing the number of army bases in Maungdaw and Buthidaung by building it through forced labor of Rohingya people such as the Rohingya people were forced to build the bridges, apartments, and the road that are required for
the military facilities however during the course of those government projects the Rohingyas were never get paid for their labour and the Rohingyas therefore always remained jobless and experienced very severe economic hardship which eventually leads them in fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh.

Restriction of traveling

The traveling of Rohingyas is severely restricted and it has become more tightened over the last couple of years i.e. the Rohingyas are required to apply for the permission if they want to travel to the surrounding villages for visiting their relatives and with respect to, traveling to Rangoon is almost impossible for the Rohingyas, therefore, the Rohingyas people who are away from their families are experiencing extremely difficult situations in regard to the reunifications of their family members.