Honourable Chair, honourable special envoy, and all members of Parliament, thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak today.
I'm Rohingya. I was born and brought up in Arakan state in the western part of Burma. I left when I was about 17. Actually, my grandfather was a member of Parliament and Deputy Minister from 1952 to the 1960s. My mother's grandfather was the first judge in northern Arakan state.
Today I'm not a citizen of Burma. We Rohingya people have lived from time immemorial in Arakan State. They stripped us of our ethnic rights when, in 1962, General Ne Win took power. Then they stopped the Rohingya-language program from 1961 to 1965. There had been a Rohingya-language program in Burma—a radio broadcasting program—but they stopped it to strip us of our ethnic rights. Today they say Rohingya does not exist.
They stepped up: in 1978 there was Operation King Dragon, during which 250,000 Rohingya fled. When international pressure mounted, the Rohingya were repatriated, in 1978, from Bangladesh. That is when the first exodus happened, and then, because of pressure, they repatriated these people.
The Burmese military implemented the 1982 citizenship law. That law deprived the Rohingya of basic fundamental rights. Because of that law, today I'm not a citizen of Burma, even though my grandfather was a member of Parliament and my father worked in government service for more than 20 years. Because of that law, I couldn't go to university. When I was in Arakan state, I couldn't go to university and I saw many of my friends sentenced, and my brother's friend sentenced to jail because they were not allowed to marry, and they married secretly.
When we want to get married, we need to get a pass, and it takes three to five years.