The Honorable Prime
Minister Narendra Modi
The Prime Minster of
India
South Block, Raisina
Hill
New Delhi-110011
Subject: An Appeal
to Provide Temporary Protection to Rohingya Living in India
Dear Mr. Prime
Minister,
The European
Rohingya Council (ERC) makes an appeal to you to provide temporary protection
to all Rohingya living in India and not to deport them to Myanmar. As you may
know, there are around 40, 000 Rohingya, who fled Myanmar’s systematic
persecution and took temporary refuge in India.
We are deeply
concerned about the plan, reported on 4 April, of the Union Ministry of Home
Affairs to “identify, arrest and deport” thousands of Rohingya refugees living
in India. Further, we are also saddened by the statement made on 7 April by
Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industries, threatening Rohingya with violence.
The chamber also accused Rohingya with crimes and drugs trafficking despite
having no such record.
Although Rohingya
have been officially recognized as one of the ethnic communities and citizens
of Myanmar by four successive governments after the independent in 1948, the
government has eventually adopted policies of statelessness, discrimination and
systematic persecution such as rape, mass killings and arrests, mass
destructions of homes and worshipping places and arbitrary detention. This
decades-long systematic persecution of Rohingya since 1978 has rendered
Rohingya to choose no other way than to leave their own countries and to flee
into neighboring countries and elsewhere.
Dear Mr. Prime
Minister, the Rohingya who are now taking temporary refuge in India have
arrived in India after a long risky journey. They came to India with a hope
that the people of India will open the arms and provide them and their children
a temporary protection. Therefore, we appeal to you and the people of India to
show the generosity and provide them temporary protection until it is safe for
them to return to Myanmar. We assure you that our people are peace-loving and
law-abiding people. We thank you, Mr. Prime Minister.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. H. Kyaw
Chairman of ERC
Email:
chairman@theerc.eu
Tel.: +31 652 358
202
