[The regulator’s deputy director, Nahidul Hasan, cited state security and law and order as justification for the clampdown. Bangladesh had previously banned sales of SIM cards in the camps, but they were widely available and locals often sold them to refugees. The government says official identification, which Rohingya lack, is needed to buy a SIM card.]
By
Jennifer Chowdhury
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On
a hill in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, on Aug. 25, Rohingya refugees gather to mark
Myanmar's
military-led crackdown on the ethnic Muslim minority that forced
hundreds
of thousands to flee. (Allison Joyce/Getty Images)
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KUTUPALONG,
Bangladesh — Bangladesh took
in 750,000 Rohingya expelled from Myanmar in a military-led crackdown. Two
years on, facing simmering conflict between natives and the recent arrivals,
and after failed attempts to persuade some refugees to return, the host country
is running out of patience for the Rohingya.
Authorities have blamed Rohingya militants
for the killing of a ruling-party politician last month and accused refugees of
smuggling drugs from Myanmar — a trade that activists say entices some for want
of opportunities in refugee camps. Several Rohingya are reported to have been
killed in recent shootouts with police.
Limits on Internet and cellphone service
imposed this month, along with curbs on aid agencies, offer some of the
clearest signs that Bangladesh is growing tired of the camps in its impoverished
southeast and is looking for ways to nudge the Rohingya back to Myanmar without
resorting to force. The mostly Muslim refugees have resisted two attempts to
repatriate a handful of them to Myanmar, a Buddhist-majority nation that denies
them many rights and whose army violently ejected them in 2017.
“The government’s actions are an easy
solution to a bigger problem,” said Imtiaz Ahmed, director of the Center for
Genocide Studies at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh, in relation to the
communication restrictions and challenges of security and repatriation.
On Monday, Bangladesh’s telecom regulator
ordered network operators to halt all cellphone service in an area covering the
Rohingya camps near Cox’s Bazar, near the Myanmar border. The move followed a
limited shutdown on cellphone service, between 5 p.m. and 5 a.m., imposed on
Sept. 1.
It mirrored Myanmar’s decision in June to
block mobile Internet services in its western regions that were formerly home
to many Rohingya.
The regulator’s deputy director, Nahidul
Hasan, cited state security and law and order as justification for the
clampdown. Bangladesh had previously banned sales of SIM cards in the camps,
but they were widely available and locals often sold them to refugees. The
government says official identification, which Rohingya lack, is needed to buy
a SIM card.
On a recent day here at the tail end of
monsoon season, refugees congregating inside their homes and under storefront
awnings voiced fears about the growing pressure.
“Don’t take your phone with you when you go
outside,” Nasima Akhter, a refugee living in Kutupalong, the largest camp for
displaced people, told her neighbor, Hamida Khatun. “The police are taking away
our phones.”
“If I don’t have a phone, how can I reach out
to anyone in case of an emergency?” Khatun asked. “How will you talk to us if
you need to know what’s going on in the camps?”
Aid groups say Bangladesh has overreacted to
the tensions and warn that the restrictions jeopardize safety in refugee
camps.
“There is no proper communication system
between the 34 camps. How can you restrict Internet and confiscate mobile
phones?” said Abu Murshed Chowdhury, co-chairman of Cox’s Bazar CSO-NGO forum,
a network of nonprofit and human rights groups.
Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch’s Asia
director, said in a statement that Bangladesh faced a challenge in dealing with
the refugee crisis but had “made matters worse by imposing restrictions on
refugee communications and freedom of movement.”
Activists say Bangladesh officials are
penalizing the Rohingya after some refugees held a rally Aug. 25 to commemorate
the two-year anniversary of their expulsion and to call on Myanmar to grant
them a proper path to repatriation through citizenship. Since 1982, Rohingya
have been unable to legally marry, gain access to education and many jobs, or
move freely within Myanmar, also known as Burma.
“The protest was not meant to cause
Bangladesh harm in any way,” Khatun said. “We are grateful to this country for
giving us space, but we want to know about our future.”
Camp officials faced swift backlash from
local politicians and government officials for permitting the demonstration.
The head of the Office of Refugee Relief and Repatriation and the official in
charge of the camp where the rally occurred were transferred out of their
roles.
Bangladesh also banned two aid groups,
including the U.S.-based Adventist Development and Relief Agency, from
operating in the camps. Mohammad Ashraful Afsar, an official in Cox’s Bazar
district, told the Dhaka Tribune that the organization had encouraged Rohingya
to resist attempts to repatriate them and that it had financed the protest,
including by giving them clothes.
[Pulitzer Prize-winning Reuters reporters freed from prison in Myanmar]
[Pulitzer Prize-winning Reuters reporters freed from prison in Myanmar]
The U.S. organization denies this. “For
visibility, donors gave T-shirts to refugees in some of the camps. It wasn’t
meant for the rally, it was meant for ongoing activities,” said Iqbal Hassan, a
field monitoring officer. “We have had no role in repatriation efforts or even
a role in counseling Rohingya for or against repatriation.”
Hassan said his organization employed almost
5,000 Rohingya laborers who helped to build pathways and bridges and repair
monsoon damage. “They will lose their livelihood now,” he said.
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina expressed concerns about the role of nongovernmental organizations,
suggesting they were fomenting opposition to efforts to return refugees to
Myanmar. “Actually, these agencies never want them to go back,” Hasina said at
a news conference in June. She also questioned Myanmar’s commitment to
providing a safe space that would allow the Rohingya to go home. Myanmar says
it is doing all it can but has not agreed to grant Rohingya full citizenship
rights.
With frustration building, and a solution as
elusive as ever, the situation in the camps is increasingly tense. Refugees
fear they will remain in limbo. “Will we only survive this life by taking rice
and lentils from aid groups?” asked Nurul Alam, a shopkeeper who fled Myanmar
in 2017.
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