Only hours after Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday told residents of Bago state that she would work to address concerns about religious discrimination in the citizenship registration process, authorities in the region were summoning trustees of local mosques, asking them to sign a document stating that their local immigration office does not practice discrimination, a rights group has claimed.
That assertion was made in a statement released today by the Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN), which condemned the move and called on the National League for Democracy government to investigate the Bago Township Immigration Office and take action against officials they say used coercion to “conceal long-held discriminatory and corrupt practices.”
“We believe these practices to be a misuse of power and inherently oppressive to minorities… We call on the government of the NLD to take responsibility to prevent similar cases of coercion by the authorities,” the statement reads.
Last July, BHRN released a report outlining the systematic corruption and discrimination that Muslim citizens and other so-called mixed-blood citizens face when applying for passports, including harassment, intimidation, bribery and unexplained delays.
As reported previously by Coconuts Yangon, “mixed-blood” citizens are subjected to a different set of unwritten rules when encountering the immigration bureaucracy, including a different queue at Yangon’s passport office, and arbitrary requirements such as interrogations and changing your race or ethnicity on your documentation.
Read more: For ‘mixed-blood’ citizens, Yangon’s passport office is a racist hell
During this month’s town hall, Suu Kyi told Bago residents to refrain from bribing officials when they encounter unexpected delays and difficulties at the immigration office and instead defer to the Myanmar constitution, which enshrines “freedom of religion” as a right for all Burmese citizens.
At this point, we’re guessing the good people of Bago might be having a hard time trusting in that.
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