A new campaign created by BlackSheep working with their client Kashmir, has been launched to raise awareness of the plight of the Rohingya over the past four decades Myanmar. According to the campaign, since August 2017, a million Rohingya have been forced to flee from their homes in Myanmar over the border into Bangladesh. Just this past week Human rights watch called on Thailand and Malaysia to allow stranded Rohinya refugees entrance across their borders.
According to the campaign,”The Rohingya in Rakhine State remains in the most dire conditions at the mercy of the security forces which unleashed the atrocities against them in 2017,” adding that “As refugees in Bangladesh, Rohingya face food scarcity, human trafficking concerns, the lack of clean water, no access to jobs, education and medical facilities, and the fear of being relocated to Bhasan Char, a previously uninhabited, remote flood-prone island.”
The campaign looks to call attention to Bangladesh imposing phone restrictions and a blanket internet ban on all 34 Rohingya Refugee Camps in Cox’s Bazar. The Rohingya rely on mobile phone and internet access to communicate the violations of their human rights to the rest of the world. This access provides lifelines to families, access to news and information and is the primary source of education for youth in the camps, who have severely limited access to formal schooling.
Aid workers and community leaders rely on WhatsApp and other internet-based communication and this shutdown prevents effective dissemination of coronavirus information while impeding aid workers’ ability to conduct “contact tracing” to contain transmission of the virus
The campaign also has issued a petition to permanently lift the internet ban.
On June 13th a call was issued for #Black4Rohingya asking people to wear black and share your photos and messages of solidarity across media platforms.
