By JN Joniad
23 September 2019
In 1982, the Myanmar government introduced regulations denying citizenship to anyone who could not prove Burmese ancestry dating back to 1823. Now, the United Nations has officially called Rohingya a ‘stateless’ ethnicity. As of today, nearly one million Rohingyans have fled to Bangladesh since Myanmar’s military began ethnic cleansing. JN Joniad, a Rohingya man, told Dateline his story.
In Myanmar, I was given a ‘White Card’. I needed this card to travel within my own town. I was banned from going to other cities and I couldn’t get a passport. I had, effectively, a temporary residency permit in my own country.