Press Release: The Continued Butchering Of Rohingya Muslim Women And Children Re-enforces The Urgent Need For The Khilafah To Protect Them

On the 16th January, Al-Jazeera, Associated Press and other media reported on statements from a witness and the Arakan Project rights group that documents abuses against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar that more than a dozen Rohingya women and children were killed in the village of Du Char Yar Tan in the western Rakhine state on Tuesday 14th January. According to these reports, the Muslim women and children were hacked to death by a Buddhist mob, with many more Rohingya also feared dead.This incident is only the tip of the iceberg of the unspeakable brutality and slaughter that Rohingya Muslim women and children have been subject to at the hands of Rakhine Buddhists and Myanmar security forces as part of their organized mass ethnic cleansing of Muslims from the region. This includes the notorious Yan Thei massacre where over 70 Rohingya were murdered in cold blood, including 28 children. Those women and children who have fled to neighbouring countries face a new phase of oppression and terror. They are either refused entry or basic rights that enable them to exist, placed in overcrowded, dangerous refugee camps, or they are subject to physical or sexual abuse, exploitation, or trafficking. In December, news emerged of Thailand’s secret trafficking camps where Rohingya boat people seeking refuge from their ordeal in Myanmar are being beaten, raped, and handed over to traffickers, encouraged by immigration officers.

In their scramble to secure oil, gas, and other lucrative trade contracts in Myanmar, Western governments have conveniently chosen to ignore this genocide. Clearly, the mass-murder of minorities is not a reality that such democratic states would consider reason enough to sever their trade relations with a country. It once again exposes that under democratic capitalist states, not only are the rights of minorities not protected but human rights and moral principles can be discarded with no qualms in exchange for economic benefit.

The Muslim regimes, including those surrounding Myanmar such as Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia have similarly abandoned the Rohingya women and children, forsaking their responsibility towards them in the name of preserving national interests – a concept that Islam condemns and that has led, as with the Syrian war to states deserting Muslims who are being butchered by their oppressors. These Muslim rulers and their nationalistic, capitalistic systems have been a chain around the neck of this Ummah. They need to be removed urgently and replaced with the Khilafah under which the ruler is duty-bound by the Islamic system to rescue and save the life, property and honor of the Muslims, regardless of their nationality. It is a system under which the Khalifah Al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik sent Muslim armies under the leadership of General Muhammad Bin Qasim to rescue Muslim women and children who were captured by a Hindu Raja Dahir in the southern Indian port city, which resulted in liberation of the whole area of Sindh from the despotic Hindu rule. Such a Khilafah state is needed again urgently to rescue the poor Rohingya Muslims. It will mobilize the Muslim army without delay in response to the command of Allah (swt):

﴿وَمَا لَكُمْ لَا تُقَاتِلُونَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ وَالْمُسْتَضْعَفِينَ مِنَ الرِّجَالِ وَالنِّسَاءِ وَالْوِلْدَانِ الَّذِينَ يَقُولُونَ رَبَّنَا أَخْرِجْنَا مِنْ هَٰذِهِ الْقَرْيَةِ الظَّالِمِ أَهْلُهَا وَاجْعَلْ لَنَا مِنْ لَدُنْكَ وَلِيًّا وَاجْعَلْ لَنَا مِنْ لَدُنْكَ نَصِيرًا﴾

“What has happened to you that you do not fight in the way of Allah and for the oppressed among men, women and children who say, “Our Lord, take us out from this town whose people are cruel. And make for us from Your own a supporter, and make for us from Your own a helper.” [TMQ an-Nisa: 75]

The Women’s Section
of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir