‘Ascertain who decided to shift Rohingya refugees to EWS flats’

‘Ascertain who decided to shift Rohingya refugees to EWS flats’

For Prelims

About Rohingyas

  • The Rohingya people are a stateless, Indo-Aryan ethnic group who reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar.
  • The Rohingya population has been denied citizenship under the 1982 Myanmar nationality law. This has resulted in the Rohingyas being denied the possibility of acquiring a nationality.
  • They are described by the United Nations as the most persecuted minority in the world.
  • A large number of Rohingyas are currently given asylum by Bangladesh and are staying in the island of Bhasan Char.

About UN Convention on Refugees:

  • The UN Convention on Refugees of 1951 defines refugees as refugees who leave their home countries “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”
  • It does not include deprivation of economic rights as an eligibility criterion.
  • The convention also takes non-refoulement as its core principle, which asserts that a refugee should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom.
  • It is also known as the Geneva Convention of 1951 and is a legally binding document.
  • The 1967 Protocol removed the geographical and temporal boundaries of the convention and made it universally applicable.
  • The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) serves as the ‘guardian’ of the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol.
  • 149 countries are parties to either or both the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol.
  • India has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention nor its 1967 Protocol.
  • India, however does, host a large number of refugees in its territory such as Tibetans, Sri Lankan Tamils, Buddhist Chakmas from the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, Muslim Rohinygas from Myanmar, Bhutanese from Nepal which makes it have the largest refugee population in South Asia.

 

source: THE HINDU