H. Res. 418 
In the House of Representatives, U. S., 
May 7, 2014. 
Whereas over 800,000 Rohingya ethnic minority live in 
Burma, mostly in the western Rakhine state; 
Whereas currently, approximately 140,000 Rohingya are in-
ternally displaced in central Rakhine state and hundreds 
of thousands have fled to neighboring countries, including 
at least 231,000 in Bangladesh, at least 15,000 in Ma-
laysia, and many more in Thailand and Indonesia; 
Whereas the current Government of Burma, like its prede-
cessors, continues to use the Burma Citizenship Law of 
1982 to exclude from approved ethnic groups the 
Rohingya people, despite many having lived in northern 
Rakhine state for generations, and has thereby rendered 
Rohingyas stateless and vulnerable to exploitation and 
abuse; 
Whereas the Rohingya have historically experienced other 
particularized and severe legal, economic, and social dis-
crimination, including restrictions on travel outside their 
village of residence, limitations on their access to higher 
education, and a prohibition from working as civil serv-
ants, including as doctors, nurses, or teachers; 
Whereas authorities have also required Rohingya to obtain of-
ficial permission for marriages and have singled out
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Rohingya in northern Rakhine state for forced labor and 
arbitrary arrests; 
Whereas the Government of Burma has forcefully relocated 
Rohingya into relief camps, where they lack decent shel-
ter, access to clean water, food, sanitation, health care, 
the ability to support themselves, or basic education for 
their children; 
Whereas a two-child policy sanctioned solely upon the 
Rohingya population in the districts of Maungdaw and 
Buthidaung in northern Rakhine state restricts the rights 
of women and children, prevents children from obtaining 
Burmese citizenship, denies Rohingyas access to basic 
government services, and fosters discrimination against 
Muslim women by Buddhist nurses and midwives; 
Whereas the United States Department of State has regu-
larly expressed since 1999 its particular concern for se-
vere legal, economic, and social discrimination against 
Burma’s Rohingya population in its Country Report for 
Human Rights Practices; 
Whereas the level of persecution, including widespread arbi-
trary arrest, detention, and extortion of Rohingya and 
other Muslim communities, has dramatically increased 
over the past year and a half; 
Whereas communal violence has affected both Muslims and 
Burma’s majority Buddhist population, but has over-
whelmingly targeted Burma’s ethnic Muslim minorities, 
which altogether comprise less than 5 percent of Burma’s 
population; 
Whereas violence targeting Rohingyas in Maungdaw and 
Sittwe in June and July of 2012 resulted in the deaths
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of at least 57 Muslims and the destruction of 1,336 
Rohingyas homes; 
Whereas on October 23, 2012, at least 70 Rohingyas were 
killed, and the Yan Thei village of the Mrauk-U Town-
ship was destroyed; 
Whereas the United Nations High Commissioner for Human 
Rights reported possessing credible evidence of the deaths 
of at least 48 Rohingyas in Du Chee Yar Tan village in 
Maungdaw Township, Rakhine state in January 2014, 
and human rights groups reported mass arrests and arbi-
trary detention of Rohingya in the aftermath of this vio-
lence; 
Whereas Burmese officials have denied the killings of 
Rohingyas in Du Chee Yar Tan village in January 2014 
and responded to international media coverage of the vio-
lence with threats against media outlets, including the 
Associated Press; 
Whereas violence has also targeted Muslims not of Rohingya 
ethnicity, including riots in March 2013 in the town of 
Meiktila that resulted in the death of at least 43 Bur-
mese Muslims, including 20 students and several teachers 
massacred at an Islamic school, the burning of at least 
800 homes and 5 mosques, and the displacement of 
12,000 people; 
Whereas on October 1, 2013, riots involving more than 700 
Buddhists in Thandwe township resulted in the death of 
4 Kaman Muslim men and the stabbing death of a 94- 
year-old Muslim woman; 
Whereas over 4,000 religious, public, and private Rohingya 
structures have been destroyed;
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Whereas Rohingyas have experienced and continue to experi-
ence further restrictions on their practice of Islam, cul-
ture, and language; 
Whereas the violence against ethnic Muslim populations, in-
cluding the Rohingya and other Muslim groups, is part 
of a larger troubling pattern of violence against other 
ethnic and religious minorities in Burma; 
Whereas the Government of Burma expelled Medecins Sans 
Frontieres from Rakhine state, leaving Rohingya commu-
nities and others without access to health care and life- 
saving treatment for malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV; and 
Whereas the Rakhine state threatens to ban all unregistered 
nongovernmental 
organizations 
from 
operating 
in 
Rakhine state, severely limiting the provision of necessary 
services to Rohingyas and others in need: Now, therefore, 
be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) recognizes the initial steps Burma has taken in 
transitioning from a military dictatorship to a quasi-ci-
vilian government, including the conditional release of 
some political prisoners, and calls for more progress to 
be made in critical areas of democracy, constitutional re-
form, and national reconciliation in order for Burma to 
achieve its own goal of political liberalization; 
(2) calls on the Government of Burma to end all 
forms of persecution and discrimination of the Rohingya 
people and ensure respect for internationally recognized
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human rights for all ethnic and religious minority groups 
within Burma; 
(3) calls on the Government of Burma to recognize 
the Rohingya as an ethnic group indigenous to Burma, 
and to work with the Rohingya to resolve their citizen-
ship status; 
(4) calls on the United States Government and the 
international community to put consistent pressure on 
the Government of Burma to take all necessary meas-
ures to end the persecution and discrimination of the 
Rohingya population and to protect the fundamental 
rights of all ethnic and religious minority groups in 
Burma; and 
(5) calls on the United States Government to 
prioritize the removal of state-sanctioned discriminatory 
policies in its engagement with the Government of 
Burma. 
Attest: 
Clerk.