After Burma's 8 November elections the Burma Border Guard Police (BGP) has resumed extorting money from Rohingyas travelling between Maungdaw Town and Maungdaw North, according to Shakib, an elder from Maungdaw North.
He said that a group of Rohingyas travelling by minibus to Maungdaw had to get out of the vehicle at the BGP headquarters gate and show all their documents to the officer on duty at 11:00 am on 13 November.
After inspecting their documents the officer demanded 1,000 kyats from all the passengers who had white ID cards and 500 kyats from those who had travel documents or light green ID cards.
According to a trader from Bawli Bazar, who wished to remain anonymous, the government has revoked the white ID cards and replaced them with light green ID cards, but most Rohingyas do not have light green ID cards because they did not return their white ID cards which they are still using as travel documents.
He said that BGP officers are taking advantage of the fact that many Rohingyas are travelling on invalid white ID cards to extort money from them.
Also on 13 November a group of BGP officers from Nari Bill Camp arrested two youths on the road out from Nari Bill Village for having Bangladeshi SIM cards in their mobiles.
According to a local, Jamir, after the youths had been arrested the BGP officers removed the Burmese SIM cards from their mobile phones and replaced them with Bangladeshi SIM cards
One of the youths, Moulvi Sayedul Islam (17), son of Mohamed Sultan, was released after paying one million kyats, but the other youth, Jaffar Hussain (30), son of Yosuf, is still being detained at the BGP camp.
Ahmed, a student, said: "The BGP is extorting huge amounts of money."
Rohingya villagers from northern Arakan State had hoped that harassment and discrimination of Rohingyas would stop after the election, but apparently nothing has changed.
Edited in English by Mark Inkey for BNI
