Image Credits: Shilani
The moment we hear about Rohingya, pictures of Muslims crowds start doing the rounds in our minds. However, we completely forget the fact that there are Rohingya Hindus as well.. For the last few years, Rohingya Muslims have been in limelight for all the wrong reasons from butchering the Hindu Rohingyas to traversing across the India-Bangladesh border illegally, smuggling of cattle and human trafficking, etc. Despite this, many Islamic countries want India to offer them rehabilitation. They have put immense pressure on the Indian government irrespective of the fact that India is already a country of more than 1.4 billion people, that makes every sixth person in the world to be an Indian. The question is why don’t these Islamic countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries provide shelters to Rohingya Muslims. They have money, they have oil, they have land and resources and they need labor. In my opinion, it will be a win-win situation.
Saudi Arabia, which considers itself the messiah of Muslims across the globe, has made it loud and clear that it won’t give citizenship to Rohingya Muslims. (And yet they expect India to take in a bunch of loony toons because they are here. Hilarious, right?) The hypocrisy of Saudi Arabia surfaced in April 2019 when several reports of hunger strikes in Saudi detention centres made headlines. Rohingya Muslims were protesting the inhumane conditions in the detention centers. The cradle of Islam also started forcibly deporting Rohingya back to Bangladesh, where they are repatriated to Myanmar.
According to Saudi Arabia, the detained Rohingya Muslims are illegal immigrants. As they entered Saudi Arabia by making use of false documents, Saudi Arabia uses this argument to hold the migrants for an indefinite amount of time. In November 2018, Saudi Arabia had made all the arrangements for the deportation of Rohingya Muslims. Mohamed Bin Salman, Saudi Crown Prince, had met with Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina and had asked her to accept the Rohingya in Saudi Arabia’s centers. In January 2019, 250 Rohingya Muslims were deported back to Bangladesh by Saudi authorities.
Rohingya women were being trafficked and forced to work as indentured maids in the service of Saudi families. This is one of the examples of human rights violation cases in Saudi Arabia. Yet Muslims everywhere in the world are silent about whatever is happening in Saudi Arabia. They would scream at the top of their lungs about Uighur Muslims atrocities in China because Uighurs are Muslims but won’t talk about tortures committed by a Muslim on other Muslim community. Is screaming, protesting enough? Won’t they do anything about it? Israel is one Jewish state. Any Jew anywhere in the world can apply for citizenship and they will take them in. India got the citizenship act for six persecuted religions as well but what are Muslims doing for other Muslims other than protesting and shouting? It is majorly the USA and Europe that takes refugees in. There are numerous such human rights violations committed daily by the cradle of Islam and yet there’s hardly any prime time debate on news channels.
In May 2018, more than 100 Bangladeshi maids returned to their home after escaping their abusive employers inside Saudi Arabia. As per local NGO workers, majority of the repatriated maids had faced sexual abuse in Saudi Arabia. According to a 21 year old Bangladeshi woman Robina, on a number of occasions, her sponsor had tried to abuse her sexually. They would beat her until she stopped resisting. According to BRAC, it has witnessed dozens of Bangladeshi maids who had gone through sexual abuse and due to this the women were rejected by their families.
A 28 year old woman Khaleda Akhter was compelled to spend months inside a Bangladeshi-run safe house in Saudi Arabia. She was punched and slapped several times by her employer. She said that her employer tried to burn her twice. Similar to many Bangladeshi domestic workers, she fled her employers after months of physical abuse. As per local NGO BRAC, in the year 2018 alone, more than 1,000 Bangladeshi women came back to Bangladesh so that they could escape physical and sexual abuse in Saudi. Most escaped to one of the safe houses run by the Bangladeshi embassy in Riyadh and Jeddah. A majority of women have not been paid by their employers and also these women were left bereft of their passports.
According to some women, men in their employer’s family raped them. On the other hand, many women were forced into the sex trade, and were tortured if they refused. Saudi authorities never arrested such employers accused of torturing their Bangladeshi domestic workers. No capital punishment for them? No cutting of hands? Beheading? Stone pelting at least? No?
Countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines have banned female workers from working in parts of the Gulf for a certain time period after cases of abuse rose to alarming levels. According to the Foreign Ministry of the Philippines, a Saudi employer forced a Filipina domestic worker to drink household bleach in April 2018. As per the ministry, domestic worker Agnes Mancilla went through emergency abdominal surgery after she was taken, unconscious, to a hospital in Saudi's southwestern Jizan city on 2 April. According to Edgar Badajos, the Philippine consulate in the Saudi city of Jeddah, her lady employer repeatedly abused her and also did not pay her salary.
Saudi Arabia has always been notorious for mishandling of non-Muslims. The country follows harsh Sharia law which has been criticized multiple times for human rights violations. Sharia law is derived from the Quran which mandates restrictions on making friends with infidels.
It’s time international organizations and countries throughout the world start questioning Saudi Arabia for its inhumanity and force it to mend its ways. Rather than putting pressure on India to take in Rohingya Muslims, show the mercy that you keep talking about in every other sentence and airlift the Rohingyas from seas and habilitate them in your country, Saudi Arabia. That will show the world that you are in fact the messiah of the Muslims.
Namaste!
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