This post is part of our special coverage Myanmar's Rohingya. Many in Myanmar believe that Rohingyas are Bengali Muslims who migrated to Western Myanmar (formerly Burma) after 1948. This is also the official stand of the Myanmar government which denies them citizenship according to their 1982 rule. This has opened a floodgate of discriminatory treatment against the Rohingya Muslims in the country, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to the neighboring countries including Bangladesh and Thailand. The report of a fact finding mission by the Danish immigration service states: In Myanmar, there are approximately 750,000 stateless Rohingya in Northern Rakhine State. Approximately 28,000 Burmese Rohingya are registered as living in two official refugee camps in Bangladesh, and more than 200,000 unregistered Rohingya live in surrounding towns and villages outside of the two camps. Malaysia hosts more than 90,000 refugees and asylum seekers, primarily in urban areas, 91% of whom are from Myanmar. Today 750,000 Rohingyas living for generations in Myanmar face considerable prejudice from Myanmar society. They are prevented from traveling freely outside of specially-designated zones in Myanmar. They are also not allowed to serve in state positions and are barred from attending higher educational institution. Getting a marriage contract can take up to one year. The plight and despair of people from the unregistered Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh. Image by Jared Katz. Copyright Demotix (09/07/2009). Abu Anin, a researcher, provides a history of the Arakan and the influence of Muslims in Myanmar: In the partial census of 1954, the figures shown in the villages of Arakan were 56.75% Buddhist and 41.60% Muslims. Nurul Islam of Rohingya Society in Malaysia writes: ‘Rohingya problem’ started in Burma from British colonial period onwards. There were violent anti-Indian (including anti-Muslim) riots in 1930-31 and again in 1938 in which several hundreds Indians and Muslims were killed in Burma. Muslim properties: shops, houses and mosques were looted, destroyed and burned under the campaign of ‘Burma for Burmese only’. Similar anti-Muslim sentiment blew up in Arakan too. [..] Bulk of the Muslims was internally displaced, and nearly 50,000 of them took refuge in the British held territories of Chittagong and Rangpur. [..] The successive Burmese governments have had pursued policies of exclusion and persecution against Rohingyas while some hardhearted Rakhine academic and politicians are engaged in racist and xenophobic plans to marginalize and exterminate them. With preoccupation of ‘Muslim phobia’ the former dictator Ne Win promulgated an oppressive Burma Citizenship law in 1982 in order to deprive the Rohingyas of their time-honored citizenship and ethnic rights in Burma. The Rohingya were citizens of Myanmar until the restrictive Citizenship Law of 1982 was promulgated by the late dictator Ne Win’s Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) regime on October 15, 1982. This law essentially follows the principle of jus sanguinis (citizenship is not determined by place of birth but by having one or both parent who are citizens of the nation.) Nurul Islam continues: Based on how one’s forebears obtained citizenship, Ne Win stratified citizenship into three status groups: full, associate and naturalized. Full citizens are those belonging to one of the so-called 135 ‘national races’, who lived in Burma prior to 1823 — just prior to the conquest of parts of lower Burma (Arakan and Tenassarim) by the British, or were born to parents who were citizens at the time of birth. [..] Associate citizens are those who acquired citizenship through the 1948 Union Citizenship Law. Naturalized citizenship could only be granted to those who could furnish “conclusive evidence” of entry and residence before Burma’s independence on 4 January 1948, who could speak one of the national languages well and whose children were born in Burma. Thus naturalized citizens refer to persons who lived in Burma before independence and applied for citizenship after 1982. It is worthy of mention that the previous parliamentary government listed 144 ethnic groups in Burma. But Ne Win put only 135 groups on a short list, and then was approved by his BSPP regime’s constitution of 1974. The three Muslim groups of Rohingya (Muslim Arakanese), Panthay (Chinese Muslims), Bashu (Malay Muslims) and six other ethnic groups were deleted. It was an injustice founded on religious rancour and racial prejudice towards Muslims and smaller non-Burman groups, particularly against the Rohingya, who are not a manageable minority.