by Sabrina Nour Touijer, TAF Regional Peacebuilding Analyst
Citizenship can function not only as a marker of political belonging, but as a powerful tool of exclusion and violence. The Rohingya crisis exemplifies how the denial of citizenship can create conditions of extreme vulnerability, legitimising state-sponsored violence and mass displacement (Ullah 2016, p. 291). Shaped in part by lines drawn by colonial powers to serve imperial interests rather than regional political, economic, or cultural realities, the Rohingya population has faced identity-based discrimination and legal exclusion in Myanmar (MacLean 2018, p. 3). Since 2017 alone, more than 700,000 Rohingyas have been forcefully displaced from Myanmar amid systematic violence and persecution (MacLean 2018, p. 3; Kipgen 2019, p.63).
Despite condemnation from international actors, Myanmar denies any wrongdoing, characterising the Rohingya as “illegal Bengalis” who migrated from neighbouring Bangladesh, rather than legitimate members of the national community (Kipgen 2019, p. 63). Bangladesh, however, also refuses to recognise the Rohingya community as citizens, rendering the population as “stateless” (Kipgen 2019, p. 63). Deemed outsiders in a country they have inhabited for countless generations, the Rohingya have been stripped of citizenship and subjected to institutionalized restrictions on marriage, freedom of movement, religious practice, employment, and education, alongside recurring waves of state-sponsored violence (Kipgen 2019, p. 63).
The denial of citizenship thus operates not merely as a legal classification, but as a structural mechanism that creates vulnerability, legitimises violence, and enables mass displacement. This article examines how citizenship denial has functioned as a catalyst for violence and displacement in Myanmar.
Denial of Citizenship
Traditional conceptions of citizenship frame it as a political membership within a nation-state, through which individuals are granted civil, political, and social rights. Displaced populations challenge this conventional understanding, as they do not fit neatly within territorially bounded notions of belonging and political membership (Mehta & Napier-Moore 2010, p. 15). In the absence of citizenship, identity and belonging are thrown into question, while rights typically granted through citizenship such as political participation and the capacity to be heard as a political subject are revoked (Mehta & Napier-Moore 2010, p. 18). This condition of displacement is inherently destabilising, as it reinforces hierarchical distinctions between inclusion and exclusion. Displaced persons are constructed as belonging elsewhere, that have been uprooted from a place in which he/she is expected to return to (Brun, Fabos, & El-Abed 2017, p. 220-221). Displacement thus comes to be perceived as a threat to the ‘national order of things’, reinforcing the assumed alignment between territory, citizenship, and political belonging.
For the Rohingya population, the Myanmar state has reconstituted a historically recognized community into a stateless group through legal and administrative exclusion. Central to this process was the introduction of the 1982 Citizenship Law, which restructured citizenship into three categories: full citizens, defined as descendants of residents present in Burma prior to 1823; associate citizens, defined as people who were given citizenship under the 1948 Union Citizenship Law; and naturalised citizens, defined as people who resided in Burma/Myanmar prior to 1948 but had failed to apply for citizenship under the Union Citizenship act. Within these three categories, citizenship eligibility was limited to those who were of the country’s “national ethnic races” which included Burman, Karen, Chin, Mon, Rakhine, among 135 other recognized “national ethnic races” (MacLean p. 6). However, the Rohingya were excluded from recognition as one of the “national ethnic races” on the grounds that they were classified as “Bengalis” who had migrated from Bangladesh after 1823, rendering them ineligible for citizenship. Rohingya advocates contest this characterisation, arguing that the Rohingya community constitute a distinct cultural and linguistic group rather than a subset of “Bengalis”, and support their claims with historical evidence proving their presence in Burma/Myanmar prior to the 1823 cutoff. State officials, however, reject the validity of these claims, maintaining that such claims are not rooted in empirical facts but instead represent politically motivated narratives.
The 1982 Citizenship Law fundamentally changed the legal and political status of the Rohingyas by formally stripping them of citizenship in Myanmar. This resulted in the Rohingya community facing severe restrictions on access to education and employment, property ownership, freedom of movement, and the ability to marry and form families (OHCHR 2018, p.6). Sectarian violence which began in 2012 until present day has further intensified Rohingya displacement, affecting hundreds of thousands of individuals. On the 25th of August 2017, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) launched coordinated attacks on approximately 30 security outposts in the northern Rakhine State, killing 12 security personnel. The response by Myanmar’s security forces was immediate and disproportionate, involving widespread and systematic atrocities against Rohingya civilians (OHCHR 2018, p. 8). These included extrajudicial killings, the use of force against unarmed populations, mass rape against women, the torture and abuse of detainees, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, and police beatings (OHCHR 2018, p. 8-10). Collectively, these patterns indicate that the denial of citizenship to the Rohingyas in Myanmar has been a deliberate strategy of exclusion, facilitating systematic violence and displacement in a context where international condemnation has been widespread but largely ineffective.
The Politics of Belonging
Citizenship functions not merely as a legal status, but as a foundational marker of political belonging and identity. The systematic denial of citizenship therefore constitutes more than the withdrawal of formal rights; it represents the intentional exclusion of a population from the political, economic, and social community of the state. In the case of the Rohingya, the revocation of citizenship has operated as a strategic mechanism of exclusion, reconstructing identity into a site of governance and repression. Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law institutionalized this exclusion by embedding ethno-national criteria into the legal definition of belonging, effectively rendering the Rohingya community legally invisible. In doing so, the law has expedited sustained violations of international legal norms, including obligations under the Genocide Convention, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Citizenship in Myanmar has provided the legal infrastructure through which discrimination, violence, and displacement have been normalized and justified.
These domestic legal exclusions have been further exacerbated by systemic failures in international enforcement and accountability. Myanmar’s military dominance and persistent refusal to cooperate with international actors and judicial mechanisms have constrained external leverage. Simultaneously, donor fatigue and declining humanitarian funding have weakened protection mechanisms for displaced Rohingya populations, particularly in host states such as Bangladesh. On the geopolitical level, diplomatic protection by Russia and China, most notably through the blocking of United Nations Security Council resolutions has protected Myanmar from consequential ramifications. Regionally, ASEAN’s long-standing principle of non-interference has limited collective regional pressure and undermined the development of a coordinated response to the crisis.
Addressing the Rohingya crisis therefore requires a multi-level strategy that confronts both the legal foundations of exclusion within Myanmar and the structural inadequacy of the international response. At the domestic level, legal reform is necessary. This includes amending the 1982 Citizenship Law to restore nationality to the Rohingya population and formally recognize them as an indigenous ethnic group with historical ties to the Rakhine State. Such reform is essential to dismantle the legal mechanisms that have enabled systemic violence and discrimination. At the regional and global levels, greater cooperation and responsibility are imperative. ASEAN should be urged to move beyond its non-interference doctrine and adopt a coordinated refugee protection framework that strengthens legal safeguards, access to services, and solutions for the displaced Rohingya community. Internationally, accountability mechanisms must be reinforced through targeted sanctions against Myanmar’s military leadership, the expansion of universal jurisdiction cases in national courts, and sustained diplomatic support for proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Collectively, these measures are important, not only for addressing ongoing abuses, but for challenging the normalization of citizenship denial as a tool for exclusion within the international system.
Final Thoughts
The Rohingya crisis signifies how citizenship, apart from being a neutral legal status, can be mobilised as a deliberate institutionalized mechanism of exclusion, violence, and displacement. Through the institutionalisation of ethno-national criteria in Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law, the Rohingyas were reshaped to be a politically expendable population, rather than a historically accepted indigenous community rooted in Burma/Myanmar. This process not only stripped individuals of formal legal rights, but systematically transformed their political identity and protection, creating conditions under which mass violence, discrimination, and forced displacement could be enforced with little accountability.
This case has shown that displacement is not always an unintended consequence of conflict, but the outcome of intentional governance strategies that seek to redefine the boundaries of national membership. The persistence of such an exclusion has been reinforced by international enforcement failures, including geopolitical obstruction from China and Russia, ASEAN’s non-interference doctrine, and declining humanitarian engagement. Addressing the Rohingya crisis requires not only legal reform, but also a more robust international commitment to accountability, protection, and responsibility-sharing.
Ultimately, it reveals how citizenship can be weaponised to exclude and marginalise. Confronting this reality is necessary if the international community is to prevent the normalization of statelessness as a tool of repression and uphold foundational principles of human rights and international law.
Sabrina Nour Touijer is TAF’s Regional Peacebuilding Analyst and a recent graduate with a Master’s degree in Crisis and Security Management, specialising in War and Peace Studies, from Leiden University. Her academic and professional interests focus on conflict, security, and conflict resolution, with a strong commitment to understanding instability and advancing sustainable peace. Through her work, she aims to support more informed and constructive approaches to peacebuilding in volatile environments.
Edited by Nishiha Jasper David, Frontier Analysis Editor
