(18 Dec 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sabang, Weh island, Aceh - 18 December 2023
1. Various of protesters gathered on main road
2. Protester speaking to crowds using loudspeaker
3. Various of protesters marching, carrying banners reading (Indonesian) "Should UNHCR and its agents sell humanity for money?" and "Sabang Student and Community Alliance."
4. Women on motorbikes, riding towards Rohingya temporary shelter
5. Wide of the Rohingya temporary shelter at Sabang Harbor Pier
6. Various of Rohingya refugees seen at temporary shelter
7. Rohingya children in the camp
8. Pan right of local residents in front of Sabang Pier to police standing guard in front of port entrance
9. Various of protesters at entrance
10. Protesters with banner reading (Indonesian): "UNHCR and IOM must take responsibility for the immediate resettlement of the 139 Rohingya refugees in Sabang"
11. Poster reading (Indonesian): "Reject the Rohingya"
12. Police standing guard
13. SOUNDBITE (Indonesian) Samsul Bahri, protester:
"Our demand is to reject them all. They must leave or we will take stronger action. The government and law enforcement must firmly do so (remove the Rohingya from Sabang). We, Sabang people are also having a hard time, we cannot accommodate any more people."
14. Rohingya women and children
15. Close of Rohingya children sitting
STORYLINE:
More than 200 people demonstrated on Monday against the continued arrival of Rohingya refugees by boat on an island in Indonesia.
Over 1,500 Rohingya, who fled violent attacks in Myanmar and now are leaving camps in neighbouring Bangladesh in search of better lives, have arrived in Aceh off the tip of Sumatra since November.
They have faced some hostility from fellow Muslims in Aceh.
The protesters, many of them residents and students, called on authorities and the U.N. refugee agency to remove all Rohingya refugees from Weh Island, often known as Sabang after the city from which the island is administered.
They also want humanitarian organizations helping the refugees to leave.
The latest boat to arrive was carrying 139 Rohingya, including women and children.
“Our demand is to reject them all. They must leave. Because Sabang people are also having a hard time, they cannot accommodate any more people,” said one protester, Samsul Bahri.
Last week, Indonesia appealed to the international community for help.
Indonesia once tolerated such landings of refugees, while Thailand and Malaysia push them away.
But the growing hostility of some Indonesians toward the Rohingya has put pressure on President Joko Widodo’s government to take action.
The president earlier this month said the government suspected a surge in human trafficking for the increase in Rohingya arrivals.
Police in Aceh have detained at least four people suspected of human trafficking in the past two weeks.
About 740,000 Rohingya were resettled in Bangladesh after fleeing their homes in Myanmar to escape a brutal counterinsurgency campaign carried out in 2017 by security forces.
Accusations of mass rape, murder and the burning of entire villages are well documented, and international courts are considering whether Myanmar authorities committed genocide and other grave human rights abuses.
Efforts to repatriate the Rohingya have failed because of doubts their safety can be assured.
The Rohingya are largely denied citizenship rights in Buddhist-majority Myanmar and face widespread social discrimination.
AP video shot by Taufik Kelana
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