Speak out for Rohingya rights

It’s been nine years since the discrimination and violence against the Rohingya people escalated into genocide. The Burmese military killed thousands and forced over 700,000 people to flee to Bangladesh, where they still live in limbo without adequate access to food, education, and basic rights. The United States can do more to support the end of this persecution by reversing its cuts to foreign assistance for this already beleaguered community.

Speak out now: Add your name to our community’s letter to members of Congress, urging them to increase humanitarian assistance for the Rohingya, support democracy in Burma, and more.

Dear members of Congress,

As your constituent and a supporter of American Jewish World Service, I’m writing to express my concerns about the safety and human rights of the Rohingya people, a persecuted ethnic minority from Burma. Nine years ago, a military junta unleashed a wave of escalating assaults against Rohingya communities in Burma. These attacks, which the United States later declared a genocide in 2022, killed thousands of people and forced more than 700,000 others to flee and seek safety in neighboring Bangladesh.

Today, more than one million Rohingya people live in Cox’s Bazaar, one of the world’s largest refugee camps with shrinking food rations and a lack of access to health care and education. The Rohingya still living in Burma are caught amid fighting between the junta and other armed forces grappling for control of territory. The humanitarian needs for all Rohingya communities are dire and nearing famine.

I thank the Congress members who have kept progress for Burma on the agenda. In both the House and the Senate, the highest levels of Congressional foreign policy representatives publicly denounced the junta’s sham elections and asked the Trump administration to do the same. But the U.S. has fallen short on upholding the humanitarian and democratic values our country was built on.

I join American Jewish World Service in urging the U.S. government to increase humanitarian assistance for the Rohingya living in Burma and surrounding countries, support Burma’s democracy movement, push the junta to end the violence in Burma, and restore access asylum, Temporary Protected Status, and other migration protections for the Rohingya people. In the words of Emma Lazarus, "until we all are free, we are none of us free.”

Thank you for considering my request,

[Your Name]