#Black4Rohingya

Since 2013 we have run annual social media campaign #Black4Rohingya. Post the 2021 coup in Myanmar hundreds of thousands of Myanmar’s anti-military government protesters flooded social media with pictures of themselves wearing black in a show of solidarity with the Rohingya, this was the first time the Myanmar public joined a protest for the Rohingya. Until then the Myanmar public was largely unsympathetic to the Rohingya’s plight.

Protect the Rohingya began in 2012 with a handful of members as a response to the 2012 massacres. We now work with international Rohingya groups and activists. In 2014 we published a legal report, Hear Our Screams, to the UN office for the prevention of genocide on which we collaborated with the Muslim Lawyers Association in Johannesburg. We also have an e-book in our name which we published in 2015. We have had a speaking tour around the country with members of the European Rohingya Council in 2013 and they met with Dirco officials to brief them about their plight. Another speaking tour ran during the start of 2018 and was countrywide.

Our legal project, sent 3 South African lawyers to Cox’s Bazar in December of 2017 to take statements from Rohingya refugees to be used in international legal matters. The report back for that project is entitled: They Ran For Their Lives, and has been submitted to the UN.

Our Winter school project in November of 2018 we collaborated with members of the Rohingya Community Development Campaign (RCDC) to organise a winter school for 100 Rohingya adults, men and women, based in Balukhali 10, Ukhiya, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The Winter School project curriculum was compiled specifically for adult learners. The project sought to recreate a campus environment as well as impart social media, interviewing and reporting skills to participants. The 5 day classes included poetry from the global south, oral history and comparative genocide studies.

We have briefed trade unions as well as various organisations, organised protests and screenings, written articles and assisted with talks for those addressing groups including parliaments on the issue. We are periodically interviewed by students doing their thesis on the issue and have advised 2 authors for their books prior to publishing. We also assist Rohingya activists from various countries on their projects over the past years.