Malaysia gave refuge to Rohingya; now it wants them to go

What the report says

Malaysia is moving ahead with a new repatriation effort involving Rohingya refugees, drawing criticism from the United Nations and human rights groups. Al Jazeera reports that the government began sending back an initial group of nearly 1,500 Rohingya to Myanmar on Tuesday, even though Kuala Lumpur has long been seen as a relatively welcoming place for the persecuted Muslim minority.

The article says roughly 125,000 Rohingya live in Malaysia, where many lack formal rights. They are not granted refugee status because Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, so they cannot legally access public education or healthcare and many depend on informal work. Community activists told Al Jazeera that some Rohingya now fear harassment and find it harder to get even low-wage jobs.

The government says those returned are volunteers and that their safety is assured. Critics argue that assurances are hard to trust because Myanmar remains unstable after the 2021 military coup and the broader conflict in Rakhine and elsewhere. The Rohingya’s displacement is also tied to the 2017 military crackdown that drove more than 700,000 people into Bangladesh, an episode widely condemned internationally.

The story adds that rising online hate, misinformation and election-year politics in Malaysia have helped sour public attitudes toward Rohingya refugees, marking a shift from earlier sympathy toward a group many Malaysians once informally supported.