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MD Noor Opening Speech at DWeb Camp 2024, California, USA

 
MD Noor Opening Speech at DWeb Camp 2024, California, USA

I'm deeply honored to stand here with such an esteemed assembly of tech activists from across the world. Your work leveraging technology to solve global challenge is truly inspiring. And it's a privilege to share a little story of my own family. My name is Mohammed Noor and I'm a Rohingya from Arakan, Burma. One night, late in 1960s, when my father was seven and eight years old, they had to flee their ancestral land, Arakan, Burma, due to harassment and persecution by the Burmese authority. and left Burma to a journey unknown, crossing different borders, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and many other. A journey that took many years and a struggle for a seven-year-old boy. I was born stateless. those Rohingya family who were persecuted in their own ancestral homeland. And my life began with heavy burden of estatelessness. and denied basic right of even existence. Statelessness is not a legal term. It's a lived experience that I have lived. And it's a hardship that I wish no one had to go through. And this experience impacts every aspect of your life. Growing up without an ID and a documentation that meant my family exists within us, but we are invisible to the rest of the world. Constant exploitation, denied basic right for a little boy to go even to a clinic and a hospital, getting education is a constant struggle and a daily struggle. Education in particular was a major challenge. As a child, I had to fight tirelessly to get education and even turned away from schools, even tuition centers, just because of the documentation. Education is a powerful tool that can transform lives and a journey that I personally endure, that I personally went through. which for many people take it for granted to go to school. To get a registration form from a school. It took us about a year to get to the school, take us another year to get to pay the fees, it took us another year. We don't have the time to go through individual incident of everything, but it is extremely hard. When I say hard, it's really hard to get even to sit in a school, which a lot of people take it for granted. After many years of a struggle and many months of detention center, I managed to get some sort of documentation, which eventually opened some door. The door. that can open by this identity which inspired my life's work. I am now on a journey to ensure that others like me do not have to endure this hardship and face these challenges. And now looking for an opportunity to provide Rohingya community with tools and recognition they thrive. Let me just quickly tell you the plight of Rohingya. Rohingya is one of the most persecuted minority in the world. We are about four million people that is subjected to genocide. Daily basis of killing, rape, mass murder, mass killing, burning of our villages and our ancestral lands. Right to movement has been revoked. No citizenship, no education. United Nations has declared Rohingya is one of the most persecuted minority in the world. Just only in 2017, which is just a couple of years ago, Myanmar military crackdown on Rohingya more than 700,000 people has crossed border thousands of them are dead with United Nations so-called the intent of genocide. These atrocities committed against Rohingya during this period was just to list a few mass killing, mass rape, mass grave, sexual violence, burning of babies, burning of villages and many. And these has left a deep scar to our community and generational trauma up till today. Myanmar, Burma has denied citizenship to Rohingya since 1982. Rohingya has been forced to flee in different countries. Today, 90 % of Rohingya has been forced out of their own homeland, living in limbo in different countries. Malaysia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, UAE, India, Nepal. Sri Lanka and many more without having an identity, without having education, without having a future. one of the here i just want to tell a double persecution that happened on Rohingya. One of the biggest failure during this plight was the manipulation of centralized institution. A spread of mis and disinformation centralized institution where the government or corporate have failed to protect the right of Rohingya. During the height of Rohingya crisis in 2017 and 18, social media platforms like Facebook played extremely troubling role in committing genocide towards Rohingya. Rohingya activist profiles were deactivated, pages were removed, our voices were voiceless. At the same time, the generals of Myanmar were tweeting and telling that these people has to be eliminated and killed and spread of this information were continuously. Up till today, what some of our Activists their pages are removed and we have constantly talking to them up till now they have not released. Having to know that who are we? One of my initiatives is called the Rohingya Project, which was introduced earlier. It's a blockchain-based platform based on three pillars. Number one is a decentralized identity for those who have no identity. Number two, an education that had not been able to access education for the last five decades. Number three, a financial service that they have never tasted. A Rohingya for a Rohingya opening a bank account is a project let alone storing money a single of transaction like Western Union is not possible for Rohingya an entire population of four million people are living in dark and living in limbo and sometime I call it the way Myanmar has laid out the genocide is to Rohingya to rot, not even in Myanmar, even to rot outside Myanmar, which is happening now. The Rohingya Project aims to create a foundation, a viable future for the stateless connecting digitally to opportunities to learn, to equip and empower themselves. This platform tapped into potential of Rohingya community and other marginalized people, offering options to counter exclusion from mainstream. One of the significant project that I am working alongside is Rohingya language preservation. One that you can see here. This is how a Rohingya is written. Since 1960s and 70s anybody who teaches anybody who writes it anybody who has it anybody who has big book has been killed by the Myanmar military so that this language do not exist on earth Rohingya language and another project we call Rohingya Heritage Archive. The Rohingya language, like our culture, is a vital part of our identity. Due to years of persecution and displacement, it has been risk of being lost. I happen to be the person who digitized this language about 25 years ago and later it was unicoded in 2017. Today any Android or iOS has this. So we call the Burmese that you want to erase us. Now we exist in your phone, we exist in your laptop, we exist everywhere. The Rohingya Heritage Archive is another crucial project aimed preserving Rohingya history, documenting atrocities that we have faced. It's called RGA, Rohingya Genocide Archive. It's an archive that include media evidence of genocidal crime and crime against humanity that is perpetrated against the Rohingya in this modern age. Last, my journey from a stateless refugee to an advocate for my people has been a long and a challenging one, but it also incredibly rewarding one. Though it's important that what this journey has taught me is resilience and most importantly, the power of technology and necessity to fight for justice and recognition. The struggle of Rohingya is not just about past, it is about building. It is about building future where we can live with dignity and have the rights, our rights to be respected. It's about restoring hope and dignity to people who have been systematically denied. It's about using technology to bridge gap, create opportunities and empower, marginalize. Together, I believe we can make a significant difference in the life of Rohingya and many other stateless like us and restore dignity as people. Thank you very much.

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