A prominent Rohingya Muslim leader who once visited the White House was shot and killed Wednesday by unidentified gunmen at a refugee camp in Bangladesh, police officials and rights groups said. Mohib Ullah, 46, was a renowned advocate for Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority and rose to prominence as a community leader among his fellow refugees in Bangladesh. In 2019, he briefly met with President Donald Trump at the White House as part of a delegation of victims of religious conflict around the world. First, Ullah helped U.N. officials and other investigators compile testimonies from survivors of the military crackdown — part of a catalogue of alleged crimes some Rohingya hope will bring them justice in an international court. He then led peaceful protests in Bangladesh against a plan to repatriate Rohingya refugees to Myanmar, and spoke at a rally of hundreds of thousands of people on the second anniversary of the start of the military campaign. (The Washington Post, “Rohingya Muslim leader who visited White House shot dead in Bangladesh”, September 29, 2021).
Comment:
No groups have yet claimed responsibility of the tragic killing of Mohib Ullah, and apparently the law enforcement agencies of the Hasina government are also in the dark about the motive of this killing. Previously, numerous Rohingya leaders have been killed by unknown gunmen in the camps. So, providing security to the Rohingya Muslims has never been an objective. Rather, the objective was to provide that ‘security’ to Myanmar by ‘caging’ the refugees inside Bangladesh so that they do not pose any threat to the Myanmar military- because, both Hasina government and Myanmar military junta put their loyalty to their common colonial master – Britain. Thus, Hasina government is serving nothing but the geopolitical interest of her master which always backs the military junta of Myanmar against US interference through Aung San Suu Kyi.
On the other hand, colonialist US has been exploiting the Rohingya refugee cause to keep it alive to keep putting pressure on Myanmar military. So, we saw Mohib Ullah work in close association with US and other international human rights organizations. In 2019, Mohib even met with President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss the struggle of the Rohingya refugees. The sanctions on Myanmar military by the colonialist US was never due to any iota of sympathy for the Rohingya refugees, but rather was a pressure tactic by exploiting the misery of the Rohingya Muslims. So, immediately after the killing of Mohib Ullah, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was saddened and disturbed by this murder, calling him “a brave and fierce advocate for the human rights of Rohingya Muslims around the world.” Blinken also urged a full and transparent investigation into his death with the goal of holding the perpetrators of this heinous crime accountable.
It is unfortunate that the beloved Ummah of Muhammad (saw) are helpless and stateless in Myanmar in the absence of the genuine guardianship of Islam – the Khilafah Rashidah (rightly guided Caliphate). To rescue the Rohingya Muslims from the malicious hands of the disbelieving colonialists and their secular puppet rulers in Bangladesh, Muslims must rush to bring back the promised second Khilafah Rashidah without any delay. Rasulallah (saw) said,
«وَإِنَّمَا الْإِمَامُ جُنَّةٌ يُقَاتَلُ مِنْ وَرَائِهِ وَيُتَّقَى بِهِ»
“Only the Imam is a shield, behind whom you fight and you protect yourself with” (Muslim).
Imadul Amin
Member of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Bangladesh