U Kyaw Hla Aung (16 August 1940 – 1 August 2021) was a Burmese lawyer and civil rights activist and member of the

Rohingya The Rohingya people () are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group who predominantly follow Islam and reside in Rakhine State, Myanmar (previously known as Burma). Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an ...

community.

Early life

Kyaw Hla Aung was born in

Sittwe Sittwe (; ; formerly Akyab) is the capital of Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma). Sittwe, pronounced ''sait-tway'' in the Rakhine language, is located on an estuarial island created at the confluence of the Kaladan, Mayu, and Lay Mro rivers emptyi ...

, capital of

Rakhine State Rakhine State (; , , ; formerly known as Arakan State) is a Administrative divisions of Myanmar, state in Myanmar (Burma). Situated on the western coast, it is bordered by Chin State to the north, Magway Region, Bago Region and Ayeyarwady R ...

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was himsel ...

, as the son of a government official. His father Yusuf was a state court's Head Clerk, served for 40 years. His birth name was Muhammad Kasim. He grew up and obtained his education in Sittwe and began to work as a court clerk and stenographer in 1960. Motivated by the injustice he saw, he quit his job and started to train as a lawyer, graduating in 1982.

Activism

In 1986, as the government of Myanmar began to confiscate the land of the

, Aung represented a group of Rohingya farmers, writing an appeal letter. In retaliation, he was detained and spent two years in prison in

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

. In the aftermath of the

1988 protests File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

he could leave prison and returned to Sittwe. He co-founded the "

National Democratic Party for Human Rights The Democracy and Human Rights Party ( my, ဒီမိုကရေစီနှင့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးပါတီ; Abbreviation, abbr. DHRP) is a political party in Myanmar representing the Rohingya people, Rohingya of ...

" and was selected as candidate for the elections in 1990. To prevent his candidacy, he was arrested again and sentenced to 14 years in prison. In 1997 he was released in the course of an amnesty, but was repeatedly arrested afterwards. His home was razed in the course of the

Rohingya conflict The Rohingya conflict is an ongoing conflict in the northern part of Myanmar's Rakhine State (formerly known as Arakan), characterised by sectarian violence between the Rohingya Muslim and Rakhine Buddhist communities, a military crackdown ...

and since 2018 he lived in the Thet Kae Pyin internment camp outside of Sittwe, where he was one of the camp leaders. The main goal of his activism has been to organize access to healthcare and education for the Rohingya community and raise the awareness about the conflict. In 2018, Aung won the

Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity The Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity is an annual international humanitarian award recognizing individuals for humanitarian work. It is awarded on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian genocide. The Aurora Prize ceremonies have taken place a ...

. In 2019, he was listed in the Fortune magazine's list of "World's Greatest Leaders on rank 28". The Armenian post office dedicated a stamp to him in 2019. Aung was married and had seven children. Aung died in Botahtaung,

Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

, where he had moved from the refugee camp for health treatment.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kyaw Hla Aung 1940 births 2021 deaths Burmese Muslims Burmese human rights activists Minority rights activists Burmese prisoners and detainees Rohingya people People from Sittwe