U Kyaw Hla Aung (16 August 1940 – 31 July 2021) was a Burmese lawyer and civil rights activist and member of the

Rohingya The Rohingya people (; ; ) are a stateless Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who predominantly follow Islam from Rakhine State, Myanmar. Before the Rohingya genocide in 2017, when over 740,000 fled to Bangladesh, an estimated 1.4 million Ro ...

community.

Early life

Kyaw Hla Aung was born in

Sittwe Sittwe (, ), formerly Akyab (), is the capital of Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma). Sittwe is located on an estuarial island created at the confluence of the Kaladan, Mayu, and Lay Mro rivers emptying into the Bay of Bengal. As of 2019 the cit ...

, 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 Re ...

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

, 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, formerly romanized as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar. Yangon was the List of capitals of Myanmar, capital of Myanmar until 2005 and served as such until 2006, when the State Peace and Dev ...

. In the aftermath of the

1988 protests 1988 was a crucial year in the early history of the Internet—it was the year of the first well-known computer virus, the Morris worm, 1988 Internet worm. The first permanent intercontinental Internet link was made between the United State ...

he could leave prison and returned to Sittwe. He co-founded the " National Democratic Party for Human Rights" 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 List of ongoing armed conflicts, ongoing conflict in the northern part of Rakhine State, Myanmar (formerly known as Arakan, Burma), characterised by Sectarianism, sectarian violence between the Rohingya people, Ro ...

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. 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, formerly romanized as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar. Yangon was the List of capitals of Myanmar, capital of Myanmar until 2005 and served as such until 2006, when the State Peace and Dev ...

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

References

{{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