Till the celebration of the Muslim competition Eid al-Adha in late Might, Sadek, a Rohingya activist and founding father of Rohingya Rights Response (RRR), was residing in relative peace in Malaysia. There had been a gentle quantity of hostile social media posts in regards to the Rohingya neighborhood residing within the nation since his arrival a number of years earlier than, however the affect was manageable.
“For the primary time in a very long time, Malaysia felt like a spot the place I may breathe,” he stated in a latest interview. “I made real mates, felt accepted by many individuals, and slowly began rebuilding a life after every little thing my household and I had been by way of.”
However when a damaging backlash erupted on-line in response to cows being slaughtered by Rohingya refugees for Eid al-Adha within the city of Selayang, prompting a viral anti-Rohingya petition, Sadek’s life modified for the more serious. “Since Might, that feeling has disappeared. It’s heartbreaking to really feel that concern return, after lastly believing I had discovered some peace,” he stated.
By early June, the petition on Change.org, addressed to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and calling for the “removing of Rohingya from Malaysia,” had garnered virtually half one million signatures. Regardless of the petition’s removing, the anger in the direction of Rohingya refugees had escalated and began impacting the day-to-day lives of many communities.
Compared to neighboring ASEAN states, Muslim-majority Malaysia has traditionally been thought-about a comparatively hospitable vacation spot for Rohingya refugees. In 2016, Prime Minister Najib Razak stated “we should defend [the Rohingyas] not simply because they’re of the identical religion however they’re people.”
Nevertheless, a rise within the variety of refugees arriving in Malaysia following the Myanmar army’s marketing campaign of ethnic cleaning in 2017, which pressured greater than 700,000 Rohingya to flee the nation, mixed with the financial affect of the COVID-19 pandemic, have compounded the resentments. Researchers who spoke to The Diplomat consider that state elections in Johor (July 11) and Negeri Sembilan (August 1) have acted as a catalyst for the surge in hate speech in the direction of the Rohingya, and that migration coverage is rising as one of many key speaking factors.
Distinguished figures in Malaysia have joined the refrain of voices criticizing the nation’s Rohingya inhabitants. On June 3, the Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s daughter, Nurul Zahid, wrote on the social media platform Threads: “Do good sparsely. Don’t let the monkeys within the forest be fed [while] the kids at dwelling die of starvation. ADDRESS their subject of overpopulation instantly.”
The folks contributing to the controversy over Rohingya refugees’ proper to reside in Malaysia come from throughout the partisan divide. In a single information story from final month, the deputy police commissioner addressed the “query of the place they need to be despatched again.” This story additionally contains the quote, “the Rohingya subject has turn into a most cancers.”
On Fb, one anti-immigrant group has greater than 50,000 members and seems to be run by a district officer for the Negeri Sembilan State Islamic Affairs Division. Posts on the web page name for Rohingya refugees to be faraway from the nation and categorical assist for Rohingya not being allowed driving licenses.
In the meantime, Dr. Salawati Mat Basir, an affiliate professor within the College of Legislation at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, who additionally acts because the college’s appointed authorized advisor, lately joked in a podcast about Malaysia “rolling out the pink carpet” for refugees. Within the episode, she stated that ASEAN safety figures had beforehand instructed her that Malaysia ought to “shoot. Shoot them. Don’t allow them to come into your territorial waters.”
Yasmin Ullah, govt director of the Rohingya Maìyafuinor Collaborative Community, stated that the upsurge in hateful rhetoric was “not new” however appeared to show “a bit extra coordination between political figures, influencers, and information businesses. That is manufactured and it’s an opportune time, proper earlier than an election.”
Anti-Rohingya content material has turn into so prevalent in Malaysia that Docs With out Borders advocate Jasnitha Nair alleges that media retailers are monetizing the upper viewers engagement with damaging content material about Rohingyas. An editor for the Sin Chew Every day lately described the group as “human barnacles clinging stubbornly to Malaysia.”
“Barnacles repeatedly soak up vitamins from their environment and reproduce at an astonishing price,” wrote Khor Chun Kiat. “The one technique to take away them is to take a scraper and forcefully chip them away.”
Yap Lay Sheng, a human rights specialist on the advocacy group Fortify Rights, who has been intently following the escalating scenario, said: “When influential figures repeat dangerous issues in opposition to refugees, they lend legitimacy to on-line hate and provides the general public permission to translate that on-line hate into offline abuses. And we’ve seen that already with the vigilantes going round, exposing the areas of individuals’s houses and faculties, and generally brutalizing them.”
The NGO Rohingya Rights Response (RRR) shared a database of greater than 100 social media posts collected between June 18 and July 6. Round 30 % of the posts embrace misinformation about Rohingya; greater than 30 % embrace hate speech and virtually 17 % embrace reference to or depict kids.
Michelle, a human rights activist who solely desires to be recognized by her first identify, has additionally been gathering proof of posts that embrace hate speech in opposition to Rohingya refugees. On July 4, she and representatives from two different NGOs emailed Fb’s guardian firm Meta to request the removing of 15 posts that included “doxxing, focused harassment, and requires the harassment of males, ladies, and kids related to hospitals, faculties, locations of worship, and their personal houses.” Meta responded and escalated the criticism. On the time of publication, its investigation is ongoing.
“There are insurance policies on Fb however many of the hate speech is in Malay so it doesn’t appear to matter. There doesn’t appear to be enforcement due to the language variations,” stated Sadek from RRR. Within the Fb Papers which had been leaked in 2021, inside paperwork categorical considerations in regards to the platform’s potential to deal with hate speech in languages apart from English. Mark Zuckerberg additionally promised to extend moderating capabilities after Fb acknowledged it didn’t do sufficient to manage the hate speech that fueled Myanmar’s army marketing campaign in opposition to the Rohingya, which some consultants say amounted to genocide.
In keeping with a number of Rohingya interviewees, the rising hate speech on-line has now restricted their day-to-day actions. Malaysian residents have filmed and threatened kids on the road and shared movies of Rohingya ladies after giving start in hospital.
Rohingya kids collect sticks at a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, March 2018. (Photograph credit score: UN Girls/Alison Joyce)
In a single video posted to social media, a Malaysian citizen is seen grabbing a Rohingya little one from his bicycle, holding on to him whereas he cries after which chasing him down the road in his automobile. In one other, a person in a car chases a Rohingya little one down the road whereas shouting on the boy. These movies, which have since been faraway from social media, had been offered by rights teams. The Diplomat has not been in a position to confirm independently their authenticity.
A number of Rohingya faculties have allegedly been reported or quickly closed due to the harassment. One college within the metropolis of Alor Setar was reported on by a Malaysian neighbor and subsequently raided by authorities final month. The principal shared with The Diplomat that the scholars and academics at the moment are being extensively harassed and photographed by native residents en route to high school, to the purpose he has began educating classes on the ground, so they don’t seem to be seen from home windows. On July 14, police returned to the varsity to ask additional questions, he stated.
Rohingya sources said that the prevalent hate speech has impacted totally different features of their lives. One supply reported that his long-term landlord reached out and cited anti-Rohingya content material as a motive for looking for a brand new tenancy settlement.
“The implications are so large,” Sadek from RRR stated. “Kids are being assaulted. I’m so afraid to go exterior and once I do, I ensure that to not converse my language. I really feel like lower than a human.”
A video shared by one NGO allegedly reveals a Rohingya man on the ground being yelled at and crushed by a Malaysian man with a stick.
Numerous the anger and rhetoric on-line is directed in the direction of ladies and focuses on misinformation across the variety of kids in Rohingya households in comparison with Malaysian households. One other Change.org petition calling for the sterilization of Rohingya ladies obtained greater than 400,000 signatures earlier than being eliminated in early July.
For some Rohingya, these narratives comprise disturbing parallels to the scenario inside Myanmar. The human rights activist Michelle was primarily based in Myanmar in 2017, when the nation’s army launched its “clearance operation” in opposition to the Rohingya inhabitants in Rakhine State. She stated that a lot of the language used on the time in Myanmar is being echoed at the moment within the posts about Rohingya in Malaysia.
“It regarded like the identical script used earlier than the coup [of 2021], the place Myanmar highlighted the concept Rohingya folks have lots of kids, which has been additional cemented as laws with the start spacing act,” she stated. “The half which is most annoying is the normalization of bullying kids and focusing on ladies in weak positions, reminiscent of hospitals.”
This improve in hostility in the direction of the Rohingya has correlated with the growing variety of Rohingya refugees looking for to achieve Malaysia by sea. In keeping with the Worldwide Group for Migration, between January and October 2025, roughly 5,160 Rohingya refugees made journeys by sea from Myanmar and Bangladesh. Though this marks a excessive determine for the reason that 2015 Andaman Sea Disaster, it represents a 30 % lower in comparison with the identical interval in 2024.
UNHCR figures present that by February 2026, slightly below 60 % of the 215,600 refugees in Malaysia had been Rohingya. The company said that any rise within the variety of refugees of their statistics mirrored their elevated capability to file registrations slightly than new arrivals within the nation.
For people who handle to outlive the maritime journey to Malaysia, the challenges proceed on land. Knowledge gathered by Fortify Rights reveals that between 2024 and 2025, the variety of immigration-related arrests doubled in Malaysia. In 2024, Human Rights Watch produced a report revealing the myriad human rights abuses perpetrated in opposition to refugees within the immigration detention facilities.
Within the facilities, the place one in 4 detainees are Rohingya, in line with Fortify Rights, NGOs say they’re topic to widespread arbitrary punishment, bodily violence and medical neglect. For Rohingya who can’t be repatriated to Myanmar, they’re typically trapped within the facilities for years, with no clear finish in sight.
Human rights abuses proceed to be perpetrated in opposition to the Rohingya remaining in Rakhine State, and boats transporting refugees are being pushed again from Aceh, Indonesia. In the meantime, the U.N. warns that help cuts jeopardize the remaining assist for the 1 million-odd refugees residing within the heaving refugee camps across the Bangladeshi metropolis of Cox’s Bazar.
In opposition to this wider backdrop, Malaysia stays one of many solely viable choices for refugees looking for a sanctuary. Bryony Lau, the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, stated that Rohingya “proceed to face excessive ranges of persecution and violence. So long as they’re enduring endless struggling they’ll proceed to take dangers to discover a higher life. The truth that a greater life may embrace a very dangerous journey and being someplace the place their rights aren’t revered solely speaks to the struggling they’re already enduring.”
The present state elections carry the potential to rewrite political allegiances forward of the overall elections, that are due by 2028 however might be held earlier.
Concerning the position of the authorities in managing the quickly escalating tensions, Lau added: “The federal government has a duty to elucidate its personal coverage and the refugee registration system which it’s beginning to roll out. It’s as much as the federal government to elucidate to the general public why that is of their finest curiosity. The Malaysian economic system actually relies on folks just like the Rohingya to do troublesome jobs so this could give them work rights, which might in flip profit the Malaysian economic system.”
In June, Anwar responded to the query of “sending [Rohingya] again” by specializing in his diplomatic efforts with Myanmar’s new military-backed authorities. He stated it will not be potential to repatriate Rohingya as a result of Naypyidaw “is obstructing the method.” He as a substitute urged Malaysians to uphold humanitarian values.
Weeks after this remark was made, the scenario seems to be intensifying for Rohingya communities. Regardless of this, Sadek says he’ll proceed to talk out: “Worry has turn into a part of my day by day life, however silence has by no means protected my neighborhood. I converse out as a result of misinformation and hatred solely develop when nobody challenges them,” he stated.
“Even when there are dangers, I consider our tales should be heard, and our humanity deserves to be defended.”
