Before this year, I had never heard of the Rohingya. But most 7th graders haven’t.

While I didn’t know much about the Rohingya—a group of 800,000 ethnic minority Muslims living in Burma—I knew a lot about Burma’s turbulent history. The country was under military control for almost 50 years until 2010 when general elections were held and democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest giving Burma – and the world – hope for a new era of democracy and freedom.

Last summer, I had the good fortune to visit Burma and travel around many parts of the country with my family. Burma is an exquisite country with stunning landscapes, a rich history and many wonderful and kind people. The majority of people we talked to were very optimistic about the political changes taking place, including elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi and members of her party, the National League for Democracy, in 2012 and Suu Kyi’s announcement in June 2013 that she would run for president.

Everyone, including our driver in Rangoon who was a former political prisoner, seemed hopeful that she would become president. It was very exciting for me to experience this beautiful country and see firsthand the hope expressed by its people as the country was taking steps toward democracy.

At the time, however, I did not realize the dark troubles that were brewing beneath the surface affecting the lives of the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities in Burma. Little attention has been given to the Rohingya, even though troubles between the Rohingya and Burmese have existed for decades. And in 1982, a Citizen Act was enacted officially denying the Rohingya the rights to become Burmese citizens.

Despite inhabiting the country since the late 1800s, the Burmese government claims that they are Bangladeshis, and the Bangladeshis claim they are Burmese. As a result, the Rohingya are a stateless people.

The situation became much more deadly on June 10th, 2012 President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in Arakan State after deadly clashes between Buddhists and ethnic Rohingya Muslims broke out. Since then more than 140,000 people have been displaced and 200 killed.

But I didn’t become a committed activist until I saw photos of the treatment of the Rohingya and heard a horrible story of a killing about a boy my age.

In the fall of 2013, I went to the Holocaust Museum for the opening night exhibit of Our Walls Bear Witness: The Plight of Burma’s Rohingya with photographs taken by Greg Constantine projected onto the massive walls of the museum. One of the most haunting stories that Maung Tun Khin, the President of the Burmese Rohingya Organization in the U.K., told at the exhibit still echoes in my head. He spoke about how one Rohingya boy’s legs were slit open, covered in gasoline, and then lit on fire. That story really triggered my outrage and led me to focus my efforts on the Rohingya.

The more I researched the Rohingya and their plight, the more disgusted I got with both the U.S. and Burmese governments. I was dismayed to learn how the Burmese government has encouraged and turned a blind eye to ethnic cleansing campaigns, which have resulted in rape, torture and mass murders. Rohingya men and boys are randomly arrested; Rohingya women and girls are often forced into labor, sold as prostitutes or gang raped. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya are being placed in internment camps and denied food and basic medical care. Doctors Without Borders, one of the few humanitarian organizations on the ground in Burma, has been banned from helping them.

At the same time, I feel the U.S. government, in its efforts to build stronger economic and military ties with the Burmese government, is too eager to look on the positive side and ignore the genocide that is taking place. This persecution of the Burmese Rohingya cannot be ignored. The U.S. government must not just sit by and watch the Rohingya be murdered.

To call attention to the situation in Burma, I decided to create a petition on the White House website. It asks the U.S. government to put more pressure on the Burmese government in order to end the violence. The White House will formally respond to any petitions that receive 100,000 signatures within 30 days. In three weeks, my petition has been signed by almost 1,000 people and is growing daily.

The day after I created my petition, Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times reported from Rakhine State and echoed my call to the Administration to take action to protect the Rohingya. I was pleased to know that others shared my opinion. However, President Obama’s West Point speech on May 28, 2014, really shocked me because he declared Burma a success story and made no mention of the Rohingya.

How can you call Burma a success story if the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities are being subjected to such mistreatment?

Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, my petition has received attention around the world — more than I thought possible. It even caught the eye of the President of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, Asaduddin Owaisi. Ideally, I would really like to get to 100,000 signatures so the White House has to respond, but even if I do not, I hope the recent public attention on the Rohingya will spur others to take up the cause and push the U.S. and Burmese governments to stop the violence against this minority.

I’m doing all I can. I created a website about Burma to educate students at my middle school and encourage them to get involved; it provides background and resources on the Rohingya, a link to the White House petition, and sample letters readers can send to their members of Congress.

Putting people in the shoes of the Rohingya and showing them what life would be like for them is the most powerful way to get students and people to care. Equally as important is knowing that your voice matters. Because of social media and the Internet, anyone now can have his or her voice be heard, no matter how young. I think that is pretty cool and it is very empowering.

And I hope you will join me. Please sign my petition, write to your members of Congress, and encourage others in your communities to get involved to stop the persecution of the Rohingya. Together I believe we can make a difference.


PLEASE INSERT LINKS:

on "website": http://bit.ly/1nuzqYh
on "petition": http://1.usa.gov/RumxEI