{"id":7153,"date":"2026-01-28T15:04:40","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T15:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/?p=7153"},"modified":"2026-01-28T15:04:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T15:04:40","slug":"dhaka-to-issue-passports-to-69000-rohingya-in-saudi-arabia-while-insisting-it-wont-mean-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/?p=7153","title":{"rendered":"Dhaka to Issue Passports to 69,000 Rohingya in Saudi Arabia\u2014While Insisting It Won\u2019t Mean Citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bangladesh will issue passports to <strong>69,000 Rohingya residing in Saudi Arabia<\/strong>, Foreign Affairs Adviser <strong>Md. Touhid Hossain<\/strong> said on Wednesday, framing the move as a pragmatic response to Riyadh\u2019s pressure to renew documents previously obtained\u2014often during the era of handwritten passports marred by alleged corruption. He stressed that <strong>\u201cpassport issuance does not confer Bangladeshi citizenship.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The announcement immediately raises thorny legal and moral questions. In practice, a passport is widely treated as proof of nationality and a basis for consular protection. Issuing Bangladeshi passports to people whom Dhaka simultaneously disavows as citizens risks <strong>deep ambiguity<\/strong>: Saudi authorities may treat the holders as Bangladeshi nationals for migration control and deportation purposes, while Dhaka says it bears no nationality obligation toward them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Touhid Hossain argued there are international precedents for issuing passports to non-nationals and reiterated Bangladesh\u2019s core position that the Rohingya are <strong>from Myanmar\u2019s Rakhine (Arakan) region<\/strong> and must ultimately return there under safe, dignified conditions. He added that global recognition of the Rohingya as a distinct people should guide policy, and that \u201ctechnicalities\u201d should not obstruct repatriation once conditions permit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet the policy risks several unintended outcomes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Statelessness by paperwork:<\/strong> A Bangladeshi passport without citizenship could create a class of people documented by Bangladesh but <strong>rightless<\/strong> under its laws, compounding already precarious status in Saudi Arabia.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Accountability gaps:<\/strong> Myanmar may point to Bangladeshi documents to deflect responsibility for repatriation, while the beneficiaries remain <strong>no closer to durable solutions<\/strong>\u2014citizenship, safe return, or meaningful integration.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Consular burden vs. denial:<\/strong> If crises arise, Riyadh could expect Bangladeshi consular services for passport holders; Dhaka\u2019s denial of nationality may collide with <strong>on-the-ground expectations<\/strong> of protection.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Verification and integrity:<\/strong> Dhaka acknowledged historic fraud. Without a transparent vetting process, biometric capture, and clear eligibility criteria, the new issuance could <strong>repeat past abuses<\/strong> or incentivize document shopping.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Precedent setting:<\/strong> Granting passports to non-nationals\u2014rather than refugee\/convention travel documents\u2014blurs established identity regimes and may <strong>weaken regional norms<\/strong> on refugee documentation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Officials offered no details on document type (standard e-passport vs. special travel document), validity periods, data-sharing with Saudi authorities, or appeal mechanisms for those denied. Nor did they clarify what rights, if any, these passport holders would have inside Bangladesh, should they travel or be removed there by a third country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bangladesh shelters roughly <strong>1.3 million<\/strong> Rohingya and maintains that sustainable resolution hinges on <strong>safe, voluntary, and rights-based return to Myanmar<\/strong>. Wednesday\u2019s decision, however, appears driven by <strong>bilateral pragmatism with Saudi Arabia<\/strong> more than by a rights framework\u2014risking a stop-gap fix that shifts administrative burden without resolving the central issues of <strong>citizenship, protection, and accountability<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bangladesh will issue passports to 69,000 Rohingya residing in Saudi Arabia, Foreign Affairs Adviser Md. Touhid Hossain said on Wednesday, framing the move as a pragmatic response to Riyadh\u2019s pressure to renew documents previously obtained\u2014often during the era of handwritten passports marred by alleged corruption. He stressed that \u201cpassport issuance does not confer Bangladeshi citizenship.\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7157,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7153\/revisions\/7157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hernet.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}