Fact Check: Narinjara News Claim That Bangladesh PM Admitted Rohingya Are “Not from Burma” Is False

Claim

A widely circulated image, presented as a Narinjara News clipping, states: “Bangladesh PM admits Rohingya Muslims are NOT from Burma but are illegals who ‘tarnish the country’s image.’” It includes a photo of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and links to a now-defunct blog (themuslimissue.wordpress.com).

Verdict: False / Misleading

What the evidence shows

Rohingya Monitor examined the claim against Sheikh Hasina’s public statements, official records, and contemporary reporting.

There is no verified record of Sheikh Hasina ever stating that Rohingya Muslims are “not from Burma” or that they are “illegals” from Bangladesh who tarnish Bangladesh’s image.

On the contrary, her consistent position, especially after the 2017 mass exodus, has been the opposite:

• She has repeatedly described the Rohingya as Myanmar’s nationals/citizens who must be taken back by Myanmar.
• In September 2017, speaking at the UN General Assembly and after visiting the camps, she said the people “belong to Myanmar” and that “hundreds of years they are staying there.” She rejected Myanmar’s claim that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
• She stated that the large-scale exodus of people from Myanmar “tarnishes Myanmar’s dignity/image,” not Bangladesh’s.
• Bangladesh’s official position, maintained across successive governments, is that the Rohingya are a distinct ethnic community with historical roots in Arakan (Rakhine State) and are not Bangladeshi citizens.

Origin of the distorted claim

The specific wording appears to originate from a 2015 blog post on the now-suspended anti-Muslim site “The Muslim Issue.” That post misrepresented a May 2015 statement by Sheikh Hasina.

In May 2015, during the Andaman Sea migrant crisis, Hasina criticised Bangladeshi citizens who were attempting to migrate illegally to other countries (primarily Malaysia and Thailand) through human traffickers. She said such illegal migration by Bangladeshis was “tainting the image of the country.” She was speaking about Bangladeshi nationals, not about the Rohingya population of Myanmar.

Narinjara News and similar outlets later recycled and reframed this statement, inserting the Rohingya into a claim Hasina never made. The circulating image combines Burmese-script text, the English headline, and Hasina’s photo to create the false impression of an official admission.

Broader context

This type of narrative aligns with long-standing efforts by certain Rakhine and Myanmar-aligned media to portray the Rohingya as recent illegal migrants from Bangladesh. Such claims have been repeatedly rejected by Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry, historical records, colonial-era documentation, and international bodies.

Bangladesh has hosted successive waves of Rohingya refugees since the late 1970s precisely because it regards them as people displaced from Myanmar, not as its own citizens.

Conclusion

The Narinjara News claim is a clear misrepresentation. Sheikh Hasina never admitted that Rohingya are “not from Burma” or that they are illegal migrants who tarnish Bangladesh’s image. The statement attributed to her is a distortion of remarks she made about illegal emigration by Bangladeshi citizens in 2015.

Readers are advised to treat such circulating images and headlines with caution and to verify original statements against credible, contemporaneous sources.