The United Nations' human rights chief has suggested that “elements of genocide” are present in a state-sponsored campaign of violence against minority Rohingya Muslims in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
“Can anyone — can anyone — rule out that elements of genocide may be present?” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein told a special session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva on Tuesday.
Myanmar’s army has stepped up its bloody crackdown on the ethnic minority population over the past months, with numerous documented mass killings and rape.
Myanmar’s military launched a brutal crackdown on the Muslim community late last year. Joined by Buddhist mobs, soldiers have been raping, killing, and torturing the minority Muslims. Since intensifying in August, the crackdown has forced more than 626,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, where they also face an inhospitable environment.
Ra’ad al-Hussein said none of the roughly 626,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled the brutal atrocities by state forces and Buddhist mobs in Myanmar since August should be returned to Myanmar unless there was robust monitoring on the ground.
He also told the forum that the current civilian government in Myanmar had failed to address “evident discriminatory character” of laws that target Muslims and affect other religious minorities in the country.
Meanwhile, the UK-based human rights group Amnesty International has called for a “strong resolution” over Myanmar’s treatment of the Muslim minority by the HRC.
Ahead of the HRC session in Geneva, Amnesty urged council members to keep the pressure on Myanmar, insisting that Myanmarese state forces were continuing to commit crimes against humanity on a “daily basis.”
“The Council must now step up and pass a strong resolution that sends a clear message to Myanmar’s government and military that their abhorrent treatment of the Rohingya must end immediately, and that perpetrators will not enjoy impunity,” said James Gomez, Amnesty’s regional director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
The HRC rarely holds special sessions, which can only be convened at the request of at least a third of its 47 member states, or 16 countries.
Myanmar’s military launched a brutal crackdown on the Muslim community late last year. Joined by Buddhist mobs, soldiers have been raping, killing, and torturing the minority Muslims. Since intensifying in August, the crackdown has forced more than 626,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, where they also face an inhospitable environment.
The Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh live in squalid and cramped camps, which are surrounded by garbage and dirty water, in a border town named Cox’s Bazaar.
Citing the refugees, Reuters has reported that they face disease epidemics due to the unhygienic conditions.