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Title: BHRN Welcomes UK Government’s Decision to Join Rohingya Genocide Case at the ICJ
Description: "Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN) welcomes the decision by the UK government to support the genocide case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). On 25 August, Minister for Asia Amanda Milling confirmed the UK’s intention to intervene in the case of The Gambia v. Myanmar before the International Court of Justice. The case will determine whether Myanmar has violated its obligations under the Genocide Convention in relation to the military’s acts against the Rohingya in 2016 and 2017. “The U.K. Government decision to intervene in the case of The Gambia vs. Myanmar before the International Court of Justice sends a strong message of solidarity to the Rohingya people five years since the genocidal attacks in Rakhine State,” said Burma Human Rights Network Executive Director, Kyaw Win. “International justice can have a preventative affect and stop future atrocities by the brutal junta in Burma.” The Gambia filed the case against Burma before the ICJ in November 2019, alleging that the Myanmar military’s campaign against the Rohingya people violated various provisions of the Genocide Convention. 60 countries supported the case which included Canada, the Netherlands, the UK and all 57 members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). In January 2020, the ICJ unanimously indicated legally binding provisional measures of protection for the Rohingya people, requiring Burma to ensure that the military and other security forces do not commit acts of genocide, Despite the provisional measures, BHRN has continued to document abuses against the Rohingya remaining in Burma. In Rakhine State, nearly 600,000 Rohingya remain trapped under a system of discriminatory laws and policies that amount to crimes against humanity and ongoing genocide. Since the attempted military coup on 1 February 2021, the human rights situation of the Rohingya has further deteriorated with Rohingya facing tightened restrictions on their fundamental freedoms and are increasingly at risk of being subjected to further atrocity crimes. The Gambia’s laudable step towards ending impunity for those committing atrocities in Myanmar should be fully supported by the international community. Recalling that the Genocide Convention requires all States parties to prevent the crime of genocide and hold those responsible to account, BHRN calls on all States Parties to the Genocide Convention to support efforts addressing these violations. BHRN calls on the British government, as penholder on Burma at the United Nations Security Council, to convene a meeting of the Security Council to discuss progress in implementing the provisional measures. BHRN also continues to call on the United Nations Security Council to refer the situation to the International Criminal Court to enable further scrutiny. Organisation’s Background BHRN is based in London and operates across Burma/Myanmar working for human rights, minority rights and religious freedom in the country. BHRN has played a crucial role in advocating for human rights and religious freedom with politicians and world leaders..."
Source/publisher: Burma Human Rights Network
Date of publication: 2022-08-26
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-26
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Title: Burma Campaign UK Welcomes British Government Joining ICJ Rohingya Genocide Case
Description: "Burma Campaign UK is delighted that the British government has finally announced its intention to join the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice. Burma Campaign UK launched our campaign for the British government to join the case almost three years ago. “For decades the Burmese military have been allowed to violate international law without consequences, encouraging them to commit genocide and attempt another coup,” said Anna Roberts, Executive Director of Burma Campaign UK. “We are delighted that the British government has finally joined the Rohingya genocide case. They will bring vital additional resources and expertise, as well as sending an important political message.” The British government has faced sustained pressure to join the case, including from Rohingya civil society organisations, Rushanara Ali MP, Co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on democracy in Burma, the Foreign Affairs Committee, opposition political parties, more than 100 MPs, former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, and international human rights groups. The Burmese military has enjoyed impunity for decades, despite widespread documentation of numerous violations of international law, mainly against ethnic and religious minority groups. The sense of impunity encourages further violations of international law. The failure to act to prevent Rohingya genocide and then the failure to hold the military to account for Rohingya genocide would have encouraged the military to believe they could get away with the coup and subsequent violations of international law without facing serious consequences. The Rohingya genocide is not over. The laws and policies which are an integral part of the genocide continue, and the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice to prevent ongoing genocide are being ignored by the military. Burma Campaign UK also welcomed the imposition of new sanctions on three businesses working with the military that are helping them to earn money and buy arms. The companies are Star Sapphire Group of Companies, International Gateways Group of Companies Limited (IGG), and Sky One Construction Company Ltd. Burma Campaign UK calls on the British government, as penholder on Burma at the United Nations Security Council, to convene a meeting of the Security Council to discuss progress in implementing the provisional measures, as the ICJ is a UN court, and its ruling is being ignored. The British government must also reverse cuts in funding to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. “This move by the UK is the result of years of advocacy by Rohingya communities, British MPs, members of the public and international human rights and humanitarian organisations,” said Anna Roberts..."
Source/publisher: "Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of publication: 2022-08-25
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-25
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Title: Five Years Since the Rohingya Genocide and Impunity Remains Nearly Absolute
Description: "Today marks five years since the Myanmar military launched a campaign of killings, mass rape and arson against the Rohingya in northern Rakhine State, killing thousands and forcing over 730,000 to flee to Bangladesh under NLD government. In the five years since the military’s atrocities, the situation for Rohingya in Myanmar and abroad offers a dismal reflection of justice delayed. “The world must act decisively if they want to end the suffering of the Rohingya and the rest of Burma’s people. For decades the international community has discussed ways to improve the humanitarian situation in Burma, and the obstacle has always been the military government. There is no point in pretending otherwise. Every political and economic tool that can be used to dislodge the military from power must be utilised. If the world continues to drag its feet, we will only witness new refugee crises and humanitarian disasters at the hands of an illegitimate military junta for decades to come”, said BHRN’s Executive Director Kyaw Win. Nearly 600,000 Rohingya remain trapped in Rakhine state under discriminatory laws and policies that amount to crimes against humanity and ongoing genocide. Since the attempted military coup on 1 February 2021, Rohingya have been subjected to tightened restrictions on their fundamental freedoms and are increasingly at risk of being subjected to further atrocity crimes. Rohingya who have fled Myanmar and managed to reach Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, or India live under the constant threat of arrest, detention, and forced return to military-controlled Myanmar. In Bangladesh, one million Rohingya refugees who were forcibly displaced by the Myanmar military, remain in sprawling refugee camps in southern Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar, where they have been subjected to discrimination and denied basic rights and adequate access to services, including education and healthcare. The coup has made clear that the ongoing atrocities in Myanmar are a direct consequence of a military that for decades has faced no consequences for its crimes. Despite the longstanding evidence of widespread and systematic human rights violations, impunity remains nearly absolute. Impunity has been particularly enabled by the UN Security Council’s inaction on Myanmar, with Russia and China resisting any substantive action. Even in the face of serious violations of international law, the political dynamics of the Council have shielded Myanmar from any real consequences. ASEAN has also remained paralysed. Under its principle of noninterference, ASEAN has chosen to reject thousands of civilians seeking refuge from the military’s brutality and continues to engage with the military. This is the same approach it took in 2017, when it refused to condemn the military’s genocidal campaign against the Rohingya despite Malaysia and Indonesia raised strong voice. The Government of Bangladesh has done a great service by openings its borders to refugees, and they deserve acknowledgment for the countless lives they’ve saved. Yet, it is critical that conditions for those living in the refugee camps improve without interference by Bangladesh authorities. Most vital is access to education. The Rohingya children in these camps have extremely limited access to education, and authorities have shut down the makeshift and informal schools throughout the camps without offering any alternative. Those living in the camps are also largely prohibited from seeking any form of education outside of the camps, other than in rare cases where refugees can get special permission. Without access to education and vocational services, an entire generation will have had their futures robbed. Undoubtedly, Bangladesh government saved hundreds of thousands Rohingya lives but denying education is killing their soul. Bangladesh must cooperate with domestic CSOs and human rights organisations in the camps to provide reliable education, including the Burmese curriculum, and to host courses for trauma, which the vast majority of refugees suffer with. The international community must support these efforts and help create a situation where Bangladeshis may also find employment opportunities. So long as the Myanmar military enjoys complete impunity for their actions, unyielding oppression of the Rohingya and other minorities will continue unabated. The time to close this impunity gap is now. The Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN) calls on UN member states to take all possible measures to hold General Min Aung Hlaing and other senior military leaders who bear responsibility for atrocity crimes accountable for their crimes and to cut off the military from all revenue and weapons allowing it to continue its genocidal operations. BHRN calls on the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) and National Unity Government (NUG) to abolish 1982 Nazi law, recognise Rohingya as ethnic of Burma which is a long due, recognise the Rohingya are victim of genocide and continue to support and cooperate with ongoing accountability mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court and the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar. Organisation’s Background BHRN is based in London and operates across Burma/Myanmar working for human rights, minority rights and religious freedom in the country. BHRN has played a crucial role in advocating for human rights and religious freedom with politicians and world leaders..."
Source/publisher: Burma Human Rights Network
Date of publication: 2022-08-25
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-25
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Title: OIC General Secretariat calls on international community to stand firm with the Rohingya people in their Plight
Description: "Today marks five years since the beginning of the massive refugee influx of Rohingya people and other communities from Myanmar’s Rakhine State into Bangladesh. On 25 August 2017, Myanmar’s military started carrying out violent operations against the Rohingya population in Northern Rakhine State, which resulted in grave crimes under international law and forced hundreds of thousands to flee. Five years later, Rohingyas in Rakhine State still lack freedom of movement and other basic rights such as access to adequate food, healthcare and education. This anniversary is a reminder that the crimes committed against Rohingya call for accountability. The OIC pays tribute to the Government and people of Bangladesh for their relentless efforts to provide protection, hospitality, and necessary assistance to Rohingya refugees who have been living in Bangladesh for the past five years. It appreciates the international support, including by OIC Member States, for the cause of these Refugees. The OIC General Secretariat reiterates the OIC’s firm support for the Rohingya people and calls on the international community to stand firm with them in their plight, and to redouble efforts to protect their fundamental human rights, including their right to full citizenship, and to ensure favourable conditions for the safe, voluntary, dignified, and sustainable return of all Rohingya refugees and internally displaced persons to their homeland. The OIC General Secretariat expresses the hope that the recent ruling of the International Court of Justice to dismiss the preliminary objections of Myanmar would contribute to mobilizing the necessary momentum for effective international action that would provide more support for the Rohingya people and contribute to finding a final solution to their constant affliction..."
Source/publisher: Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
Date of publication: 2022-08-25
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-25
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Title: Statement on Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day
Description: "Five years after the military’s “clearance operations” against Rohingya, we, Women's Peace Network, recommit our support to the Rohingya community; as well as urge the international community to pursue comprehensive and concerted measures to bring justice and accountability for such victims and survivors of genocide. We remain alarmed by Rohingya’s worsening conditions across South and Southeast Asia, to where hundreds of thousands of them were forced to flee from the 2017 attacks. In its deteriorating conditions, trauma continues to shape the community’s path to survival: Rohingya are increasingly deprived of access to healthcare, education, and other basic needs and livelihoods; and their women and girls, survivors of a harrowing escape, remain at heightened risk of being subjected to sexual and domestic violence without access to any form of protection or recourse to justice. Barbed-wire fences confine their movement to isolated camps, and any attempt to find their long-awaited freedom is threatened by human trafficking, detention, arrest, and forced deportation to Myanmar. Yet the Myanmar that awaits Rohingya is now farther from the home that they envision. The military that perpetrated their genocide overthrew an elected government last year, and is now wielding brutal tactics – many of which were used to strategically destroy the community for decades – across the entire country. The over 600,000 Rohingya in Myanmar are at increasing risk of being subjected to further atrocities: The junta is now issuing past, discriminatory and apartheid-like policies aimed at further confining what it still calls “Bengali” in camps and prisons. Since the attempted coup, the junta has detained and arrested over 1475 Rohingya, including 617 women. Therefore, this Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day, we urge the international community to expedite its efforts to bring accountability to Myanmar by fully addressing the needs and concerns of its most vulnerable and marginalized population. Countries must now join the International Court of Justice's The Gambia v. Myanmar, which will now proceed as a case, against the Rohingya genocide; support universal jurisdiction to prosecute the military for its international crimes; and impose more targeted economic sanctions and financial penalties on the military and its related businesses, particularly the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise. The United Nations Security Council should immediately uphold its mandate – as well as the Responsibility to Protect and Women, Peace, and Security agendas – and adopt a resolution referring the situation of Myanmar to the International Criminal Court and imposing a global arms embargo on the country. And as was demonstrated by the United States government this year, governments must begin to officially recognize the entirety of the mass atrocities that have been committed against ethnic and religious minorities in Myanmar for decades, including genocide against Rohingya; countries that do so must also pursue rigorous and robust measures to bring justice to the many affected communities. Holding the military accountable is fundamental to ensuring that such justice will be served, and that its victims and survivors of genocide will be there to receive it. For the latter, we call upon the international community to provide sustainable forms of material and financial assistance to the over one million Rohingya seeking rehabilitation and recovery as refugees across South and Southeast Asia. This form of assistance must be directed to the community and members of its civil society, especially women’s groups, in a way which respects their autonomy, agency, and dignity – and with the goal of securing their safe and dignified voluntary return home..."
Source/publisher: Women’s Peace Network
Date of publication: 2022-08-25
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-25
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Title: Marking Five Years Since the Genocide in Burma
Description: "Five years ago, Burma’s military launched a brutal campaign against Rohingya – razing villages, raping, torturing, and perpetrating large-scale violence that killed thousands of Rohingya men, women, and children. More than 740,000 Rohingya were forced to flee their homes and seek refuge in Bangladesh. In March of this year, I spoke at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and attested that the atrocities committed by the Burmese military against Rohingya amounted to crimes against humanity and constitute genocide. Since the February 2021 military coup d’état, many of the same military forces continue to repress, torture, and kill the people of Burma in a blatant attempt to extinguish Burma’s democratic future. The regime’s recent executions of pro-democracy and opposition leaders is only the latest example of the military’s abject disregard for the lives of the Burmese people. Its escalation of violence has exacerbated the worsening humanitarian situation, particularly for ethnic and religious minority communities, including Rohingya, who continue to remain among the most vulnerable and marginalized populations in the country. The United States remains committed to advancing justice and accountability for Rohingya and all the people of Burma in solidarity with the victims and survivors. We continue to support the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, the case under the Genocide Convention that The Gambia has brought against Burma before the International Court of Justice, and credible courts around the world that have jurisdiction in cases involving Burmese military’s atrocity crimes. The United States also supports measures by the UN Security Council to promote justice and accountability for the military’s actions in line with its mandate to promote international peace and security. In this vein, the United States would support a UN Security Council referral of the situation in Burma to the International Criminal Court. Since 2017, the United States has sought pathways to continue to support Rohingya, recognizing that they cannot safely return to their homeland of Burma under current conditions. We have provided more than $1.7 billion to assist those affected by the crisis in Burma, Bangladesh, and elsewhere in the region, remaining the leading single donor of life-saving humanitarian assistance to those whose lives have been upended by the violence in Rakhine State. The United States stands in solidarity with the Government of Bangladesh and other Rohingya-hosting governments in the region. As an essential component of an international, comprehensive humanitarian response, we are working to significantly increase resettlement of Rohingya refugees from the region, including from Bangladesh, so that they can rebuild their lives in the United States. The United States will continue to support Rohingya and the people of Burma in their pursuit of freedom and inclusive democracy by advancing justice and accountability, increasing economic and diplomatic pressure, and safeguarding the human rights and human dignity of all individuals in Burma..."
Source/publisher: United States Department of State
Date of publication: 2022-08-24
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-24
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Title: Press Release: Evidence of crimes against humanity in Myanmar escalate, with women and children severely impacted, according to Myanmar Mechanism Annual Report
Description: "Crimes against humanity continue to be systematically committed in Myanmar, with ongoing conflicts severely impacting women and children, according to the evidence gathered to date by the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (Mechanism) and outlined in its Annual Report released today. The Mechanism has collected more than three million information items from almost 200 sources since starting operations three years ago, the Report notes. This includes interview statements, documentation, videos, photographs, geospatial imagery and social media material. The available information indicates that sexual and gender-based crimes, including rape and other forms of sexual violence, and crimes against children have been perpetrated by members of the security forces and armed groups. According to the Report, children in Myanmar have been tortured, conscripted and arbitrarily detained, including as proxies for their parents. “Crimes against women and children are amongst the gravest international crimes, but they are also historically underreported and under-investigated,” said Nicholas Koumjian, Head of the Mechanism. “Our team has dedicated expertise to ensure targeted outreach and investigations so that these crimes can ultimately be prosecuted. Perpetrators of these crimes need to know that they cannot continue to act with impunity. We are collecting and preserving the evidence so that they will one day be held to account.” According to the Report, “there are ample indications that since the military takeover in February 2021, crimes have been committed in Myanmar on a scale and in a manner that constitutes a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population” and the nature of potential criminality is also expanding. This includes the execution of four individuals by Myanmar’s military on 25 July 2022, which was carried out after the Report was prepared. The Report is released just two weeks ahead of the five-year commemoration of clearance operations which resulted in the displacement of nearly one million Rohingya people. Most of the Rohingya who were deported or forcibly displaced at that time are still in camps for refugees or internally displaced persons. “While the Rohingya consistently express their desire for a safe and dignified return to Myanmar, this will be very difficult to achieve unless there is accountability for the atrocities committed against them, including through prosecutions of the individuals most responsible for those crimes,” said Koumjian. “The continued plight of the Rohingya and the continuing violence in Myanmar illustrate the important role of the Mechanism to facilitate justice and accountability and help deter further atrocities.” With the consent of its sources of information, the Mechanism is sharing relevant evidence to support international justice proceedings currently underway at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM or Mechanism) was created by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2018 to collect and analyse evidence of the most serious international crimes and other violations of international law committed in Myanmar since 2011. It aims to facilitate justice and accountability by preserving and organizing this evidence and preparing case files for use in future prosecutions of those responsible in national, regional and international courts..."
Source/publisher: Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar
Date of publication: 2022-08-09
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-09
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Title: ICJ Judgement on Preliminary Objections Welcome, But Court Must Rectify Myanmar’s Representation and More States Must Intervene in the Case
Description: "23 July 2022: The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) welcomes the judgement delivered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) but calls on the Court to immediately rectify Myanmar’s representation before the Court and on United Nations (UN) Member States to meet their obligations under the Genocide Convention and intervene in the case. The ICJ delivered its judgement on Friday on the preliminary objections raised by Myanmar in January 2021 in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar). All preliminary objections were rejected by the judges. “Rohingya are waiting for justice,” said Yanghee Lee of SAC-M. “It is so important that this case, seeking to determine Myanmar’s responsibility for genocide against the Rohingya, goes ahead. We welcome the Court’s decision in finding both that it has jurisdiction in the case and that the application itself is admissible.” The hearings on the preliminary objections took place in February this year, despite the National Unity Government of Myanmar (NUG) having already withdrawn them. The Court permitted the illegal Myanmar military junta to represent Myanmar during the hearings and argue for the preliminary objections. Representatives of the junta were present at the Court on Friday to hear delivery of the Judgement. The Court provided no explanation for its decision to allow the junta to represent Myanmar either during the hearings in February or as part of Friday’s Judgement. Ad hoc judge Claus Kress, appointed to the case by Myanmar, expressed the view that the Judgement’s failure to state the reasons leading the Court to act upon the junta’s efforts to change Myanmar’s representation in the case as less than satisfactory. “The judges are right to reject the preliminary objections, but they were wrong to have chosen to engage with military junta,” said Chris Sidoti of SAC-M. “The junta is not the legitimate representative of Myanmar, it has not been recognised by the UN and it does not have effective control on the ground in Myanmar. The Court must rectify Myanmar’s representation as it proceeds now to the merits of the case.” The military junta tried and failed to seize power over Myanmar in a coup eighteen months ago. It has been losing what territorial and administrative control it did have since then to the democratic resistance. In an attempt to crush the resistance, the military is committing mass atrocities against civilians and employing many of the tactics it used in the genocidal attacks on the Rohingya, including indiscriminate killing, summary execution, rape, torture and arson. Rohingya refugees that were forced into Bangladesh by the military cannot begin to return to Myanmar under such conditions. Besides the ICJ, no other UN body has accepted the junta as representing Myanmar. Last year, the General Assembly rejected the military junta’s attempts to gain recognition there. However, UN Member States have been slow to grant formal recognition to the NUG, reflecting a broader, ongoing failure of the people of Myanmar on the part of the international community. “In the words of the Court, the higher purpose of the Genocide Convention is the protection of a people against the blatant and shameful breach of the Convention by another State party. So why have more States not intervened in the case at the ICJ?” Marzuki Darusman of SAC-M asked. “Rohingya are being gravely let down by the inertia of those Member States that fail to act. What is more, that failure directly emboldens the junta to continue repeating its crimes across the country, as it is now. It is a shameful dereliction of duty of the highest order.” SAC-M calls on all UN Member States to formally recognise the NUG, for those that are party to the Genocide Convention to intervene in The Gambia’s case at the ICJ and, for those that are members of either the Security Council or party to the Rome Statute, refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court..."
Source/publisher: Special Advisory Council for Myanmar
Date of publication: 2022-07-23
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-23
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Title: Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar): The Court finds that it has jurisdiction to entertain the Application filed by the The Gambia, and that the Application is admissible
Description: "THE HAGUE, 22 July 2022. The International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, has today delivered its Judgment on the preliminary objections raised by the Republic of the Union of Myanmar in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar). Myanmar raised four preliminary objections to the jurisdiction of the Court and the admissibility of the Application. In its first preliminary objection, Myanmar argued that the Court lacked jurisdiction, or alternatively that the Application was inadmissible, on the ground that, according to Myanmar, the “real applicant” in the proceedings was the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. According to the second preliminary objection, the Application was inadmissible because The Gambia lacked standing to bring the case. Myanmar asserted in its third preliminary objection that the Court lacked jurisdiction, or that the Application was inadmissible, since The Gambia could not validly seise the Court in light of Myanmar’s reservation to Article VIII of the Genocide Convention. In its fourth preliminary objection, Myanmar contended that the Court lacked jurisdiction, or alternatively that the Application was inadmissible, because there was no dispute between the Parties under the Genocide Convention on the date on which the Application was filed. In its Judgment, which is final, without appeal and binding on the Parties, the Court: (1) Unanimously, Rejects the first preliminary objection raised by the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; (2) Unanimously, Rejects the fourth preliminary objection raised by the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; (3) Unanimously, Rejects the third preliminary objection raised by the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; (4) By fifteen votes to one, Rejects the second preliminary objection raised by the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; IN FAVOUR: President Donoghue; Vice-President Gevorgian; Judges Tomka, Abraham, Bennouna, Yusuf, Sebutinde, Bhandari, Robinson, Salam, Iwasawa, Nolte, Charlesworth; Judges ad hoc Pillay, Kress; AGAINST: Judge Xue; (5) By fifteen votes to one, Finds that it has jurisdiction, on the basis of Article IX of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to entertain the Application filed by the Republic of The Gambia on 11 November 2019, and that the said Application is admissible. IN FAVOUR: President Donoghue; Vice-President Gevorgian; Judges Tomka, Abraham, Bennouna, Yusuf, Sebutinde, Bhandari, Robinson, Salam, Iwasawa, Nolte, Charlesworth; Judges ad hoc Pillay, Kress; AGAINST: Judge Xue. Judge Xue appends a dissenting opinion to the Judgment of the Court; Judge ad hoc Kress appends a declaration to the Judgment of the Court..."
Source/publisher: International Court of Justice ( The Hague, Netherlands)
Date of publication: 2022-07-22
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-22
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Title: BROUK Welcomes Decision By ICJ – British Government Must Now Join The Case
Description: "Media Release from Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK The Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) today welcomed the decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to reject all preliminary objections by Burma to the case brought by the Gambia that Burma broke the genocide convention. This means that the case can finally continue. “This decision is a great moment for justice for Rohingya, and for all people of Burma. This ruling shows that there is a possibility to challenge to the military’s impunity”, said Tun Khin, President of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK). “The objections raised by Burma were nothing but a blatant delaying tactic, and we are pleased that this landmark genocide trial can now finally begin in earnest.” BROUK also called on the British government to join the case. The British government has used the objections as an excuse not to make a decision on whether to join. This was the latest in a series of flimsy excuses made by the Foreign Office, while at the same time claiming it supported justice and accountability. “For too long, the British government has dragged its feet over justice for the Rohingya, and all the people of Burma. Now, they must join the Rohingya genocide case at the ICJ,” said Tun Khin. Both Canada and the Netherlands together formally declared their intention to intervene in September 2020. The case at the ICJ is the first time ever that Burma has had to defend their record in front of an international court of law. It is not only important for the Rohingya, but all people of Burma who are suffering under the military’s abuses and attacks. Ethnic organisations and civil society organisations from Burma have expressed their support for the case. Moreover, over 100 MPs in the British Parliament have called on the government to join the case. “We are now looking to Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to show that she is serous in tackling gross human rights violations and breaches of international law, including genocide, and announce her intention to join the case,” said Tun Khin..."
Source/publisher: Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK
Date of publication: 2022-07-22
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-22
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Title: Next Steps on the Road to Accountability and Security for Rohingya Refugees
Description: "Today, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is expected to rule on a case that could bring a small measure of justice within reach for my people, the Rohingya. The case, The Gambia v. Myanmar, alleges what we Rohingya know to be true: that military leaders committed acts of genocide in a systematic attempt to destroy us. The Myanmar government has challenged the ICJ’s right to hear the case, saying it has no jurisdiction. If the Court finds that it has jurisdiction, my people will get the opportunity to hold accountable those who authorized and carried out unspeakable atrocities for decades. If, however, the Court agrees it has no jurisdiction, it will be another blow for the Rohingya people who have already suffered so much. More than 900,000 Rohingya refugees are languishing in camps in Bangladesh including in Cox’s Bazar and on Bhasan Char, a remote island in Bengal Bay prone to extreme flooding and cyclones. Many fled Myanmar after the military junta escalated their violent campaign against us in August 2017. These refugees joined more than 300,000 others who have fled persecution since the 1990s. The same Burmese military that killed Rohingya indiscriminately, burnt villages, and raped women without consequence is now using these same tactics against civilians throughout the country. After years of international outcry and advocacy, last March the U.S. government finally determined these atrocities amounted to genocide – a welcome, if long overdue, step in our fight for justice and accountability. That was followed by fresh sanctions by the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom against senior officials and entities connected to the military regime. However, little has been done in practical terms to help those suffering daily humiliations. It is past time for concrete actions. Just as the international community has rallied to help Ukraine, the United States and world leaders must take meaningful steps to help the Rohingya, targeted religious and ethnic communities, and all those suffering under the yoke of the military in Burma. Bangladesh opened its borders to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people fleeing for their lives after the military crackdown in 2017. However, over time, conditions in the refugee camps there have deteriorated – and grow worse with each passing day. Overcrowding and underfunding has led to squalid conditions including inadequate food, water, and shelter. Fencing in the camps restricts movement, leaving refugees especially vulnerable to flooding, landslides, and fire. There is a lack of proper medical care and promises to educate children (around half of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh under age 18) have gone unfulfilled. I have visited these camps, heard their stories. A whole generation of Rohingya children are growing up in hopeless conditions. There is no security, no opportunity, and no dignity in these places. The international community must respond to these hopeless conditions by immediately increasing funding for the refugee camps in Bangladesh. According to the United Nations (U.N.), humanitarian groups need more than $880 million to support refugees in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char. As of May 2022 however, the Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis is only about 14 percent funded. Bangladesh should also allow the refugees to run schools, markets, and civil society organizations, as Rohingya are able to meet some of their own needs if given the opportunity to do so. But providing resources for refugees in Bangladesh will not sustainably protect the Rohingya. As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi noted while visiting these camps this past May, “[T]he Rohingya refugees I met reiterated their desire to return home when conditions allow. The world must work to address the root causes of their flight and to translate those dreams into reality.” The United States and international community can help “address the root causes” by joining or supporting the three pending international investigations and cases against the military regime. They include the aforementioned case brought by The Gambia and an ongoing investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into crimes against humanity targeting the Rohingya people. That investigation however is limited to violations committed on Bangladesh territory, since Myanmar has not ratified the Rome Statute. The third is a petition filed in November 2021, after the Argentinian judiciary agreed to launch a universal jurisdiction case against senior Myanmar officials brought by my organization, Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK). It marked the first time that another country’s domestic courts have agreed to investigate these allegations. BROUK and our legal team are supporting six women who have accused the military of gross human rights violations. In the coming months, the court will hear directly from these women, another first on the long road to justice. Beyond driving accountability for past wrongs, we Rohingya also want to have a voice in shaping the future of our country. The United States and other allies should make it clear that there can be no normalized relations with Burma without the full and equal participation of the nation’s many minorities, including the Rohingya. First, we need the restoration of our full citizenship rights, which were stripped away with the Burma Citizenship Law of 1982. This measure rendered us stateless and triggered policies that restricted access to health care, education, and jobs (I left my homeland in the 1990s for the United Kingdom after being blocked from going to university simply because I am Rohingya.) Encouragingly, Burma’s government in exile has made commitments to reverse these discriminatory practices should the war against the junta be successful. I am hopeful for the day when the Rohingya can return home peacefully. Until it is safe to do so, we also need international support to increase resettlement opportunities. Sadly, many Rohingya who have fled Burma for other countries face tremendous difficulties beyond the poor conditions noted above. Just recently, India started deporting Rohingya genocide survivors back to Burma, where they face continued persecution and violence – a policy which may violate international refugee law. We will be forever grateful to Bangladesh for hosting us in our time of need, but we need lasting sustainable support to find homes in other nations – like what the international community did for the more than 100,000 Lhotshampas who fled Bhutan in the 1990s after the government moved to strip Nepali-speakers of their citizenship and civil rights. And we have all read about the many States that have committed to help Ukrainian refugees in recent months. Similar steps can and should be taken to resettle Rohingya refugees who have waited for decades to find a permanent home. While the path forward for Rohingya refugees is complicated, it is not impossible. There has been meaningful progress along the way, including the genocide determination by the United States, sanctions against the military leadership, and the adoption this month of a resolution by the U.N. Human Rights Council that underscored the need for transparent investigations and called on Burma to allow us to return home safely. Indeed, the world has seen what can be achieved when the international community purposefully rallies to support a community in crisis. The Rohingya people need similar support from the United States and allied leaders, now more than ever..."
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Source/publisher: Justice Security
Date of publication: 2022-07-22
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-22
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Title: Reaction to the ruling by the International Court of Justice to reject Myanmar’s preliminary objections – Statement by Nicholas Koumjian, Head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar
Description: "22 July 2022 – Today’s decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to reject Myanmar’s preliminary objections in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar) is of great importance – not just to the people of Myanmar, but also to the development of international law and to defining the obligation of States that have signed the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Today’s ruling means the ICJ will next consider the parties arguments concerning the merits of the case – that is, The Gambia’s allegations that Myanmar has failed to fulfill its obligations to prevent and punish acts of genocide committed against the Rohingya people in Myanmar as required under the Convention. The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar is mandated to assist in efforts to bring about justice for serious international crimes committed in Myanmar, with the Human Rights Council explicitly calling for our cooperation with the ICJ in its resolution 43/26. We will continue to share materials relevant to these proceedings with both Myanmar and The Gambia, provided that we have the consent of those that provided the information and that we are confident that disclosure will not endanger the security or privacy of any individual. We believe it is critical that the judges who will decide this very important case have the best evidence available to enable them to determine the true facts about what has happened and the current situation in Rakhine state. Now, almost five years after the mass exodus of Rohingya from Rakhine state in 2017, hundreds of thousands remain living as refugees, and many place great hope in these ICJ proceedings. The Mechanism collects, preserves and analyses evidence of violations of international law committed in Myanmar since 2011 regardless of the race, religion, ethnicity or citizenship of the perpetrators or of the victims. Should anyone have information relevant to these proceedings, you can contact us confidentially via secure channels, as described on our contact page..."
Source/publisher: Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar
Date of publication: 2022-07-22
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-22
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Title: Statement on the ICJ’s Rejection of Preliminary Objections in Rohingya Genocide Case
Description: "The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect welcomes the judgment delivered today, 22 July, by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the preliminary objections raised by Myanmar (Burma) in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar). In rejecting Myanmar’s preliminary objections, the ICJ can proceed with the merits of the case and is one step closer to achieving justice for the Rohingya. The preliminary objections raised by Myanmar were an overt attempt to block and delay justice and reconciliation for the Rohingya, as well as to escape accountability for genocide and crimes against humanity. The objections were also made in an effort to maintain the culture of impunity that has persisted in Myanmar for decades. The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect appreciates that the ICJ agrees that Myanmar’s preliminary objections lacked any weight or merit. Savita Pawnday, Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, said, “impunity for perpetrators like General Min Aung Hlaing and other military leaders not only facilitated the perpetration of mass atrocity crimes against the Rohingya and other minorities but also enabled the 2021 coup and created a permissive environment for the ensuing violence and atrocities across Myanmar. The Global Centre looks forward to the next stages of the case.” Justice and accountability are important to upholding the Responsibility to Protect populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. Still, accountability processes on their own are not enough. It is important to note that Myanmar has failed to uphold the provisional measures ordered by the ICJ in January 2020 to protect the Rohingya from further violence, and the international community has never put sufficient pressure on Myanmar – both the former civilian-led government and the current junta – to ensure compliance with these measures. The estimated 600,000 Rohingya remaining in Myanmar continue to face systematic discrimination and are at high risk of atrocity crimes, as the military commits widespread and systematic human rights violations against civilians, particularly those from ethnic minority populations. While the ICJ’s decision is a positive development, the road to much needed justice and reconciliation for the Rohingya remains a long one. Ms. Pawnday said, “As the case goes forward, it is essential that the ICJ centers the voices and perspectives of the Rohingya in its proceedings. States should urge compliance with the provisional measures. States can also aid in ensuring accountability by formally intervening in the case — particularly Canada and the Netherlands, who announced their intention to do so in 2020.”..."
Source/publisher: Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Date of publication: 2022-07-22
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-22
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Title: Top UN court rejects Myanmar objections in Rohingya genocide trial
Sub-title: The International Court of Justice clears way for the Gambian case to move to evidence against Myanmar.
Description: "The International Court of Justice (ICJ) rejected on Friday all of Myanmar’s objections to a case brought against it by Gambia that accuses the Southeast Asian country of genocide against the mainly Muslim Rohingya minority. Myanmar’s military regime had lodged four preliminary objections claiming the Hague-based court does not have jurisdiction and that the West African country of Gambia did not have the standing to bring the case over mass killing and forced expulsions of Rohingya in 2016 and 2017. The ruling delivered at the Peace Palace in the Dutch city of The Hague by ICJ President, Judge Joan E. Donoghue, clears the way for the court to move on to the merits phase of the process and consider the factual evidence against Myanmar, a process that could take years. Donoghue said the court found that all members of the 1948 Genocide Convention can and are obliged act to prevent genocide, and that through its statements before the U.N. General Assembly in 2018 and 2019, Gambia had made clear to Myanmar its intention to bring a case to the ICJ based on the conclusion of a UN fact-finding mission into the allegations of genocide. “Myanmar could not have been unaware of the fact that The Gambia had expressed the view that it would champion an accountability mechanism for the alleged crimes against the Rohingya,” the judge said. The military junta that overthrew Myanmar’s elected government in February 2021 is now embroiled in fighting with prodemocracy paramilitaries across wide swathes of the country, and multiple reports have emerged of troops torturing, raping and killing civilians. In the initial hearing of the case in 2019, Gambia said that “from around October 2016 the Myanmar military and other Myanmar security forces began widespread and systematic ‘clearance operations’ … against the Rohingya group.” “The genocidal acts committed during these operations were intended to destroy the Rohingya as a group, in whole or in part, by the use of mass murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, as well as the systematic destruction by fire of their villages, often with inhabitants locked inside burning houses. From August 2017 onwards, such genocidal acts continued with Myanmar’s resumption of ‘clearance operations’ on a more massive and wider geographical scale.” Thousands died in the raids in August 2017, when the military cleared and burned Rohingya communities in western Myanmar, killing, torturing and raping locals. The violent campaign forced more than 740,000 people to flee to squalid refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh. That exodus followed a 2016 crackdown that drove out more than 90,000 Rohingya from Rakhine. Gambia has called on Myanmar to stop persecuting the Rohingya, punish those responsible for the genocide, offer reparations to the victims and provide guarantees that there would be no repeat of the crimes against the Rohingya. The Myanmar junta’s delegation protested at a hearing on Feb. 25 this year, saying the ICJ has no right to hear the case. It lodged four objections, all of which were rejected by the ICJ on Friday. Reactions to ruling Tun Khin, president of the U.K.-based Burma Rohingya Organization, who attended Friday's court proceeding, called the ICJ ruling "good news for all citizens of Myanmar." “The ICJ court proceeding will continue and justice will be served for all Rohingya, who have been victims of a genocide," he said. "I believe the forthcoming court hearings will verify that the military has intentionally committed crimes against the Rohingya population, with genocidal intent.” In a post on Twitter, Gambia's Ministry of Justice welcomed the ruling, calling it "a major win for The Gambia in its fight for Justice for the Rohyinga." In Bangladesh, the decision was greeted with joy by the displaced Rohingya community. Khin Mong, founder of the Rohingya Youth Association and a resident of the Unchiprang refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, told the RFA-affiliated BenarNews that the ICJ's ruling would benefit "all oppressed ethnic groups in Myanmar, not just the Rohingya." "Insha'Allah, the Rohingyas will one day receive justice. I believe the international court's final decision will also be in our favor," he said. BenarNews also spoke to Abul Kalam, a Rohinyga refugee living at Camp Majhi in Jadimura, Teknaf. "Until death, every Rohingya will seek justice for this genocide," he said. "The Gambia has prepared the path for a fair trial for us. We are now more optimistic about it." Attempts by RFA Burmese to reach junta Deputy Minister of Information Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the ruling went unanswered Friday. When asked earlier this month about the case, he told RFA that he hoped the ICJ would make a fair decision in its ruling. "Myanmar will maintain its legal stance," he said at the time. "As the ICJ is an organization that mainly deals with international law and legal procedures, Myanmar hopes that justice will be done in accordance with international laws." Friday's ruling was also welcomed by the international human rights community. “The ICJ decision opens the door toward an overdue reckoning with the Myanmar military’s murderous campaign against the Rohingya population," said Elaine Pearson, acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "By holding the military to account for its atrocities against the Rohingya, the World Court could provide the impetus for greater international action toward justice for all victims of the Myanmar security forces’ crimes.” Matthew Smith, chief executive officer at Fortify Rights, called the ruling "momentous." “Jurisdiction in this case is settled," he said. "The international community should immediately get behind The Gambia in this case and support other efforts across mechanisms to hold the Myanmar military to account for its horrific crimes against the people of Myanmar.” Ongoing oppression The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and was established in 1945 to settle disputes in accordance with international law through binding judgments with no right of appeal. The U.S. has also accused Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ruled in March this year that “Burma’s military committed genocide and crimes against humanity with the intent to destroy predominantly Muslim Rohingya in 2017.” The State Department said the military junta continues to oppress the Rohingya, putting 144,000 in internal displacement camps in Rakhine state by the end of last year. A State Department report last month noted that Rohingya also face travel restrictions within the country and the junta has made no effort to bring refugees back from Bangladesh. Myanmar, a country of 54 million people about the size of France, recognizes 135 official ethnic groups, with Burmans accounting for about 68 percent of the population. The Rohingya, whose ethnicity is not recognized by the government, have faced decades of discrimination in Myanmar and are effectively stateless, denied citizenship. Myanmar administrations have refused to call them “Rohingya” and instead use the term “Bengali.” The atrocities against the Rohingya were committed during the tenure of the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi, who in December 2019 defended the military against allegations of genocide at the ICJ. The Nobel Peace Prize winner and one-time democracy icon now languishes in prison — toppled by the same military in last year’s coup. In February, the National Unity Government (NUG), formed by former Myanmar lawmakers who operate as a shadow government in opposition to the military junta, said they accept the authority of the ICJ to decide if the 2016-17 campaign against Rohingya constituted a genocide, and would withdraw all preliminary objections in the case. NUG Human Rights Minister Aung Myo Min called Friday's ruling "in line" with the shadow government's approach to the Rohingya issue. “Today’s ruling will bring up more hearings, credible evidence and testimonies. It will bring an effective ruling in the end, and we welcome all of that,” he said. Aung Htoo, a Myanmar human rights lawyer and the principal at the country’s Federal Legal Academy, said that while the decision marks a significant step forward in the case, it remains unclear how long it could take for the court to reach a final verdict. “Most likely it could take several years, even a decade,” he said..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
Date of publication: 2022-07-22
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-22
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Title: World Court Rejects Myanmar Objections to Genocide Case
Sub-title: ICJ Decision Advances Justice for Rohingya
Description: "(The Hague) – The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on July 22, 2022, rejected Myanmar’s preliminary objections to the case brought by Gambia under the international Genocide Convention, Human Rights Watch said today. The case concerns Myanmar’s alleged genocide against the ethnic Rohingya population in Rakhine State, with a focus on military operations launched in October 2016 and August 2017. Gambia filed the case before the ICJ in November 2019 alleging that the Myanmar military committed the genocidal acts of “killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, inflicting conditions that are calculated to bring about physical destruction, imposing measures to prevent births, and forcible transfers … intended to destroy the Rohingya group in whole or in part.” “The ICJ decision opens the door toward an overdue reckoning with the Myanmar military’s murderous campaign against the Rohingya population,” said Elaine Pearson, acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “By holding the military to account for its atrocities against the Rohingya, the World Court could provide the impetus for greater international action toward justice for all victims of the Myanmar security forces’ crimes.” In February 2022, the ICJ heard Myanmar’s four objections challenging the court’s jurisdiction and Gambia’s legal standing to file the case, as well as Gambia’s response. In its ruling, the court unanimously rejected three of Myanmar’s objections, and rejected one by a vote of 15 to 1. The judgment affirmed that “the applicant in this case is the Gambia”; that “a dispute relating to the interpretation, application and fulfilment of the Genocide Convention existed between the parties at the time of the filing of the application by the Gambia”; and that “the Gambia, as a state party to the Genocide Convention, has standing to invoke the responsibility of Myanmar for the alleged breaches of its obligations under Articles I, III, IV and V of the Convention.” In response to Myanmar’s argument that Gambia has no standing to bring the case due to its lack of ties to Myanmar or the Rohingya, the court concluded, “All the States parties to the Genocide Convention thus have a common interest to ensure the prevention, suppression and punishment of genocide, by committing themselves to fulfilling the obligations contained in the Convention.” By rejecting the preliminary objections, the ICJ is allowing the case to proceed on the merits to examine Gambia’s genocide allegations against Myanmar. Myanmar will now have to submit its response to Gambia’s main arguments filed in October 2020 detailing its case. The ICJ case is not a criminal case against individual suspects, but a legal action brought by Gambia against Myanmar alleging that Myanmar bears responsibility for genocide as a state. In December 2019, the court held hearings on Gambia’s request for provisional measures to protect the Rohingya remaining in Myanmar from genocide, which it unanimously adopted in January 2020. The provisional measures require Myanmar to prevent all genocidal acts against the Rohingya, to ensure that security forces do not commit acts of genocide, and to take steps to preserve evidence related to the case. The court also ordered Myanmar to report on its compliance with the provisional measures every six months. Myanmar is legally bound to comply with the order. However, Human Rights Watch and other groups have continued to document grave abuses against the 600,000 Rohingya remaining in Myanmar, contravening the provisional measures. The severe restrictions imposed on the Rohingya by the Myanmar authorities amount to the crimes against humanity of persecution, apartheid, and severe deprivation of liberty. Since the February 2021 coup, the military junta has placed even greater movement restrictions and harsher punishments on Rohingya for attempting to leave Rakhine State. State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi led the Myanmar delegation at the December 2019 opening hearings of the ICJ. Since her arrest during the 2021 coup, Suu Kyi has been sentenced to 11 years in prison, while facing over 180 years total on various fabricated charges. In the preliminary objections hearings, Myanmar was represented by the junta’s Minister for International Cooperation Ko Ko Hlaing and Union Attorney General Thida Oo, whom the United States and other governments have sanctioned for their roles in the military regime. Since the 2021 coup, the junta has imposed a brutal nationwide crackdown, killing over 2,000 people and arbitrarily arresting over 14,000. While the opposition National Unity Government (NUG) and others raised concerns regarding the junta’s representation of Myanmar at the February hearings, the junta’s participation has no bearing on its recognition at the United Nations as Myanmar’s legitimate representative, Human Rights Watch said. The court’s decision on Myanmar’s preliminary objections should encourage the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Canada, and other concerned governments to support Gambia’s case through formal interventions to bolster the legal analysis on specific aspects of the Genocide Convention as it relates to the Rohingya, Human Rights Watch said. Under article 41(2) of the ICJ Statute, the court’s order for provisional measures is automatically sent to the UN Security Council. As the fifth anniversary of the military’s atrocities against the Rohingya approaches, Security Council members should take steps to address the failure to secure justice and security for the Rohingya. Council members should work to adopt a resolution that gives the International Criminal Court (ICC) a mandate over the situation in Myanmar and severs the junta’s supply of arms and revenue, even if the resolution would be vetoed by Russia or China. As the Myanmar armed forces continue to carry out atrocities against civilians and ethnic minorities, the ICJ remains one of the few available paths for holding the military to account. Ethnic groups and human rights defenders have aligned in Myanmar to push for the establishment of democratic rule, efforts that are amplified by the pursuit of justice at the ICJ. “Concerned governments seeking to be leaders for accountability in Myanmar should formally intervene in the Genocide Convention case,” Pearson said. “The case provides an important opportunity to scrutinize the Myanmar military’s abusive policies and practices that have preserved its power over decades.”..."
Source/publisher: "Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of publication: 2022-07-22
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-22
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Title: Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar)
Description: "THE HAGUE, 11 July 2022. On Friday 22 July 2022, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, will deliver its Judgment on the preliminary objections raised by Myanmar in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar). A public sitting of the Court will take place at 3 p.m. at the Peace Palace in The Hague, during which the President of the Court, Judge Joan E. Donoghue, will read out the Court’s decision. Hearings and other Court sessions held in the ICJ’s courtroom at the Peace Palace remain closed to the public for the time being as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Only Members of the Court and representatives of the States Parties to the case will be present in the Great Hall of Justice. Members of the diplomatic corps and the public will be able to follow the reading through a live webcast on the Court’s website, as well as on UN Web TV, the United Nations online television channel. Limited access to the Peace Palace will be granted to media representatives, as indicated in the instructions below..."
Source/publisher: International Court of Justice ( The Hague, Netherlands)
Date of publication: 2022-07-11
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-11
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Title: Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar)
Sub-title: The Court to hold public hearings on the preliminary objections raised by Myanmar from Monday 21 to Monday 28 February 2022
Description: "THE HAGUE, 19 January 2022. The International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, will hold public hearings in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar) from Monday 21 February to Monday 28 February 2022, at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the seat of the Court. The hearings will be devoted to the preliminary objections raised by Myanmar. In view of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the hearings will be held in a hybrid format. Some Members of the Court will attend the oral proceedings in person in the Great Hall of Justice while others will participate remotely by video link. Representatives of the Parties to the case will participate either in person or by video link. Guidelines for the Parties on the organization of hearings by video link can be found on the Court’s website. Members of the diplomatic corps, the media and the public will be able to follow the hearings through a live webcast on the Court’s website, as well as on UN Web TV, the United Nations online television channel..."
Source/publisher: International Court of Justice ( The Hague, Netherlands)
Date of publication: 2022-01-19
Date of entry/update: 2022-01-20
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Title: Urgent humanitarian aid and protection needed for over 10,000 villagers fleeing Burmese Military attacks in Lay Kay Kaw, Karen State, Burma - ကရင်ပြည်နယ်ရှိ လေးကေကော်မြို့အပေါ် တပ်မတော်မှတိုက်ခိုက်မှုများကြောင့် ထွက်ပြေးတိမ်းရှောင်နေ ရသော ဒေသခံ ပြည်သူ ၁၀၀၀၀ ကျော်အတွက် လူသားချင်းစာနာမှု အကူအညီ နှင့် အကာအကွယ်များ အရေးပေါ် လိုအပ်လျက်ရှိနေ
Description: "The Karen Peace Support Network (KPSN) is calling urgently for humanitarian aid and protection for over 10,000 villagers who have fled Burmese military attacks in the Lay Kay Kaw area of Dooplaya District, Karen State, half of whom have now crossed the Moei River into Thailand. The attacks began on December 15, 2021, a day after about 200 Burmese military troops raided the Karen National Union (KNU) controlled town of Lay Kay Kaw, south of Myawaddy, and arrested over 20 people, including a member of parliament and democracy activists who had taken refuge there since the February 1 military coup. When the Karen National Liberation Army, the armed wing of the KNU, tried to protect people from arrest and torture, the Burmese military fired more than 100 artillery shells indiscriminately into the town and surrounding villages, damaging buildings and causing local residents to flee in terror. Attacks are continuing to this day. Lay Kay Kaw was established as a “New Town” in 2014 under the ceasefire agreement between the KNU and the Burmese military, with financial support from Japan’s Nippon Foundation. Tensions between the KNU and the Burmese military have been mounting in the area since September 2021, when the Burmese military troops began conducting raids in Lay Kay Kaw searching for democracy activists. This is the first major Burmese military offensive in this area of Karen State, which is under the KNU’s 6th Brigade, since the 2012 ceasefire. So far, over 10,000 people from Lay Kay Kaw and eight nearby villages have fled their homes. After trying to seek shelter on the Karen side of the border, about 5,000 have been driven by escalating attacks to cross the Moei River to seek refuge in Thailand. The Burmese military has been bringing in troop reinforcements and armoured personnel carriers from adjoining regional commands, and fighter aircraft have been flying over the area, instilling fear that aerial bombing will soon begin. It appears the Burmese military is planning to escalate attacks further, threatening the lives of local villagers. KPSN therefore appeals urgently to the Thai government to give protection and shelter to these new refugees and allow humanitarian aid agencies to access and assist them. We also urge Thailand to allow aid to be delivered to internally displaced people (IDPs) sheltering on the Karen side of the border. KPSN strongly condemns this latest Burmese military aggression, in violation of their ceasefire pledges to the KNU and foreign peace donors. These donors should immediately cut funding for the failed ‘nationwide’ peace process and instead provide urgently needed humanitarian aid to displaced communities. Aid to IDPs should be provided cross-border through ethnic administrations and local community organisations, without informing or coordinating with the Burmese military which would jeopardize aid delivery. We call urgently for stronger international pressure on the Burmese military, including: 1. Imposition of a global arms embargo and sanctions on the supply of aviation fuel. 2. Targeted economic sanctions, including on gas revenue. 3. Deny legitimacy to the Burmese military and do not sign agreements with them for humanitarian and development aid. 4. Hold the military to account for their crimes, referring the situation to the International Criminal Court.....ကရင်ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးအထောက်အကူပြုကွန်ယက်မှ ကရင်ပြည်နယ်ရှိ လေးကေကော်မြို့အား တပ်မတော်မှတိုက်ခိုက်မှုများ ကြောင့် ထွက်ပြေးတိမ်းရှောင်နေရသော ဒေသခံ ပြည်သူ ၁၀၀၀၀ ကျော်အတွက် အရေးပေါ်လူသားခြင်းစာနာမှု အကူအညီ နှင့် အကာအကွယ်များ ရရှိရန် တောင်းဆိုလိုက်သည်။ တိမ်းရှောင်နေရသော ရွာသားများ၏ ထက်ဝက်မှာ သောင်ရင်းမြစ်အား ဖြတ်ကူးပြီး ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံအတွင်းသို့ ရောက်ရှိနေပြီဖြစ်သည်။။ မြဝတီမြို့တောင်ဘက်တွင်ရှိသော ကရင်အမျိုးသားအစည်းအရုံး၏ အုပ်ချုပ်မှုအောက်ရှိ လေးကေကော်မြို့အား စစ်တပ်မှ အင်အား ၂၀၀ ခန့်ဖြင့်စီးနင်းဝင်ရောက်ခဲ့ပြီး စစ်ကောင်စီမှ အာဏာသိမ်းသည့် ၂၀၂၁ ဖေဖဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့ နောက်ပိုင်းတွင် လာရောက်ခိုလှုံလျက်ရှိသော လွှတ်တော်အမတ်များနှင့် ဒီမိုကရေစီအရေးတက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူများ အပါအဝင် လူပေါင်း ၂၀ကျော်အားဖမ်းဆီးပြီး နောက်တစ်ရက်ဖြစ်သော ၂၀၂၁ ဒီဇင်ဘာလ ၁၅ ရက်နေ့တွင် တိုက်ပွဲစတင်ဖြစ်ပွားခဲ့သည်။ ပြည်သူများအပေါ် မတရားဖမ်းဆီးခြင်း နှင့် ညှင်းပမ်းနှိပ်စက်ခြင်းမှ အကာအကွယ်ပေးရန် ကရင်အမျိုးအသား အစည်းအရုံး၏ လက်နက်ကိုင်တပ်ဖြစ်သော ကရင်မျိုးသားလွတ်မြောက်ရေးတပ်မတော်မှ ကြိုးစားလျက်ရှိသော်လည်း စစ်တပ်မှ လက်နက်ကြီး ၁၀၀ ကျော်ခန့်အား မြို့ နှင့် ၎င်းပတ်ဝန်းကျင်ရှိ ကျေးရွာများ အတွင်းသို့ ရမ်းသမ်းပစ်ခတ်ခဲ့သောကြောင့် အဆောက်အဦးပျက်စီးဆုံးရှုံးမှုများနှင့် ဒေသခံများ စိုးရိမ်ထိတ်လန့်စွာ ထွက်ပြေးတိမ်းရှောင်နေရသည်။ တိုက်ပွဲများမှာလည်း ယနေ့တိုင် ဖြစ်ပွားလျက်ရှိသည်။ ကရင်အမျိုးသားအစည်းအရုံး နှင့် စစ်တပ်အကြား အပစ်အခတ်ရပ်စဲရေး သဘောတူညီမှုစာချုပ်အောက်တွင် ဂျပန်နိုင်ငံမှ နိပွန် ဖောင်ဒေးရှင်း၏ ငွေကြေးအထောက်အပံ့ဖြင့် လေးကော် မြို့သစ်အား ၂၀၁၄ ခုနှစ်တွင် စတင်တည်ထောင်ခဲ့သည်။ ဤဒေသအတွင်း စစ်တပ်မှာ လေးကေကော်မြို့အတွင်းသို့ ဝင်ရောက်ခဲ့ပြီး ဒီမိုအရေစီအရေးတက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူများအား စီးနင်းရှာဖွေခဲ့သော စက်တင်ဘာလ ၂၁ ရက်နေ့ကတည်းကပင် ကေအဲန်ယူနှင့် စစ်တပ်အကြားတင်မာမှုများ မြင့်တက်နေခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ်သည်။ ၂၀၁၂ အပစ်အခတ်ရပ်စဲရေးနောက်ပိုင်း ကရင်ပြည်နယ် ကေအဲန်ယူ တပ်မဟာ ၆ နယ်မြေ အတွင်း စစ်တပ်၏ ပထမဆုံး ထိုးစစ်ဆင်မှုကြီးလည်းဖြစ်သည်။ လက်ရှိအချိန်တွင် လေးကော် နှင့် အနီးပတ်ဝင်ကျင်ရှိ ရွာပေါင်း ၈ ရွာမှ ရွာသားပေါင်း ၁၀၀၀၀ ကျော်မှာ စစ်ဘေးရှောင် နေရပြီဖြစ်သည်။ ကရင်ပြည်၏ နယ်စပ်အတွင်းပိုင်းတွင် ရွာသားပေါင်း ၅၀၀၀ ကျော်မှာ ပုန်းခိုနေရလျက်ရှိပြီး နောက်ထပ် ၅၀၀၀ ခန့်မှာ ထိုးစစ်ဆင်မှုများကြောင့် သောင်ရင်းမြစ်အား ဖြတ်သန်းပြီး ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံအတွင်းသို့ ဖြတ်ကျော် ခိုလှုံနေရပြီ ဖြစ်သည်။ စစ်တပ်မှ စစ်လက်နက်ကြီးများ နှင့် စစ်သားများကို အခြားသေား နီးစပ်ရာ စစ်တိုင်းများဖြင့် အားဖြည့်လာလျက်ရှိပြီး တိုက်လေယဉ်များမှာ ဒေသအတွင်း ပျံသန်းလျက်ရှိရာ ဗုံးကြဲခံရမည်ကိုလည်း စိုးရိမ်မှုမြင့်တက်နေလျက်ရှိသည်။ စစ်တပ်မှ ထပ်မံထိုးစစ်ဆင်မည့် အစီအစဉ်များ မြင်တွေ့နေရပြီး ဒေသခံရွာသားများ၏ အသက်အန္တရယ်မှာလည်း ခြိမ်းချောက် ခံနေလျက်ရှိသည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် ကရင်ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးအထောက်အကူပြုကွန်ယက်မှ ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံအစိုးရအား ဒုက္ခသည်သစ်များ နှင့် ဒေသခံ ဒုက္ခသည်များအပေါ် ခိုလှုံခွင့် နှင့် လူသားချင်းစာနာမှုအကူအညီပေးနေသော အဖွဲ့အစည်းများမှ အကူညီများကို လိုအပ်သည့်နေရာသို့ ပေးနိုင်ရန်အတွက် အထောက်ကူပြုပေးပါရန် အရေးပေါ် တောင်းဆိုလိုက်ရပါသည်။ ထို့အတူ နယ်စပ် အခြားတဘက်ရှိ ကရင်ပြည်နယ်အတွင်းကျန်ရှိနေသော စစ်ဘေးရှောင်များထံသို့ အကူအများပို့ဆောင်ရာတွင် ခွင့်ပြုပေးရန် ထပ်မံ တောင်းဆိုလိုက်ပါသည်။ ကရင်ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးအထောက်အကူပြုကွန်ယက်မှ ကေအဲန်ယူ နှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာ ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေး အလှုရှင်များ၏ တောင်းဆိုမှုများအပေါ် လစ်လှူရှုကာ အပစ်အခတ်ရပ်စဲရေးအားချိုးဖောက်ပြီး စစ်တပ်၏ ယခုအကြမ်းဖက် ထိုးစစ်ဆင်မှု အပေါ် ပြင်းပြင်းထန်ထန် ရှုံ့ချလိုက်သည်။ အဆိုပါ အလှုရှင်များမှ ကျိုးပျက်သွားပြီ ဖြစ်သော ငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးဖြစ်စဉ်အပေါ် ထောက်ပံ့မှုများအား ဖြတ်တောက်ပစ်ပြီး ၎င်းအစား စစ်ဘေးရှောင်နေရသောပြည်သူများအပေါ် လိုအပ်သည့် အရေးပေါ် လူသားချင်းစာနာမှု အထောက်အကူပေးရန်ဖြစ်သည်။ စစ်ဘေးရှောင်များအတွက် အကူအညီများအား နယ်စပ်ဖြတ် ကျော်ပြီး တိုင်းရင်းသားအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးတာဝန်ခံများ နှင့် ဒေသခံ အရပ်ဘက်အဖွဲ့အစည်းများ ထံသို့ အကူအညီများ ပို့ဆောင်ရာတွင် အန္တာရယ်ပေးလာနိုင်သည့် စစ်တပ်အား အကြောင်းကြားခြင်း (သို့) ပူးပေါင်းလုပ်ဆောင်ခြင်း မပြုလုပ်ပဲ ဆောင်ရွက်သင့်ကြောင်း ကြံပြုအတိုက်တွန်း လိုက်ပါသည်။ စစ်တပ်အပေါ် နိုင်ငံတကာမှ ပိုမိုပြင်ထန်သော ဖိအားများပေးရန် အရေးပေါ် တောင်ဆိုပြီး ပိတ်ဆို့မှုများ အလျှင်အမြန်လုပ်ဆောင်ရန် တောင်းဆိုရာတွင် ၁။ ကမ္ဘာလုံးဆိုင်ရာ လက်နက်တင်ပို့ရောင်းချမှုပိတ်ပင်ရန် နှင့် လေယဉ်ဆီတင်ပို့မှုများအပေါ် ပိတ်ဆို့ရန် ၂။ သဘာဝဓတ်ငေ့ွမှရရှိသော ဝင်ငွေများအပါအဝင် စီးပွားရေးဆိုင်ရာပိတ်ဆိုမှုများအပေါ် ဦးတည်လုပ်ဆောင်ရန် ၃။ စစ်တပ်၏ တရားဝင်မှုအား လက်မခံရန် နှင့် လူသားချင်းစာနာမှု နှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးအထောက်အကူပြု လုပ်ငန်းများအား ၎င်းတို့နှင့် သဘောတူ လက်မှတ်ထိုးခြင်းများ မပြုလုပ်ရန်။ ၄။ စစ်တပ်မှ ၄င်တို့ကျူးလွန်သော ရာဇဝတ်မှုများအပေါ် တာဝန်ခံနိုင်ရန်တွက် နိုင်ငံတကာ ရာဇဝတ်မှုခုံရုံးတွင် အခြေအနေများ တင်သွင်း လုပ်ဆောင်ရန်။..."
Source/publisher: Karen Peace Support Network
Date of publication: 2021-12-23
Date of entry/update: 2021-12-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: More Must Be Done to Support the International Accountability Proceedings Against Myanmar and End the Military’s Ongoing Crimes
Description: "The Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG), along with the wider Karen community and other ethnic and civil society organisations, welcomes and expresses support for the three ongoing proceedings against perpetrators of genocide and mass atrocities against the Rohingya people: the genocide case brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the forced deportation investigation before the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the more recent universal jurisdiction case in Argentina. The Karen people have long suffered the types of atrocities that Rohingya people have faced at the hands of the Burma/Myanmar military. We hope these cases will bring justice and accountability, and put an end to the Burma/Myanmar military’s long-standing impunity for systematic and widespread human rights abuses. These three proceedings offer the possibility for perpetrators of crimes against humanity and gross human rights violations in Burma/Myanmar to finally be exposed and brought to justice. Bringing such cases to justice at the national level is nearly impossible. There have already been eight ineffective inquiries into the situation in Rakhine State alone since 2012. Investigators for the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar have previously stated that “any hope that Myanmar’s national justice system will provide justice and truth for human rights violations committed by the military would be unfounded. The provisions of Burma/Myanmar law, the structure of the legal system and the judiciary’s lack of independence and legal competence make that impossible. Far from uncovering the truth, Myanmar’s domestic justice system will, on the contrary, punish those who seek it.”[1] As such, ethnic minorities in Burma/Myanmar hold hope in international tribunals to take notice of their calls for human rights abuses to be investigated, and count on these international actions to help bring justice to victims and survivors, and an end to ongoing crimes.[2] Ethnic minorities have however waited for decades for the recommendations of international bodies to be implemented effectively so that the Burma/Myanmar military’s gross human rights violations and atrocity crimes finally come to an end. Since 1992, successive UN Special Rapporteurs on Myanmar have reported consistent and systematic patterns of violations and abuses against minority communities throughout Burma/Myanmar. In some cases, the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Rapporteur have suggested that these violations amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes, thus warranting investigation by the ICC. For decades, ethnic civil society, community-based and human rights organisations, like KHRG, have documented the atrocities committed by the Burma/Myanmar military, providing credible evidence of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, destruction of property, torture and inhumane treatment, rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence, forced labour, recruitment of children into armed forces, and indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks on civilians, including targeting of places of worship, hospitals, schools, and using civilians as human shields. And yet international justice and accountability mechanisms have yet to hold the Burma/Myanmar military accountable, or bring justice to the people who have endured these atrocities. The proceedings currently under way provide hope, but further reveal the difficulty of seeking justice on the international level. After The Gambia filed a case against the Burma/Myanmar military before the ICJ in 2019 alleging that the atrocities committed against the Rohingya people in Rakhine State constituted a violation of the Genocide Convention, State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi publicly denied these allegations. The Republic of the Union of Myanmar later submitted objections questioning the ICJ’s jurisdiction and The Gambia’s eligibility to file the case, which has resulted in further delays in the proceedings. Despite the legally-binding provisional measures issued by the ICJ to protect the Rohingya people from further acts of genocide until a final decision can be rendered, the Burma/Myanmar military has continued to perpetrate acts of genocide against the Rohingya, and to commit a multitude of atrocities against other ethnic and religious minorities in Burma/Myanmar, both before and since the 2021 coup.[3] Later in 2019, the ICC authorised the opening of an investigation into alleged international crimes related to the 2016 and 2017 waves of violence against the Rohingya people in Rakhine State. The investigation is currently limited to crimes, including future crimes, committed at least in part in Bangladesh, or any other State Party to the Rome Statute, from the date such State Party ratified the Rome Statute (June 2010 in the case of Bangladesh). As such, the majority of crimes committed by the Burma/Myanmar military would be left out. If accepted by the ICC, the National Unity Government’s recent declaration (in July 2021) accepting ICC jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute all international crimes committed in Burma/Myanmar would, however, allow expansion of the investigation to include those committed within Burma/Myanmar, and to crimes dating back to July 2002, the earliest date permitted by the Rome Statute.[4] In November 2021, an Argentine appeals court ruled that a case to investigate and hear testimony on alleged war crimes committed in Burma/Myanmar against the Rohingya under the principle of universal jurisdiction could proceed. As the first universal jurisdiction case on the situation of the Rohingya, this investigation is a landmark. The possibility of accountability and wider international impact is strong, not only because the case will cover the full range of crimes committed against the Rohingya in Burma/Myanmar, but also because it will hear victim testimonials, thus honoring the rights of victims to be heard and tell their stories in a court of law. Multiple opportunities therefore currently exist to deliver justice and end impunity. Because accountability proceedings to investigate the Burma/Myanmar military’s atrocities against other ethnic minorities have yet to be undertaken, the possibility for justice and ending ongoing violence for other ethnic minority groups in Burma/Myanmar hinges heavily on the outcome of the Rohingya proceedings. Since the February 2021 coup, the Burma/Myanmar military has intensified its perpetration of atrocities against ethnic minorities, making these proceedings even more urgent, essential and long overdue. Its attacks on the entire civilian population as people voice their opposition to the coup has further demonstrated the military’s disregard for human life and human rights. The failure of the international community to adequately respond to the atrocities committed against ethnic minorities since the 1990s has led to this point. The continued impunity and lack of international accountability has only emboldened the Burma/Myanmar military to continue perpetrating atrocity crimes. Now is the time for concrete action to address problems of accountability and impunity in Burma/Myanmar. For justice to be delivered and ongoing violence to end, the international community must demonstrate widespread support for the proceedings of these courts, as well as a willingness to seek out all additional opportunities to hold the Burma/Myanmar military accountable for its vast array of crimes. KHRG, the Karen community and ethnic and civil society organisations thus make the following recommendations: Additional states should join Canada and the Kingdom of the Netherlands to intervene in the genocide case at the ICJ, and/or provide financial or legal support. Individual states, and particularly states sitting on the UN Security Council, should publicly declare support for an ICC referral, regardless of possible veto of a resolution by Russia or China. The Prosecutor should accept the declaration made on 17 July 2021 by the NUG under Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute; and extend the territorial scope of his investigation to cover crimes falling within the jurisdiction of the ICC committed in Myanmar since 1 July 2002. More states should allow the use of universal jurisdiction laws to hold the Burma/Myanmar military to account for its crimes. States must provide more financial support to CSOs in and from Burma/Myanmar that are documenting human rights violations and providing information used by the United Nations, governments and other justice organisations. More focus should be given in future UN resolutions and reports on the situation in Burma/Myanmar on the failure to implement previous recommendations, rather than repeating the same recommendations year after year. Acknowledging the lengthy timeframe for investigations and proceedings, states should ensure adequate humanitarian assistance and protection for ethnic populations who are facing violence and atrocities at the hands of the Burma/Myanmar military. All states individually and collectively at the United Nations and other international and regional organisations should refuse to lend legitimacy to the military junta and impose targeted economic sanctions and a global arms embargo. For more information, please contact: Naw Htoo Htoo: +66 87 205 1856 Saw Nanda Hsue: + 66 81129 7564 Signed by: Albany Karen community, Albany, NY Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Association of Human Rights Defenders and Promoters Athan - Freedom of Expression Activist Organization Australia Karen Organisation Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK Burmese Women's Union Calgary Karen Community Association California Karen Youth Forum Chin Human Rights Organization Committee of the Internal Displaced Karen People Democracy for Ethnic Minorities Organization Edmonton Karen Community Youth Organization European Karen Network Future Light Center Future Thanlwin Gender Equality Network Generation Wave Human Rights Foundation of Monland International Karen Organisation Kachin Women's Association Thailand Karen American Association of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI Karen Association of Huron, SD Karen Baptist Churches USA Karen Community Association UK Karen Community in Norway Karen Community in the Netherlands Karen Community of Akron, OH Karen Community of Austin, TX Karen Community of Canada Karen Community of Czech Republic Karen Community of Finland Karen Community of Hamilton Karen Community of Iowa, IA Karen Community of Ireland Karen Community of Israel Karen Community of Kansas City, KS & MO Karen Community of Kitchener & Waterloo Karen Community of Leamington K Karen Community of Lethbridge Karen Community of London Karen Community of Louisville Karen Community of Minnesota, MN Karen Community of North Carolina Karen Community of Ottawa Karen Community of Regina Karen Community of Saskatoon Karen community of Tennessee Karen Community of Thunderbay Karen Community of Toronto Karen Community of Windsor Karen Community of Winnipeg Karen Community Society of British Columbia Karen Environmental and Social Action Network Karen Finland Culture Association Karen Organization of America Karen Organization of Illinois, IL Karen Organization of San Diego Karen Organization of San Diego - Signed Karen Peace Support Network Karen Society of Nebraska Karen Student Association, University of Nebraska Karen Swedish Community Karen Thai Group Karen Women's Organization Karen Youth Education Pathways Karen Youth Networks Karen Youth of Norway Karen Youth of Toronto Karen Youth Organization Karen Youth UK Karen-Canadian Education Alliance Karenni Civil Society Network Karenni Human Rights Group King N Queens Organization Korea Karen Organization Korea Karen Youth Organization Let's Help Each Other Metta Campaign Mandalay Myanmar People Alliance (Shan State) Oversea Karen Organization Japan Pa-O Women’s Union Progressive Voice Save and Care Organization for Ethnic Women at Border Areas Synergy - Social Harmony Organization Ta'ang Legal Aid Utica Karen Community, NY Women Advocacy Coalition Myanmar Women's League of Burma Footnotes: [1] Human Rights Council, “Statement by Mr. Marzuki DARUSMAN, Chairperson of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, at the 39th session of the Human Rights Council,” 18September 2018. [2] Karen Grassroots Women’s Network, The Karen Grassroots Women’s Network Welcomes Cases Against Burma for Genocide, 8 December 2019. [3] Fortify Rights, U.N. Security Council: Take Urgent Action Against Myanmar Military Junta, 7 December 2021. [4] NUG Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Statement of the National Unity Government of Myanmar on the 4th Anniversary of the Atrocity Crimes Against the Rohingya People in 2017, 24 August 2021..."
Source/publisher: Karen Human Rights Group
Date of publication: 2021-12-20
Date of entry/update: 2021-12-20
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Title: TRUSS MUST ACT TO ENSURE ACCOUNTABILITY FOR BURMESE MILITARY CRIMES
Description: "660 letters from Burma Campaign UK supporters were sent to Liz Truss MP today, calling on the British Foreign Secretary to announce that the British government will join the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice. The Gambia has brought a case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Burma is in violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention. Liz Truss’s predecessor as Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, steadfastly refused to join the genocide case, despite cross-party political support for doing so and a recommendation from the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament. The Burmese military faced no significant consequences for their genocidal military offensives against the Rohingya in 2016 and 2017. Having literally been allowed to get away with genocide increased the sense of impunity enjoyed by the military and encouraged them to believe they would also face no significant consequences for holding the military coup. “Action to hold the military to account for their violations of international law is essential, not just to ensure justice, but also to help prevent further human rights violations,” said Anna Roberts, Executive Director of Burma Campaign UK. “If Liz Truss is genuine about holding the military to account for their crimes, joining the genocide case at the ICJ is the most obvious and effective step she can take.” Burma Campaign UK is calling on the British government to take four steps to help ensure justice and accountability in Burma: Announce an intention to join the genocide case at the International Court of Justice. Announce support in principle for referring Burma to the International Criminal Court. Provide funding to local civil society organisations documenting human rights violations. Consider reforming Britain’s universal jurisdiction laws to enable prosecutions in the UK. The British government has provided significant funding to the IIMM and to Myanmar Witness for the documentation of evidence which can be used in future prosecutions. However, there is still very little funding going to civil society organisations from Burma on the ground which are documenting human rights violations, and which provide the IIMM and Myanmar Witness with information. The British government also refuses to support referring Burma to the International Criminal Court. While we accept that Russia and China would likely veto a UN Security Council resolution referring Burma to the International Criminal Court, there is political value in announcing support in principle for a referral, as it will help erode the sense of impunity enjoyed by the military. Britain’s universal jurisdiction laws are a complex mish-mash of various treaties and laws which are outdated and limited in scope. For example, even the crime of genocide does not come under Britain’s universal jurisdiction legislation. In light of the UN Security Council being unable to perform its duties properly because of obstruction by Russia and China, reforming Britain’s universal jurisdiction laws is a logical step to ensure the application of international law..."
Source/publisher: "Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of publication: 2021-12-13
Date of entry/update: 2021-12-13
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Title: U.N. Security Council: Take Urgent Action Against Myanmar Military Junta
Sub-title: New evidence the junta is violating ICJ “provisional measures”
Description: "(NEW YORK, December 6, 2021)—The U.N. Security Council should urgently impose a global arms embargo and sanctions against the Myanmar military and refer the situation in the country to the International Criminal Court, said Fortify Rights today. A Myanmar military court today sentenced the country’s democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi to four years in prison on spurious, trumped-up charges of incitement and breaking COVID-19 rules, and new evidence shows the junta is violating legally binding “provisional measures of protection” imposed on Myanmar by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as part of an ongoing trial on the Rohingya genocide. On November 25, the Myanmar military junta issued an order reiterating longstanding restrictions on the right to freedom of movement for Rohingya in northern Rakhine State, contravening the ICJ’s provisional measures. “These fresh restrictions brazenly contravene the ICJ’s measures and illustrate an aspect of the junta’s ongoing and unmitigated genocide in Myanmar,” said Matthew Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Fortify Rights. “The ongoing atrocities against Rohingya and latest conviction of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi demonstrate yet again how this junta poses a threat to the peace. Security Council member states should support an urgent resolution and force a vote.” Firsthand testimony and two leaked internal junta documents obtained by Fortify Rights reveal revamped efforts to restrict the movement of Rohingya in Rakhine State following the military coup d’état on February 1, 2021. An administrative order reviewed by Fortify Rights and issued by the junta-run General Administration Department of Buthidaung Township in Rakhine State on November 25, 2021 states that, “Bengali people can only travel after obtaining legal permission (Form-4)” and that breaching the order will result in “strong action being taken as per the existing law.” The order further states that the restrictions are necessary to protect “township security and the rule of law.” The junta refers to Rohingya as “Bengali” to deny their existence and imply they are from Bangladesh and not Myanmar. Myanmar authorities have long required Rohingya to obtain express permission to travel from one village to another village and from one township to another township. A Form-4 is typically required for travel from one township to another. Obtaining approval through a Form-4 involves lengthy bureaucratic processes that often expose Rohingya to extortion and other abuses by the military, police, and administrative authorities. Rohingya who travel without a Form-4 can be subject to punishment under the Residents of Burma Registration Act, which carries a maximum punishment of two years’ imprisonment and/or a fine of 500 Myanmar Kyats (US$0.28). The Buthidaung Township General Administration Department appended the November 25 order to an internal letter sent to multiple Myanmar military, police, and border-guard commanders as well as township administrative and justice officials. In a separate internal letter, also obtained by Fortify Rights, from the military junta’s Ministry of Immigration and Population in Rakhine State’s Ponnagyun Township in Sittwe District dated November 10, 2021, Chief Officer Win Myint informs the Rakhine State Director of the Ministry of Immigration and Population located in Sittwe Township of the arrest and conviction of 45 “Bengali (Kalar)” for “travelling illegally.” Kalar is a pejorative term in the Burmese language used to describe Muslims, Indians, or those of South Asian descent. According to the letter, the Ponnagyun Township Court convicted and sentenced individuals in the group on October 21 and, on November 2, the authorities released children, who were part of the group. Five adults remain detained. Since October 2021, the junta’s forces reportedly arrested and convicted dozens of Rohingya for traveling outside of their villages without permission. Rohingya in northern Rakhine State told Fortify Rights that, since the coup, it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to travel between townships and villages. “I had to take a Form-4 [from Buthidaung Township] to go to Maungdaw Township,” a Rohingya man, 25, from southern Buthidaung Township told Fortify Rights on December 1, 2021. “I went to Maungdaw north to work on harvesting a rice field . . . [The authorities] checked our Form-4 at three checkpoints while going to Maungdaw.” Even prior to the junta’s November order a Rohingya man told Fortify Rights in July 2021 that military soldiers extorted money from him on multiple occasions at military checkpoints for not having proper travel authorization. “They took money from me three times,” he told Fortify Rights. “They were multi-department checkpoints, and they took money from me, saying I didn’t have any documents.” Investigations over the past eight years by Fortify Rights show successive Myanmar governments systematically restricting the freedom of movement of Rohingya, including requirements that Rohingya obtain a Form-4 to travel to certain destinations and only under specific timelines enforced by the state. The military appears to be tightening the restrictions. The ICJ’s “Provisional Measures” In November 2019, The Gambia brought a case against Myanmar at the ICJ in The Hague alleging violations of the Genocide Convention through “acts adopted, taken and condoned by the Government of Myanmar against members of the Rohingya group.” As part of the legal proceedings, on January 23, 2020, the ICJ unanimously indicated legally binding provisional measures of protection for the Rohingya people, requiring Myanmar to prevent and preserve evidence of genocide and “cease forthwith any such ongoing internationally wrongful act and fully respect its obligations under the Genocide Convention.” As part of the ICJ order, Myanmar must submit an “implementation report” to the court every six months on all measures taken to prevent genocide “until a final decision on the case is rendered by the Court.” On February 1, 2021, the Myanmar military junta took power by force in an illegal and deadly coup d’état, killing more than 1,300 protesters and imprisoning more than 10,000. Included among the several thousand remaining political prisoners are State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint. The junta does not represent the people or the State of Myanmar; nevertheless, the junta is likely to represent Myanmar at the ICJ, said Fortify Rights. The junta’s latest report to the ICJ was due on November 23, and in turn, The Gambia is expected to respond in writing to the Court. Neither submission will be publicly available at this stage in the legal proceedings. Fortify Rights, the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, and others have documented systematic restrictions against Rohingya, including on freedom of movement, as indicative of the Myanmar government’s intent to destroy the group in whole or in part. The draconian denials of freedom of movement prevent Rohingya from accessing livelihoods, lifesaving health care, and other aspects of basic survival. Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of a group is a prohibited act of genocide under Article II of the Genocide Convention. The “conditions of life” provision refers to methods of destruction that do not immediately kill members of the group but ultimately seek the group’s obliteration. These latest restrictions on Rohingya freedom of movement are occurring in a wider context of ongoing genocidal acts committed by the Myanmar military against Rohingya, including killings, rape and sexual violence, burning and razing homes and villages, and denying Rohingya access to food and shelter. Impunity for these and other mass atrocity crimes is endemic in Myanmar. On August 25, 2021—the four-year anniversary of Myanmar military-led attacks on Rohingya civilians—the military junta published an amendment to the Myanmar Criminal Code signed by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing ostensibly to outlaw the crime of genocide. Taking language almost verbatim from Article II of the Genocide Convention, the amendment was viewed as an attempt by Min Aung Hlaing to communicate compliance with the ICJ’s provisional measures. However, Article 311, section A(d) of the junta’s amendment included language outlawing measures intended to prevent births unless such measures are “in accordance with any existing laws.” This caveat provides for the prevention of births, which may be an act of genocide. Moreover, the military is typically not subject to the country’s criminal code; crimes perpetrated by soldiers are typically adjudicated in secret military courts. “In a feigned attempt to appease the ICJ, the junta provided itself with a law to justify the genocidal prevention of births,” said Matthew Smith. “This is not what the ICJ had in mind.” On June 3, 2021, the National Unity Government (NUG) of Myanmar—the civilian-led government comprising officials deposed by the military junta—acknowledged past atrocities against Rohingya people and committed to ensuring justice and citizenship rights based “on birth in Myanmar or birth anywhere as a child of Myanmar citizens,” which would effectively restore or grant full citizenship rights of all Rohingya people and others. On November 11, 2021, the U.N. Security Council issued a consensus statement calling on the Myanmar military to cease violence and ensure humanitarian access to those in need. Like the provisional measures issued by the ICJ, the junta has flouted the Security Council’s statement, providing a context for heightened action by the body. The Security Council should consider the junta’s failure to uphold the ICJ’s provisional measures as well as its failure to respect the council’s own statement, and in turn it should pass a resolution mandating a global arms embargo against the Myanmar military, targeted sanctions to deny the junta financial capital, and it should refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court, said Fortify Rights. “The junta is committing atrocity crimes throughout the country, against all ethnicities and religious communities, including the Rohingya,” said Matthew Smith. “The world has a duty to act, end the genocide being perpetrated against the Rohingya, and ensure accountability for past and current atrocity crimes.”
Source/publisher: "Fortify Rights"
Date of publication: 2021-12-07
Date of entry/update: 2021-12-08
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Title: Joint Statement: Rohingya Denounces ARSA
Description: "We, the undersigned Rohingya organizations, denounce the so-called "Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army – ARSA" (or Harakah Al Yakeen), a criminal group that self-proclaims to be fighting for the rights of the Rohingya people. The Rohingya community does not accept ARSA as a group that represents the ideals and interests of the Rohingya community in or outside of Burma. Thus, the group must not claim it represents the interests of the Rohingya nation. We, Rohingya, are a peace-loving community and condemn any criminal groups that promote violence on the civilian population in the name of our ethnic identity. ARSA is a criminal group targeting vulnerable Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and committing heinous cross-border crimes including but not limited to: murder, extortion, forcible abductions, tortures, sexual violence and drug trafficking etc. These criminal activities have escalated dramatically in the recent months. They have also been found to be misleading communities with propaganda aiming to further destabilize the Rohingya community and the region along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. As survivors of the ongoing genocide perpetrated by the Burmese military (the Tatmadaw) and the extremist section of Rakhine Buddhist community, the majority of our community members were forced to flee from our homeland in Myanmar and took refuge in neighbouring countries including Bangladesh. We are sincerely grateful to the people and the Government of Bangladesh for assisting the Rohingya by providing refuge for one million of our people as they have done in the past. Although we found refuge from one form of violence in Arakan, the Rohingya now face violence in the hands of criminal groups like ARSA and others. On 29 September 2021, a prominent Rohingya leader “Mohib Ullah” was brutally assassinated by ARSA followed by seven more Rohingya refugees in mid-October. ARSA is targeting Rohingya community leadership or anyone whom they feel could expose their criminal activities. As a result, the entire community in the refugee camps of Bangladesh live in immediate fear, ongoing trauma, and further insecurities. While we greatly appreciate the steps already being taken by the Government of Bangladesh to ensure safety and security in the camps, we urge Bangladesh to maintain the pressure on the criminal groups, including ARSA, until their criminal operations in the camps completely cease and they are neutralized. The camps in Bangladesh where civilians are taking refuge must be free of any armed activities by any group other than the Government of Bangladesh or under its direct authority and full control. We make our earnest appeal to the Government of Bangladesh to take serious action against ARSA, which is deliberately destabilizing the situation and continues to be a security threat for our people, for Bangladesh, and for the wider region. Further, we urge the Government of Bangladesh to protect innocent refugees by providing security in the refugee camps, understanding that the vast majority of people in the camps want nothing more than peace and security, and to return home in a safe, dignified, and voluntary manner with our human rights restored and our traditional homeland returned. We make our earnest appeal to the Government of Bangladesh to investigate the killings of Rohingya refugees including Mr Mohib Ullah. The individuals, and their organisation, responsible for the crimes must face justice and accountability. The Government of Bangladesh must set an example that impunity in these situations will not be allowed or tolerated. We call upon media organizations, the international community, activists and human rights bodies not to label ARSA as a member of the Rohingya community nor to characterize ARSA as representative, in any way, of the Rohingya people. We also call upon all international organizations and foreign governments that are working in the camps to have a zero-tolerance policy towards ARSA and any other criminal gangs and criminal activities which are taking place. We make our earnest appeal to the Government of Bangladesh and to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to work together to respond promptly when refugees report imminent threats, to provide immediate and effective protection to those in danger, and to ensure effective protection for those who report incidents. We call on the international community — including Australia, Canada, the USA, the UK, Japan, the UN, the EU, the ASEAN and the OIC — to improve the system of providing protection and resettlement to refugees at heightened risk. As the situation in Myanmar continues to worsen as a result of the 1 February 2021 coup d’état, we express our deepest gratitude to the many ethnic communities in Myanmar who have joined us in supporting our request for peace in the camps and in Arakan. Despite the violence, the COVID-19 pandemic, and forced starvation that all our brothers and sisters are facing throughout Myanmar because of the military junta, we are grateful for your support and we remain committed to freedom, peace, and prosperity for all with respect for human rights and dignity for everyone..."
Source/publisher: Rohingya Today
Date of publication: 2021-12-07
Date of entry/update: 2021-12-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Historic Decision By Argentinian Courts To Take Up Genocide Case Against Myanmar
Description: "Media Release from Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK The Argentinian judiciary has taken the historic step to open a court case against the Myanmar military – including Min Aung Hlaing and much of the current junta’s senior leadership – over the ongoing genocide against the Rohingya, the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) said today. On the 26 November 2021 the Second Chamber of the Federal Criminal Court in Buenos Aires confirmed that it would launch a case against senior Myanmar officials under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which holds that some crimes are so horrific that they can be tried anywhere. BROUK first petitioned the Argentinian judiciary to open such a case in November 2019. “This is a day of hope not just for us Rohingya but for oppressed people everywhere. The decision in Argentina shows that there is nowhere to hide for those who commit genocide – the world stands firmly united against these abhorrent crimes,” said Tun Khin, President of BROUK. The Second Chamber of the Appeal Court reaffirmed in its resolution that “the gravity of the facts and the violation of ius cogens norms permit that those facts are investigated in our country”. “We applaud the Argentinian judiciary for showing the courage and moral leadership to take up this case. Justice for decades of dehumanising and killings of Rohingya in Myanmar is now within reach,” Tun Khin said, and continued: “This is not just about accountability for Rohingya, however, but for everyone who has suffered under the Myanmar military’s brutal reign. This includes the thousands killed, injured, tortured or disappeared since the coup in February this year.” An ongoing genocide The case relates to crimes perpetrated against the Rohingya by Myanmar authorities in Rakhine State for decades. In 2017, the Myanmar military and its proxies launched a vicious campaign in the region, committing the worst atrocities and driving close to 800,000 Rohingya to flee across the border into Bangladesh. The case includes the particular situation of six women who were raped, tortured and in many cases their husbands and children killed during that genocidal campaign in Rakhine State. The Rohingya who remain in Rakhine State continue to live under a dehumanising system of oppression where all aspects of their lives are controlled. Harsh restrictions on freedom of movement means that accessing education, health care and other basic services is difficult in the extreme. In February 2021, the military seized power by force in Myanmar in a coup. Since then, close to 1,300 people have been killed and thousands have been jailed amid massive, nation-wide resistance to the junta. Although, for the moment, these events are not covered under BROUK’s case, the case does implicate much of the junta’s senior leadership, including Min Aung Hlaing, the Commander-in-Chief and self-proclaimed Prime Minister. First universal jurisdiction case on the Rohingya On 13 November 2019, BROUK petitioned Argentinean Courts to open an investigation into the role of Myanmar’s civilian and military leaders in committing genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya. Under the principle of universal jurisdiction, such crimes can be investigated anywhere in the world regardless of where they were committed. Since November 2019, the Argentinian judiciary has maintained a dialogue with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to ensure that a universal jurisdiction case would complement – and not duplicate – the ICC case against Myanmar launched in November 2019. The case in Argentina will cover the full range of crimes committed against the Rohingya in Myanmar, unlike the ICC case which is limited to only crimes which have at least partially been committed on Bangladeshi territory. Having received such assurances, the judiciary yesterday confirmed it would take up the case. This will be the first universal jurisdiction case related to the situation of the Rohingya anywhere in the world. “For decades, Myanmar officials have with impunity tried to wipe the Rohingya out as a people. Justice is the only way to break the cycle of violence, and with Myanmar both unwilling and unable to investigate itself, the international community must step in,” said Tun Khin. “This universal jurisdiction case in Argentina shows that accountability is possible. We urge other countries to immediately explore opening similar cases to show those responsible for the genocide that there are no safe havens anywhere.” “This is a real chance to hold the Myanmar military and its supporters to account for their murderous actions, including Min Aung Hlaing, who is the chief architect of both the Rohingya genocide and the coup that has brought so much suffering to Myanmar. The military is the common enemy of all people of our country”, Tun Khin said. BROUK is supported in Argentina by the human rights NGOs Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and Foundation for Peace and Justice, founded by the Nobel Peace Prize Winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. BROUK is legally represented by Tomás Ojea Quintana, a prominent human rights lawyer and the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar (2008-2014). Moving forward Investigations by BROUK’s legal team will begin immediately, which will focus on identifying perpetrators of abuses, both those who committed the actual crimes and those with command responsibility. If those responsible refuse to heed summons to attend Court hearings in Argentina, BROUK will reach out to international criminal justice bodies such as Interpol with a view to issue arrest warrants. A key part of the process will be to ensure that Rohingya victims themselves are able to testify in Argentina, in particular the six women who are part of the case. Not only is this important to demonstrate the scale of abuses by the Myanmar military, but it also speaks to the rights of victims to be heard and to tell their stories in a Court of Law. BROUK will furthermore ask that the Court requests information from social media companies, in particular Facebook, regarding hate speech spread on their platforms that could have contributed to a hostile environment against the Rohingya. In addition, the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar – established by the UN in 2018 to gather evidence of gross human rights violations – has offered to the Court its formal support for BROUK’s case, including through the sharing of relevant evidence. International justice efforts The case in Argentina is the first universal jurisdiction case concerning the Rohingya genocide anywhere in the world, but not the only international legal process against the Myanmar authorities. As mentioned above, the ICC in November 2019 approved an investigation into Myanmar for crimes against humanity against the Rohingya. The Gambia in November 2019 launched a case against Myanmar for violating the Genocide Convention with the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In January 2020, the ICJ imposed “provisional measures” on Myanmar as part of the case, essentially a legal injunction ordering the end to genocidal practices against the Rohingya. “There is no question that the Myanmar authorities are feeling the pressure of the many international justice efforts that are under way. The architects of the genocide against the Rohingya can and should soon face a Court of Law. We urge the international community to redouble efforts to bring about justice and ensure that this momentum is not lost,” said Tun Khin. About universal jurisdiction Universal jurisdiction is based on the principle that some crimes are so horrific that they concern humanity as a whole, and can be tried anywhere regardless of where they have been committed. All states are permitted to exercise universal jurisdiction over crimes under international law, such as crimes against humanity or genocide. This allows for the ability to investigate and prosecute individuals suspected of responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity, torture, genocide, and enforced disappearances, regardless of where the crime was committed or the nationality of the suspect or victim. The principle of universal jurisdiction is also enshrined in the Argentinean national legal framework, including in article 118 of the Constitution. In the particular case of the Rohingya, UN bodies, including the Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, have recommended that states pursue universal jurisdiction cases..."
Source/publisher: Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK
Date of publication: 2021-11-28
Date of entry/update: 2021-11-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Q&A on Court Ordering Facebook to Disclose Content on Myanmar Genocide
Description: "On Wednesday, United States Magistrate judge Zia M. Faruqui issued an order in the highly important case of The Republic of Gambia v. Facebook, Inc. The Gambia seeks content from Facebook that relates to the genocide in Myanmar in order to assess “responsibility for genocide” against the Rohingya before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Facebook’s role in propagating hate speech against the Rohingya and facilitating the genocide is well documented. As the judge points out in his opinion, Facebook argued that The Gambia’s request “(1) violates the Stored Communications Act (SCA), and 2 is unduly burdensome.” But Faruqui ruled in favor of The Gambia. Stating that while Facebook did the right thing in deleting content targeting the Rohingya, he criticized the company for failing to provide the evidence needed to hold those responsible for the genocide to account. “Failing to do so here would compound the tragedy that has befallen the Rohingya,” he wrote. The decision has important implications for what access investigators will have to content deleted from social media platforms going forward. For a better understanding, we posed a set of questions to Dr. Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, a lecturer at UC Berkeley School of Law, and founder of the Human Rights Investigations Lab, asking her to discuss the judge’s decision and its broader consequences. 1. How might this ruling potentially empower international tribunals to access certain kinds of evidence? This ruling potentially empowers international tribunals to obtain information that has been removed from social media sites for violation of terms of service but that social media companies can still access internally. The judge made a number of interesting findings: the most significant is his determination that content that has been taken down for violation of Facebook’s terms of service falls outside the ambit of the Stored Communications Act (SCA). This was the basis for the court’s ordering Facebook to share the requested content with The Gambia, including posts from Myanmar officials and Facebook’s internal investigation documents (pp. 28-29 of the opinion) related to those posts. The SCA bars social media companies from knowingly sharing their users’ content with others with only a few exceptions, and it does so for several important reasons, namely the protection of users’ privacy and to protect “fourth amendment-like” concerns (order p. 9), including the prevention of unreasonable searches and seizures. In this case, the court determined that the SCA does not stand in the way of Facebook disclosing the requested data. In addition, the court’s ruling underscores the ability of foreign governments to use a federal statute (28 USC § 1782) as a mechanism to request help from U.S. courts to obtain social media content that has been removed for terms of service violations and is no longer publicly available online. Typically, foreign governments like The Gambia would make a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) request for information. That process has been repeatedly criticized for being unwieldy and slow. Another mechanism is for foreign governments to use the CLOUD Act to request information. The CLOUD Act provides for a more streamlined process than the traditional MLAT process, but it requires the United States to have first entered into a bilateral agreement with the foreign country after assessing that the country has sufficient due process protections in place to support permitting a fast tracked process. Most countries do not yet have such an arrangement with the United States, and so this isn’t an option for most foreign government requests. Section 1782 is yet another mechanism that foreign governments can use; they can ask US courts for help in compelling the production of data. Courts have significant discretion about whether to issue an order based on a §1782 request. That was the mechanism used here. 2. The decision applies to content that was previously public, including self-declared “private” groups that include large numbers of people. What do you think of where the court drew the line here? The court in The Gambia decision sweeps information that many might consider “private” into the “public” exception to the SCA. The Court spends quite a bit of time establishing that private Facebook groups might be considered public in situations where, for example, administrators automatically grant access to a private group such that it functions like a public page. They also emphasize that the Myanmar officials whose posts are at issue “clearly” intended their posts to reach the public, given their desire to spread hate, which–to be widely effectuated–depends on having a relatively broad reach. I think the court was trying to find a way to ensure that critical information that could be helpful for evidentiary purposes could be made available. The fact that this is a case involving allegations of a particularly horrific crime like genocide–with widespread and shocking examples of the ways in which social media was used to incite physical violence against the Rohingya–likely played a role in its analysis. The court seems to recognize how critical the content could be for helping The Gambia better understand who may have been involved in inciting genocide, how the process played out, and the relative impact the posts might have had with regard to what transpired on the ground in Myanmar. While it makes sense that purportedly private posts that reach millions of people may be functionally public and thus operate within a grey zone–and that people who are trying to disseminate dangerous hateful content shouldn’t be able to hide behind a private account that has broader reach than most public ones–this is a potentially slippery slope that could become dangerous if not carefully guarded. Ultimately, the court attempts to narrow the applicability of its finding (and any future damage) by stating that “it is the rare case here that the authors nakedly displayed their intent to reach the public and such intent was independently confirmed”–emphasizing that this is a relatively circumscribed set of circumstances in which private groups might be considered functionally public. 3. Does this decision disincentivize Facebook from permanently deplatforming bad actors? Because if they permanently deplatform the decision applies, but does not necessarily apply if they do not permanently deplatform. There are a lot of moves that Facebook could make in response to this, including not permanently deplatforming bad actors but also not holding onto the information that’s taken down as part of that de-platforming process. However, allowing bad actors to continue to act out on its site is a potentially onerous and dangerous path for Facebook, as it will have to repeatedly and continually assess the behavior of deeply problematic accounts — not to mention the outrage if the company allows dangerous communications and other behavior to continue to proliferate on its sites even after that’s been flagged internally or by external watchdogs. However, this decision also creates a potential incentive for Facebook to expand its participation in ongoing conversations about how to handle social media content at risk of removal that has significant potential evidentiary value. One option, should it not want to hold onto the content, is to share that information with an external repository, such as a digital evidence locker designed to hold content related to social media content relevant to international crimes like genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The creation of such an evidence locker is something that several human rights organizations and academics have called for, including Human Rights Watch, the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley, and affiliates of Harvard, among others. Of course, any system that is created will need to have significant due process protections to safeguard and balance the competing human rights and civil rights issues at stake. But we’ve seen several potential precedents for such a system, ranging from the evidence collection mechanisms that have been created to aggregate evidence of atrocities in Syria and Myanmar, including social media evidence; to hash repositories for terrorism-related content; to information sharing mechanisms for European law enforcement. 4. What unanticipated negative consequences could emerge from this ruling for human rights activists and others? For example, the decision places emphasis on the fact that these were inauthentic accounts. What might it mean for anonymous accounts in repressive countries? The opinion is relatively narrow in ways that limit the risk of significant downstream harms with respect to this set of concerns. However, all decisions raise the potential for unanticipated negative consequences–and there’s a long line of examples where a case apparently supports civil or human rights, but eventually becomes a problem for the very people it originally seemed to help. One significant concern, of course, is that governments will try to use this decision to secure information about human rights activists and other disfavored individuals and groups by arguing that their accounts are inauthentic or that they are part of a network engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior. We’ve seen so many instances of human rights activists posting videos, photos and text to social media of violent or graphic incidents to bring global attention to those atrocities, and having that content removed and their accounts shut down–sometimes temporarily, but also permanently. These are individuals and networks that are already vulnerable, and might become more so if governments successfully use this court order — or the reasoning of the judge’s opinion — to increase their access to removed content. Of course, other unintended negative consequences could include Facebook and other social media companies becoming even less aggressive about removing harmful content, as already discussed above, or being less clear about whether the deplatforming of particular accounts is permanent. This is likely to be a focus of future litigation in situations where the permanence of the removal is ambiguous. 5. What do you make of Facebook’s arguments? I think Facebook is right to argue in support of privacy and to defend the privacy interests of its users, and its lawyers raise an important policy consideration with their argument that this holding could make a large number of deactivated accounts subject to disclosure along with content removed by other social media companies. However, legitimate legal processes, with significant due process protections, can minimize the potential harm to privacy. In addition, the court stresses that this fact pattern concerns coordinated, inauthentic behavior–not “genuine communications from real users”–suggesting that the risk is far less than Facebook suggests. Ultimately, none of the values that are implicated by removal processes–including privacy–can be considered in a vacuum. From a rights perspective, this case also implicates freedom of expression, access to information, and accountability interests. It’s important for courts to try to strike a balance between those other competing human rights interests, or at least determine in which direction the balance of justice should tilt based on the relevant law and the specific facts of a case. In this decision, the court is struggling to apply a highly outdated law to a contemporary fact pattern; in many ways, the tool they are forced to apply isn’t fit for purpose. I think this case puts additional pressure on Congress to update the SCA and bring it more squarely into the 21st century. As for Facebook’s argument that the removed information is a backup and thus is subject to SCA protections because it is stored adjacent to active content: that seems like a stretch. In addition, the Court raises an important point about the legislative intent underlying passage of the SCA. As stated in the order, “the SCA was created to allow platforms to flourish for users not to protect records for a provider” (opinion at p. 17). It’s unlikely that Facebook is suddenly going to struggle to keep users or gain new ones as a result of this decision, as the judge notes as well. Facebook also argued that providing the requested information would be “unduly burdensome,” the standard for whether a court should exercise its discretion as to whether to allow discovery under §1782, and that The Gambia’s request is overly broad. However, the court rejected these arguments, pointing out that The Gambia asked for a specific set of records, namely those that Facebook had identified and deleted from its platform due to terms of service violations specific to hate speech and related to genocide in Myanmar. Given the scale at which Facebook operates, and the many variables involved (removed content, content removed for a specific reason, within a given date range, and specific to a particular geographic region), it seems Facebook could make a good faith attempt to comply with the order. Finally, with regard to Facebook’s argument that the SCA makes the disclosure of exempted content discretionary to Facebook since the SCA states that when there is an exception, the provider “may” share content: that’s a difficult argument to sustain. As expressed in the judge’s opinion, it’s more logical that the word “may” signifies permission, but not discretion, to share content in the face of a lawful request. As stated in the order, “the Court cannot logically conclude that Congress gave Facebook greater power over discovery than the judiciary” (order at 21), which would be the case if Facebook had the authority to decide whether to turn the content over or not. 6. The opinion turns on the fact that the content was not in “backup storage” because the original version was now permanently deleted (hence no longer a “backup”). Do those parts of the opinion introduce any significant change into the SCA’s protections for other (private) communications in cases where there is only one copy, or where a service provider has deleted the messages but retains one copy? This will be interesting to watch play out. Of course, any case is specific to the facts of that case. Thus, what is and is not considered permanent removal of content versus backup storage in other contexts will probably be getting some attention in courts. As you noted earlier, the court emphasizes that “much of the content The Gambia seeks was posted publicly” before it was removed. This suggests that there is also future work to be done to hammer out the nature of content that falls into a grey zone between public and private information (see fn. 14). Where exactly information falls along that spectrum will ultimately dictate which exceptions apply to the SCA’s ban on sharing content. 7. Could this decision incentivize companies not to hold permanent records or else to use novel encryption technologies or other mechanisms to avoid ever possessing or retaining records of communications? Absolutely. That’s probably why the court is so laudatory of Facebook’s efforts to store and analyze the content it removed for the potential role that content played in furthering atrocities in Myanmar–the opinion recognizes the potential disincentivizes this decision may have on doing the “responsible thing” before or after violence breaks out, including removing inflammatory content and the accounts of those who foment violence, and analyzing how activities on the Facebook may have triggered or exacerbated that violence. It’s critical that social media companies also analyze the role of algorithmic prioritization and deprioritization of content, and that they are engaged in preventing and accounting for human rights violations and international crimes like genocide that are facilitated by their platforms in order to comply with corporate social responsibility norms. No one will ever have as much relevant data as the companies themselves and therefore it is in the public’s interest that the companies play a major role in the detection of and response to how their platforms are being used to commit atrocities. 8. If you were an investigator on the January 6 committee, what opportunities would this ruling open in terms of obtaining information that one might otherwise think is protected by the Stored Communications Act? There are a lot of ways to limit the applicability of this case to the January 6 inquiry based on both the underlying facts and law. First, this decision centers on a request by a foreign government, not a domestic entity. Second, investigations by members of our executive branch have a different purpose than and are subject to different rules than investigative processes triggered by Congress, as Elizabeth Goitein spells out in her recent Just Security article on preservation requests made by Congress to telecommunications and media companies related to the events of January 6. According to her analysis, there are quite a few grey areas with regard to the scope of congressional authority to access the records that are the target of its preservation request, including the scope of the applicability of the SCA to such requests. Much of her analysis concerns congressional authority to obtain private communications content (rather than logs etc that do not involve content). The court’s reasoning in The Gambia case could be persuasive with regard to how to define the boundaries between private and public communications and whether the SCA would protect information in permanently deleted accounts. In addition, as discussed earlier, the Court swept quite a bit of information that some might consider “private” into the “public” exception to the SCA. However, a significant swath of the content at issue in the January 6 context–such as instant messages–would likely fall outside the consent exception. Even content shared in private groups may be regarded quite differently, if clearly intended to be private because strict admission rules were in place, for example, or posts were seen by a relatively small percentage of Facebook’s users. Further, what is being asked for in each situation is quite different. There is an important distinction between authority to make a preservation request and the authority to obtain the information. The human and civil rights interests implicated by requests to preserve content for potential later acquisition (as in the January 6 context) are less extreme than those implicated by requests to access that content (as with The Gambia). One of the arguments we’ve made in the international context is that there should potentially be a wider array of actors empowered to make preservation requests of social media companies–given the acute risk of removal if the content is particularly graphic (the very content that might have the greatest value for later accountability), government actors’ relatively frequent complicity in human rights violations and international crimes, and the sometimes quite lengthy delays before international legal investigators are authorized to commence an investigation–while access should likely be limited to law enforcement and other legal investigative bodies given the more acute privacy, security and other human and civil rights risks. Finally, what The Gambia case and the January 6 situation have in common is that they shine a spotlight on how critical such digital open source information–and digital communications more generally–have become to the investigation of both domestic and international crimes. The court’s emphasis in its decision on the 1000 posts used by reporter Steven Stecklow to illustrate how Facebook was used by Myanmar officials to advance genocide in Myanmar (posts that our Investigations Lab team helped identify) underscores the importance of advancing the jurisprudence related to the use of such content. 9. How might this decision affect the way other governments design their technology and communications policies, that is, in the way they decide to protect online communications? What’s the potential influence beyond the United States? The United States has an important role to play in setting thoughtful precedent for the handling of digital content. Although U.S. decisions aren’t binding on other jurisdictions, they can be persuasive and can help to set global norms and expectations. Right now, a significant percentage of the major social media companies are based in the United States and subject to U.S. law. But of course there are an ever-increasing number of social media companies that reside outside of the United States, and U.S. control over social media content will likely become proportionately less with time. We really need to be thinking about the precedent the United States is setting for other countries and making sure that we continue to support and foster strong privacy laws and norms domestically, with clear due process protections when exceptions are made. Data localization laws are another player in this space, of course. The trend toward localization may be further exacerbated by decisions that compel disclosure of social media content in ways that run counter to foreign governments’ interests–as here, where Myanmar officials will probably dislike the disclosure of any content that reveals complicity in genocide..."
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Source/publisher: Just Security (New York)
Date of publication: 2021-09-24
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Consolidated Rohingya Genocide Report June 2021, "They did it becuase we are Muslim."
Description: "In August 2017 and in October-November 2016, Myanmar security forces advanced upon numerous Rohingya villages in Rakhine state. The 100-300 assailants, comprised of the Myanmar military, Border Guard Police (BGP), police, and mmobilized Rakhine civilians, besieged the villages from their deployment stations, which typically included BGP camps, military camps, Rakhine villages, schools, and temples. Security forces killed and injured Rohingya villagers with indiscriminate gunfire; raped Rohingya women, and unlawfully arrested Rohingya men. Security forces burned down Rohingya homes and looted Rohingya property. In the terror after such mass-scale violence and killing, Rohingya villagers escaped to Bangladesh, where they now live in temporary tents within precarious refugee camps. Premeditation and intent to commit genocide is apparent from security forces’ advance planning and deployment. They commonly began intimidation tactics in the dark hours before dawn, by firing guns, and then attacked the villages in the early hours of the morning. Security forces consistently surrounded Rohingya villages, completely blocking escape or leaving only one of four sides open for egress. They shot indiscriminate gunfire to incite panic and fired at Rohingya people as the civilians fled. Yet the systematic destruction of the Rohingya people began far earlier than August 2017. Starting from decades earlier, the government confiscated land from Rohingya villagers. And during the time period of 2012-2016, Rohingya experienced multiple and successive forms of religious discrimination and persecution. This included prohibitions on giving religious sermons, on holding religious events, on practicing Qurban (ceremonial sacrifice of livestock animals), and on performing azan (making calls to prayer). They were forbidden to gather in groups of five or more people, which abrogated religious fellowship. Nor could they freely use their mosque for prayer or provide Islamic education to their children at the madrasa. Security forces physically beat, arrested, jailed, and extorted money from those found in prayer or religious practice. Marriage required payment of high fees, of up to 500,000 kyat, in order to obtain permission from the authorities. As the permission was issued, the authorities directed the Rohingya to have no more than two or three children, under threat of punishment. The Rohingya had no freedom of movement but were forced to obtain a series of travel permits, even to travel to a neighboring village. And despite obtaining such permission by paying large amounts of money, security forces extorted money at checkpoints. Security forces beat, fined, arrested, and jailed those who did not obtain travel permission. Later, the Rohingya were forbidden to even leave their own homes between 6:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. The Rohingya faced discrimination in schooling, thereby foreclosing their education. The government barred them from obtaining public employment. The military regularly conscripted Rohingya men into forced labor. The Rohingya also faced discrimination in obtaining medical treatment and healthcare. Although the Rohingya voted before, this too was foreclosed after 2015. Finally, no Rohingya person held Myanmar citizenship. Indeed, the authorities tried to force them to accept NVC, a card which would register them as foreigners. In summation, Rohingya people were deprived of basic rights in essentially every aspect of daily life. With this history of discrimination and persecution of the Rohingya as the backdrop, we recommend first that the international community provide affirmative support to having the entire matter of genocide referred to the International Criminal Court or to a newly established special or ad-hoc court for investigation and trial. The truth-seeking investigation must proceed without any grants of immunity, for the wrongdoers occupy all levels of society. The bad actors include the Myanmar military, BGP, and officials of the Myanmar government, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and other Cabinet Members, as well as civilians who were mobilized into paramilitary forces. We also recommend that the Myanmar government provide remedy and relief to the victims and survivors, founded first on restoration of previously-held rights, as well as financial recompense to those for whom such restoration is insufficient, such as victims who have suffered psychological harm. In such situations, it is critical to respect and decide the specific substance and form of remedy and relief according to the wishes of the victims and the Rohingya community. Further action includes the introduction of legislation and administrative measures to abolish systems and practices that discriminate against the Rohingya, including those involving hate speech and other forms of prejudiced information. Education is necessary to improve awareness of hatred, bias, and discrimination. The Myanmar government must cease registering the Rohingya with NVC identification cards and must ensure restoration of their citizenship rights. Finally, the Myanmar government and the international community must actively guarantee and ensure participation of Rohingya people in discussions about possible repatriation..."
Source/publisher: Asian Dignity Initiative
Date of publication: 2021-09-01
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Size: 44.36 MB (Original version) - 112 pages, 4.87 MB (Reduce version) - 122 pages
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Title: Justice in the balance as UN considers recognition question
Sub-title: The United Nations is set to consider whether to recognise the military regime or National Unity Government, and its decision could have major implications for a genocide case before the International Court of Justice.
Description: "With the United Nations expected to soon decide whether Myanmar is represented in the General Assembly by the military regime or the National Unity Government, another important question may hang in the balance: who will represent Myanmar at the International Court of Justice? The Gambia brought a case against Myanmar at the ICJ in 2019, accusing it of committing genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority. The allegations stem from the Tatmadaw’s brutal campaign of violence in 2017, which monitoring groups say killed thousands of Rohingya and forced more than 700,000 to flee across the border to refugee camps in Bangladesh. Nobel Peace Prize laureate State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi controversially defended the military’s actions before the ICJ in December 2019. Her administration was overthrown by the generals in February this year, and she is now being imprisoned by the very people she went to the Hague to defend The NUG was formed in April by lawmakers elected in November’s polls, which the military later annulled, and consists of members from the National League for Democracy as well as representatives from ethnic minority groups and civil society. With the military back in nominal control of the country but still largely unrecognised on the international stage, the case has become embroiled in the struggle between the regime and the NUG. Unlike the International Criminal Court, which hears cases against individuals, the ICJ is a United Nations body that settles disputes between states, and both the junta and the NUG are apparently eager to take the ICJ case to bolster their legitimacy. Dr Sasa, the NUG’s Minister for International Cooperation, confirmed that the civilian government is seeking control of the case. “If the ICJ will allow us to represent Myanmar by appointing an agent at the case, then that is what we also will do,” he said in a recent interview with Frontier. Sasa made clear that the legitimacy issue is weighing heavily on the NUG’s decision to try and take the ICJ case. “It’s also very much to do with who will represent Myanmar as a state right now,” he said. The UN Credentials Committee recommends to the UN General Assembly which government to recognise in the event of a dispute. The nine-member body currently includes Russia and China, who have shielded the junta from consequences at the UN Security Council, as well as the United States, which has already declared the events in Rakhine State ethnic cleansing and imposed sanctions against military-linked entities and individuals. The issue could come to a head when the General Assembly meets on September 14. Myanmar’s seat at the UN is occupied by U Kyaw Moe Tun, who has remained loyal to the overthrown government; the junta has not only sought to replace him, it has charged him with high treason and demanded his extradition. Last month, America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation announced details of an alleged assassination plot targeting Kyaw Moe Tun involving Myanmar nationals based in the US. The military regime has denied any involvement in the scheme. Despite being the target of most of The Gambia’s allegations, the military regime also appears keen to continue engaging with the ICJ; it recently announced a reshuffle of the team overseeing the case, appointing eight junta officials. Mr William Schabas and Ms Phoebe Okowa, foreign lawyers who previously served on Myanmar’s legal team under Aung San Suu Kyi, both confirmed that they are no longer working on the case but declined to comment further. “I resigned from the legal team soon after the military coup and have absolutely no insights into the case except what is publicly available,” Okowa said to Frontier in an email. The military’s new legal team is led by the junta’s foreign minister, U Wunna Maung Lwin, and also includes Lieutenant-General Yar Pyae, a close ally of commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing who was recently named as minister of the Union Government Office. But the NUG remains hopeful that the ICJ will not engage with the military’s legal team. “I don’t think that the ICJ will accept those people that claim to be representing the state of Myanmar or the people of Myanmar,” Sasa said. A tough spot Taking charge of the case would put the NUG in a tricky position, however. Aung San Suu Kyi’s decision to defend Myanmar before the ICJ was wildly popular inside the country, where many people consider the Rohingya to be illegal immigrants, but she was condemned by human rights groups and other Nobel Peace Prize winners. Canada and the Netherlands joined the case against Myanmar, and other Western countries like the United Kingdom expressed support for it. How then would the NUG, which has Aung San Suu Kyi still nominally as its state counsellor, fight the case, if it were accepted as Myanmar’s representative? Continuing to deny allegations of genocide would harm its efforts to secure international support for its cause, but conceding that genocide occurred is unlikely to go over well domestically, where anti-Rohingya sentiment is widespread even among pro-democracy supporters. This could be ameliorated to some extent by heaping the blame onto the Tatmadaw, and saying that it misled the NLD government about events on the ground in Rakhine State back in 2017, but accepting that genocide occurred could still cost the NUG some support. Political analyst Mr David Mathieson said the NUG would be “deplored internationally if they argued against genocide and pilloried domestically if they agreed it was a genocide”. There are some signs that attitudes towards the Rohingya are changing. The NUG has pledged to grant the Rohingya equal rights and replace the 1982 Citizenship Law, and some activists and protesters have apologised for their treatment or advocated for their rights – public displays of sympathy and support were rarely seen before the coup. Even the use of the word “Rohingya” in such a public manner would have been unthinkable before the coup. But Mathieson said he didn’t think attitudes had changed that much. “I can’t imagine any deep-seated anti-Rohingya sentiments would have completely evaporated since the coup. They may well have altered, but I seriously doubt there has been a nation-wide epiphany of compassion. More likely there has been a nationwide awakening as to the brutality, oppression and greed of the Tatmadaw.” But Rohingya activist U Tun Khin, president of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, said he believes perceptions have genuinely shifted. “There’s no question that we have seen a real change in public opinion since the coup. I and many other Rohingya have been flooded with messages on social media from people apologising for spreading hatred against us in the past,” he told Frontier. Although some members of the NUG had denied atrocities were perpetrated against the Rohingya when the NLD was in power, Tun Khin said he believes the parallel government’s recent statements were a “step in the right direction”. “We welcome the fact that the NUG is seeking to engage with the ICJ, and there is no question that it is a better choice to [represent Myanmar] than the Tatmadaw,” Tun Khin said. The NUG’s position is made more difficult by the fact that the case has been brought under the Genocide Convention. This means the ICJ can only rule on whether genocide occurred, and cannot, for instance, dismiss the genocide accusation but confirm a charge of crimes against humanity – a middle ground that might have been acceptable to most of the NUG’s international and domestic supporters. When Aung San Suu Kyi defended the case, she did not even acknowledge crimes against humanity, however, saying instead that any alleged war crimes were committed by individual soldiers who would be held accountable domestically. The Tatmadaw has tried some soldiers accused of atrocities at military tribunals, but these trials were widely seen as attempts to deflect responsibility from more senior officers. They were also not open to the public and some of those convicted were soon amnestied and freed from prison. One of Myanmar’s former lawyers, Schabas, was more explicit, acknowledging during the ICJ hearing that the UN Fact-Finding Mission “concluded without equivocation that crimes against humanity and war crimes had been committed” but was “more circumspect” on the allegations of genocide. He noted at the time that the ICJ lacks jurisdiction to address those crimes. Frontier asked Sasa several times whether the NUG would accept the allegations of genocide or argue against them in court, but he evaded the question each time. “It is for the court to decide based on the evidence and proof if genocide happened or not. It’s not for the government or an organisation to decide. If it is found that there is evidence of genocide, who are we to say no?” he said. When the NUG released a statement on the fourth anniversary of the crackdown on the Rohingya, it condemned “atrocity crimes” but did not explicitly call it a genocide. But even within the NUG there are divisions. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs released a statement calling the crackdown a genocide and highlighted acts of sexual violence, which the NUG did not mention and which Aung San Suu Kyi’s Facebook page previously referred to as “fake rape”. Mathieson said the NUG could look foolish if it argued that genocide did occur, and then the court determined the crackdown did not qualify as genocide, an outcome he said “is not unlikely”. Tun Khin argues it is crucial that the NUG publicly recognises the treatment of the Rohingya as a genocide. “Only by accepting the realities of the past will we be able to build a common future, and to take effective and genuine steps to end the ongoing genocide,” he said. Sasa said the NUG is also working with its law firm, Volterra Fietta, to build a case against military leaders at the ICC. “We have received thousands of videos of atrocities” committed by the military since the coup, he said, pledging that the NUG will also “bring justice to our Rohingya brothers and sisters” either through the ICC or domestic legal mechanisms. Although Myanmar is not yet a state party to the ICC because it has not ratified the Rome Statute, soon after his interview with Frontier Sasa the NUG announced that it lodged a formal declaration in July to accept the ICC’s jurisdiction as a non-state party for crimes committed since 2002. Legitimacy not necessarily at stake While the question of who represents Myanmar at the ICJ is symbolically important, the court adjudicates disputes between states, not governments. Legal experts say that if the junta were allowed to represent Myanmar, it would not imply legal recognition. Mr Arsalan Suleman, a lawyer on The Gambia’s legal team, said they would continue to pursue the case even if the military regime is representing Myanmar. “The Gambia sued the State of Myanmar in the ICJ. Since then, The Gambia has followed the procedures established by the Court, and it will continue to do so until a final judgment has been issued by the Court. This does not imply The Gambia’s diplomatic recognition of Myanmar’s current de facto government,” he said in an email. Ms Emma Palmer, a senior lecturer at Australia’s Griffith Law School and an expert on international law, said the ICJ’s decision over who represents Myanmar could be “persuasive” in terms of popular perception of legitimacy, but is not legally binding. “It would be the ‘state’ that the ICJ has jurisdiction over, rather than a particular government, so I agree that a change in government does not affect the ICJ case’s ability to proceed,” she said. Allowing the military to take the case “would not amount to any kind of formal change to the status of the military”. Palmer said she would expect the ICJ to “avoid the issue” by delaying proceedings or waiting for the UN to make a decision. This may already be happening. The last update on the ICJ website is from January 28, days before the coup, setting a deadline of May 20 for The Gambia to respond to Myanmar’s preliminary objections, which challenged the court’s jurisdiction over the case. These objections mean the case will not move forward until the court makes a decision on whether it has the authority to proceed. Suleman confirmed that The Gambia countered Myanmar’s objections, and said he expects the court to set a date soon for oral arguments on the preliminary objections. But more than three months after the deadline for The Gambia’s response, the court is still yet to make any public statement on the case, let alone schedule oral hearings. In contrast, the January update came just eight days after Myanmar filed its preliminary objections on January 20. The ICJ did not respond to Frontier’s request for comment. No decision A further complication for the court would be if the UN General Assembly does not make a definitive decision later this month on who should represent Myanmar. Ms Sarah Williams, a professor in the Faculty of Law & Justice at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said the UN could theoretically leave Myanmar’s seat at the UN empty as it did with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in 1997 and Taliban in Afghanistan in 1996. She said it could also maintain the status quo, allowing the incumbent ambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun, to retain his seat – at least for now – without deciding between the military regime and the NUG. Williams said that if this happens, she would expect the ICJ to “say that it is unable to determine which person/entity is entitled to represent Myanmar and will not accept instructions from anyone” – a scenario that is likely to further stall the case. Even though the ICC is not a UN body and therefore “in theory has more flexibility”, it would still most likely take its cues from the UN and be reluctant to make its own determination. Palmer said there is another scenario where the military takes the ICJ case, but then refuses to cooperate with the proceedings, given its history of rejecting the authority of international legal mechanisms. “If the military does notappear in Court, which seems potentially likely, then the Court will most likely just proceed with the case without ‘Myanmar’,” she said, adding that this has happened before, in a case between Nicaragua and the United States. On August 24, the military regime filed a legal amendment criminalising genocide in Myanmar’s domestic law, and defining it by the recognised international standard. It has said little about the reasons behind the amendment, but observers say it could be an attempt by the military to undermine international legal mechanisms, as it can now try to argue that the crime of genocide can be investigated and prosecuted domestically and international action is therefore not needed. But Tun Khin said only international mechanisms will suffice. “The military has committed genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes with impunity in Myanmar for decades,” he said. “They must be held to account, and only the international community is in a position to provide justice.”..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
Date of publication: 2021-09-02
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: There is still work to be done to ensure the crimes committed against the Rohingya are documented properly
Sub-title: Investigations in international courts will only give a partial picture of what happened in 2017, the rest must not be lost to history
Description: "More than four years after Myanmar military soldiers committed mass murder, rape and arson against the Rohingya in Rakhine State, several efforts aimed at achieving the distant-seeming goal of bringing Min Aung Hlaing and other perpetrators to justice are underway. Cases have been accepted at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC), while Rohingya advocates in Argentina are pushing for courts there to accept a third case that specifically names both civilian and military officials implicated in the genocide, including detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Justice is by no means guaranteed for the Rohingya, or others across the country who have been suffering under the military both before and after the February 1 coup. Regardless of the legal outcomes of these cases, the reality is that the military will continue to enjoy impunity as long as it clings to power. Even so, the one thing that these cases can do for the Rohingya is to act as truth-seeking exercises, putting down on the official record exactly what happened. But even the courts of The Hague do not have the capacity to comprehensively document what happened in the weeks and months after the killing started on August 25, 2017. During the bloodbath, some 300 villages across Rakhine were subjected to atrocities. Nearly 24,000 Rohingya civilians were killed in numerous massacres, while 18,000 women and girls were raped, according to a report from the Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA). The ICC, the ICJ and others will not and cannot do a full truth-seeking investigation covering every affected village. These international legal proceedings will focus on several villages that were heavily affected, inviting a couple of dozen witnesses to the stand. That means a huge amount will be left out of the proceedings, information that ought to be brought to light for historical, legal, and moral reasons. We must not allow the details about what happened in the majority of Rohingya villages in 2017 to be lost to history. In Asian Dignity Initiative's latest report on the massacre, seven Rohingya researchers interviewed 845 civilians from 30 villages in Rakhine State in a bid to ensure as many details about what happened are put on the record as possible. We want to continue these efforts in the future so that no village is left out. When the Covid-19 situation allows again, grassroots efforts to build a comprehensive picture of what happened must resume..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of publication: 2021-09-02
Date of entry/update: 2021-09-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar Junta Enacts Genocide Law
Description: "Myanmar’s military regime has added a genocide law to the country’s colonial-era Penal Code, a move being seen by legal experts as an attempt to ease international pressure on the regime as it faces a genocide charge at a United Nations court for its soldiers’ atrocities against the Rohingya. The new provisions published in junta-controlled newspapers threaten the death sentence for murders committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. The provisions were signed by coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing on Tuesday. The addition to the Penal Code also carries a life sentence for other crimes committed with genocidal purpose. They include causing grievous hurt or serious mental harm to members of a group, deliberately inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to bring its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures, not in accordance with any existing laws, intended to prevent births within a group, and forcibly transferring children of a group to another group. The promulgation of the new genocide law coincided with an online campaign to mark the fourth anniversary of atrocities against the Rohingya, the stateless Muslim people in Rakhine State, in 2017. A Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day was organized online on Wednesday, with many activists expressing their apologies to the Rohingya for failing to speak out while they were being persecuted by the Myanmar military. Over 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh after the military carried out clearance operations in Rakhine in response to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army’s attacks on security outposts in August 2017. The Gambia, representing the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, filed a genocide case against Myanmar at the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ) in late 2019. However, both the then National League for Democracy government and the military denied the accusations of genocide. In January 2020, the ICJ ordered Myanmar to comply with four provisional measures as requested by The Gambia. The measures require that Myanmar take steps to prevent genocide from occurring in the future, as well as ensuring that the military and its affiliates do not commit further acts of genocide, in particular killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and preventing births. Myanmar is also required to preserve all evidence of genocide, and provide regular updates on its progress on these measures. One legal expert, who asked for anonymity, said that the military regime has enacted the genocide law to ease international pressure on it as it faces the genocide charge at the ICJ, but the move will not give the regime any protection from crimes it has previously committed. “The law will not have an effect on things that happened before its enactment. This law should be accepted as it presents the opportunity for citizens, ethnic groups and religious organizations to open cases regarding genocidal crimes in the future,” he added. The junta said it had enacted the genocide law because it was liable to do so after Myanmar ratified the Genocide Convention on December 30, 1949 and then became a member of the Convention in March 1956. “As we are a member country, we have a responsibility to enact a law. So we have enacted a law to prevent and punish genocide,” said the regime spokesperson, Major General Zaw Min Tun. The junta has also changed the Code of Criminal Procedures, which allows authorities to arrest genocide suspects without a warrant. People accused of genocide can no longer be bailed. “They just want to show the international community that they are against genocide and are taking action to prevent it,” said another legal expert. Meanwhile, the parallel National Unity Government (NUG) is also working to prosecute Myanmar’s military at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Myanmar is not an ICC member, but Acting President Duwa Lashi La of the NUG lodged a declaration with the ICC registrar last week, accepting the ICC’s jurisdiction with respect to international crimes committed in Myanmar since July 1, 2002, the earliest date permitted by the Rome Statute that established the ICC. To mark Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day, the NUG Deputy Minister for Women, Youths and Children Affairs, Daw Ei Thinzar Maung, called on Myanmar people to show sympathy for the traumatic experiences Rohingya women and children and other ethnic minorities have suffered. She also urged them to protect the vulnerable and to speak out for them to prevent genocidal acts from occurring in the future..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2021-08-26
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Justice and Inclusion for the Rohingya Cannot Wait - ရိုဟင်ဂျာများအတွက် တရားမျှတမှုနှင့် ထည့်သွင်းပါဝင်ရေးတို့ကို ချက်ချင်းဆောင်ရွက်ရမည်။
Description: "Today, on the fourth anniversary of the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, we call for justice and inclusion for the Rohingya. Decades of discrimination and mistreatment peaked on 25 August 2017. when the Myanmar military initiated a brutal crackdown against the Rohingya in Rakhine State that led to mass human rights violations and caused over 725.000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. Today, approximately 1 million Rohingya reside in the refugee camps in Cox's Bazar. Bangladesh. The overcrowded and under-resourced camps are ill-equipped to face rising COVID-19, dengue fever, and cholera cases and are vulnerable to floods and fires. Meanwhile, back in Myanmar, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya remain internally displaced, many confined in detention camps, and the country as a whole, since the 1 February 2021 coup, is in a state of crisis. Despite the hardship the Rohingya have faced, they demonstrate, on a daily basis, their resilience and strength. Since 2019, A]AR has worked with Rohi ngya refugees in the camps and has witnessed this determi nation first-hand. Carrying the trauma of the past and the uncertainty of the future, the refugees persist, tirelessly seeking out new ways to improve their circumstances while continuing to honor their culture and faith. Several international mechanisms are working to advance justice for the Rohingya. and the pro-democracy movement has taken steps to show its support of the Rohi ngya. However, at present, both justice and the voluntary, safe, and dignified return of the Rohingya remain a distant goal. This must change. On this anniversary, we therefore call on the international community to: • Advance initiatives providing urgent and interim measures to help repair the lives of survivors and invest in long-term empowerment programming for survivors; • Promote accountability by joining The Gambia in its case against Myanmar before the International Court of justice (ICJ) and by supporting and enhancing understanding of the accountability mechanisms, including the ICJ, the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the Independent Investigative Mechanisms for Myanmar (IIMM), and by pursuing universal jurisdiction cases in their own countries; • Support the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar; • Support Bangladesh in the provision of assistance and resources to the Rohingya; and • Maintain pressure on ASEAN to give effect to the right of Rohingya survivors to an effective and enforceable remedy..."
Source/publisher: Asia Justice and Rights, Sisters2Sisters, Perlindungan Insani Indonesia, KontraS, KontraS Aceh, The May 18 Memorial Foundation, Cross Cultural Foundation, Kurawal Foundation, Migrant CARE, Milk Tea Alliance Indonesia, SP Kinasih Solidaritas Perempuan, YLB
Date of publication: 2021-08-25
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf pdf pdf
Size: 58.63 KB 25.59 KB 251.39 KB
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Title: Beyond the Coup in Myanmar: The Views of Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh
Description: "This article is part of a Just Security series on the Feb. 1, 2021 coup in Myanmar. The series brings together expert local and international voices on the coup and its broader context. The series is a collaboration between Just Security and the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School. This installment reflects conversations with Rohingya residents of refugee camps in Bangladesh about the coup in Myanmar. Camp residents’ views were collected by Shabbir Ahmad and other members of a team of Rohingya researchers during a recent community feedback collection project. The opinions expressed here are the views of the authors and camp residents, not those of any institution with which the authors are affiliated. The Rohingya community of Myanmar has been isolated and persecuted for decades, leading to waves of mass displacement, isolation, and resistance. The situation of the Rohingya deteriorated further into crisis after the National League for Democracy (NLD) took power in 2015, starting with a 2016 crackdown and culminating in the massive 2017 violence that displaced over 700,000 people. Refugees in Bangladesh believe the situation could worsen even further under the current junta, creating new risks for the Rohingya who remain in Myanmar and indefinitely delaying any prospect of a safe repatriation for those displaced. According to one camp resident: “The democratic government didn’t do well for us Rohingya. However, the current conditions will be even worse for us, and maybe for everyone in Myanmar.” According to another, “We Rohingya people don’t expect anything positive to come from the military coup. We know very well that the Myanmar Army is merciless and doesn’t feel afraid of committing injustice.” The greatest fear for many camp residents is that repatriation at a large scale will be impossible as long as Myanmar remains under the control of the Myanmar military, the Tatmadaw. In recent comments, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing affirmed these concerns, reiterating once again that the Tatmadaw does not recognize the identity of the Rohingya people or their right to return home. As long as the junta remains in place, there is little possibility of forging solutions to the outstanding political, legal, and justice questions surrounding the Rohingya crisis. But there is another dimension of the coup in which an unanticipated, positive change has emerged: There has been a wave of social and political reconciliation between Rohingya and other Myanmar people. Though the situation remains formidable both for Rohingya in Myanmar and for those who seek to return from Bangladesh, certain social and political fault lines that have been present throughout Myanmar’s recent history seem to be shifting. Emerging Grassroots Solidarity After the first large-scale protests against the coup took place in Yangon on Feb. 6, Shabbir Ahmad, a young Rohingya social activist and educator who currently lives as a refugee in Bangladesh, met with several other youth. They decided to use Twitter to express support for the anti-coup protesters within Myanmar. And they have been at it ever since. At first, Shabbir and his friends’ tweets received little attention, but they persisted. The Tatmadaw’s crackdown on protesters grew increasingly brutal, and Shabbir watched as civilians across Myanmar were afflicted by violence similar to that committed against Rohingya in 2017. Many in Myanmar began to recognize the magnitude of the Rohingya people’s suffering as they experienced indiscriminate violence firsthand themselves. Rather suddenly, according to Shabbir, “hundreds of Twitter users began apologizing in comments under my tweets. They expressed regret for not supporting Rohingya during the Tatmadaw’s genocidal campaigns, for misunderstanding our plight, and for being afraid to speak up. It was remarkable for us to finally feel their support.” Shabbir continued posting prayers for the protesters’ safety and security, sharing condolences for those killed in the protests. Four months after the coup, he still posts solidarity messages and photos from the camps nearly every day under his Burmese name, Naing Oo. (Rohingya and others from minoritized ethnic groups in Myanmar often have two names, one in their mother tongue and one in Burmese.) Shabbir’s most viral Tweet to date was a photo series of refugees whose bamboo and tarpaulin huts burned in the recent devastating March 22 fire that left 45,000 refugees without shelter. “Despite losing their homes and possessions the night before the photos were taken, my subjects were eager to be photographed squatting atop the ashes and rubble of their shelters while making the three-finger Hunger Games salute that has become emblematic of the Myanmar anti-coup resistance movement,” Shabbir described. “Their determination to show solidarity during their own moment of loss struck Myanmar Twitter users, dozens of whom apologized to the Rohingya under my post. Some expressed regret, shame, and grief.” Shabbir tried to reply to each comment in order to make personal connections. In the past, Shabbir said, “We Rohingya lamented our inability to build a good relationship with other Myanmar people. We never felt any support from them, even during our most difficult times. But since we began voicing our support for the coup protestors, we have felt a big shift in the relationship between the communities.” This includes elders and others who don’t use social media but have heard from others about the online reconciliation. “Everyone in the camps is aware that this is happening, and nearly everyone has been supportive,” he added. Still, the outpourings of solidarity were not without controversy. “Mistrust was hard to overcome. Amongst refugees, there were a few people who didn’t like what we Twitter users were doing,” Shabbir explained. “They thought Myanmar civilians were pretending to reconcile in order to get support from the international community, and that they would betray Rohingya after using them. My friends and I worked tirelessly to convince our fellow camp residents that our outreach efforts could bring long-term benefits, and subsequently, we think we have earned most people’s trust.” According to Shabbir, “It seems that refugees here in the camps have authentically forgiven and are feeling happy to finally forge good relationships with Myanmar people of all ethnicities.” He expressed that no one could have imagined that the coup would bring about this positive development, which has shown that some solutions can and must be forged by “ordinary” people rather than by politicians and figureheads in Myanmar and the international community. Signs of Political Progress The emerging reconciliation was soon visible offline as well, with anti-coup protestors in Yangon showing up to rallies with handwritten signs apologizing to Rohingya. The willingness of new civilian leaders to recognize the Rohingya suggested to Shabbir and his peers that social activism could trickle up to influence discourse at the national level. Supportive comments made by members of the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) and its international envoy Dr. Sasa, who has promised to pursue justice for Rohingya, were a source of encouragement to continue expressing solidarity. However, during the initial months after the coup, there was ambiguity as to whether the positive expressions from Dr. Sasa and others would amount to a departure from the stance of the previous NLD government. The National Unity Government (NUG) was formed by the CRPH on April 16 and there were some initial doubts over whether it would condemn longstanding policies of Rohingya exclusion and persecution. But it has since taken several steps to distinguish itself from the recently ousted civilian administration. One positive sign came on May 20, when NUG Special Representative U Htin Linn Aung stated during a Wilson Center webinar that the NUG fully intends to support Rohingya repatriation. On May 30, the NUG published a press statement asserting that it would cooperate with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) process currently underway to determine whether Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya. Then, on June 3, the NUG released a progressive policy position statement lauded by many observers and described as a “monumental shift” by the human rights group Fortify Rights. The NUG’s statement declared its intent to do away with Myanmar’s problematic and outdated 1982 citizenship law, and to ensure birthright citizenship to all people born in Myanmar as well as to the children of Myanmar citizens. This would effectively mean the acknowledgement of existing citizenship rights for the Rohingya. The June 3 statement also clarified the NUG’s position in regard to the current International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation on crimes committed by the Tatmadaw against the Rohingya. Previously, the NUG had only mentioned that it would consider accepting the ICC’s jurisdiction to investigate the Tatmadaw’s crimes since the coup, which would not cover earlier periods of violence against the Rohingya. According to the June 3 statement, however, the NUG intends to “initiate processes to grant the ICC jurisdiction over crimes committed in Myanmar against the Rohingyas and other communities” – a commitment that offers hope for full accountability. Despite feeling hopeful about the recent developments, Shabbir and others in the camps have been careful to temper their optimism. The junta’s grasp on power in Myanmar remains fierce, if threatened, and the NUG has no certain pathway to gaining control. Shabbir sees the addition of a Rohingya representative to the NUG cabinet as a critical next step to bridge the gap between social reconciliation and the political action needed to forge lasting solutions, but so far, no Rohingya cabinet members have been named. According to Shabbir, “This lack of inclusion has been disheartening for many people who fear it signals that the support from Dr. Sasa and others is disingenuous. But we camp residents remain hopeful that the NUG will involve the Rohingya soon.” Whether this will happen remains questionable. Though Dr. Sasa was appointed as the NUG’s International Cooperation Minister, politicians who have publicly expressed anti-Rohingya views were also given key positions in the NUG. “Fortunately, Rohingya Twitter users have seen various Myanmar people posting on social media to encourage the NUG to involve us,” Shabbir added. “We acknowledge that it may take time to build a good relationship with the NUG, and we are encouraged by the progress made thus far.” The need for recognition of Rohingya issues by the NUG has been noted internationally as well. During a congressional hearing on May 5, several U.S. officials said that support for the NUG should be contingent upon adoption of an explicit anti-genocide policy. Life as a Waiting Game Meanwhile, life for those in the camps continues as a waiting game. Eager to return home, many closely follow Myanmar politics, weighing whether each development might promote or hinder the prospect of safe repatriation. The coup is the most significant of these developments since the mass exodus of Rohingya to Bangladesh four years ago. Many people arrived in Bangladesh expecting to return home “in days or weeks, not years” once the violence subsided, as one person put it. Now, they are confronted with the reality of having to endure camp conditions for years or even decades. Those initially confident in prompt repatriation now accept that the violence and instability resulting from the coup is likely to further delay the prospect of repatriation in the near term. Camp residents nevertheless remain hopeful that international justice and accountability delivered through the ICJ and ICC will help expedite progress toward solutions, and the NUG’s statement of support for these international mechanisms is a positive step. However, the residents lack access to clear information about these legal mechanisms, their scope, and their limitations, leading to what many would argue are overly optimistic perceptions given the history of international justice moving at a glacial pace. Victims have long called for international action to resolve the refugee crisis and hold perpetrators of war crimes and other atrocities accountable, but many have been disappointed by an international response perceived as slow and inadequate: “What is the reason why we need to suffer in the camps for over three years? Why isn’t the international community doing anything for us?” Anti-coup protestors in Myanmar are now similarly frustrated by what they view as a lack of prompt and effective international support. But many forms of justice that Rohingya need in their daily lives – citizenship, repatriation, access to education, and other services – will not be delivered by foreign politicians or faraway courts in Europe. As the coup and resulting instability cement the reality of long-term displacement, camp residents’ need for access to education, livelihoods, civil justice, and basic rights demands more urgent attention. Parents fear that their children will become part of a lost generation of unschooled youth, and illicit economic activity proliferates as refugees face financial pressures but lack the right to formal employment. While international accountability is ultimately necessary for sustainable peace, displaced Rohingya families face more urgent needs every day, as do Rohingya still living in Myanmar. Complex Hopes and Next Steps There are a few outliers in the camps, people who have an open mind about the Tatmadaw’s seizure of power or who think that the coup could have a positive impact on repatriation. They wonder if, free of the democratic process laden with complexities and bureaucratic red tape, the Tatmadaw might opt to relieve international pressure by addressing the crisis. One person commented, “The NLD had no real power to give us our rights. Whenever they consulted about Rohingya issues in Parliament, some members would always object, so they couldn’t do anything. But if the military could be convinced by the international community to give rights to Rohingya, they wouldn’t need to consult in Parliament and they could do as they wish.” But these optimistic views were mostly voiced immediately after the coup. Some people’s hopes were raised when Tatmadaw commanders met with groups of Rohingya elders in Rakhine State just days after seizing power. The commanders blamed Aung San Suu Kyi for the crisis and vowed to make progress where the NLD had failed. Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing stated the same in a televised address on February 8. However, no follow-up action was taken, and these early hopes have faded. Some commentators were struck by the Tatmadaw’s audacity in attempting to shift blame for military repression of Rohingya to the previous civilian government. As the junta has made no public efforts to engage with the ICC and ICJ cases about the Rohingya crisis while continuing to enact violence throughout Myanmar, it has provided no reason for affected communities to believe that it would pursue just and sustainable solutions. And the voices of hope have diminished with time as the Tatmadaw’s indiscriminate cruelty has been on full display with the killings of civilians in the streets and renewed violence against other ethnic minorities in the border regions. Over the past four years, contending with the daily hardships of refugee life was difficult enough, but was viewed by many in the camps as a short-term necessity. People’s mental health is now impacted as they orient to the bleak prospect of remaining displaced for the foreseeable future due to the coup. In this context, the NUG’s positions in support of Rohingya citizenship and international justice are particularly welcome signs that progress is possible and that they will someday return home. As Rohingya have continuously stated, the right to Myanmar citizenship is the most fundamental guarantor of their future protection. Without citizenship, it is hard to envision a pathway toward just, safe, and sustainable repatriation. Ultimately, the end of military rule is necessary as a precursor to forging peace and political solutions. In the meantime, the NUG should not lose sight of the need for Rohingya inclusion, their daily challenges in Myanmar and in the camps, and their right to justice. A meaningful next step would be for the NUG to add a Rohingya representative to its cabinet. As others have noted, the NUG should also reconsider the inclusion in the cabinet of officials who hold anti-Rohingya views. Taking these steps would earn the NUG greater international legitimacy, and, more importantly, would strengthen its ability to work toward an inclusive and just society..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Just Security (New York)
Date of publication: 2021-06-10
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: United Kingdom: Take Urgent Action to Isolate Myanmar Junta, Support Accountability for Atrocities
Description: "May 25, 2021)–The Government of the United Kingdom should take immediate action to deprive the Myanmar military junta of natural gas revenues, weapons, and political legitimacy, and ensure accountability for its past and present mass atrocity crimes in the country, Fortify Rights said today in a submission to the U.K. Parliament. Fortify Rights today submitted evidence to the U.K. Foreign Affairs Committee, which is holding an inquiry into the U.K. government’s response to the crisis in Myanmar following the February 1 coup d’état. The committee will also hear oral evidence from U.N. Special Rapporteur Thomas Andrews, Myanmar National Unity Government (NUG) Minister Dr. Sasa, human rights defender Thinzar Shunlei Yi, and others. The committee will then draft a report and make recommendations to the U.K. government. The Fortify Rights submission recommends the U.K. “work with relevant governments and foreign operators of Myanmar gas fields to ensure the junta is unable to access natural gas revenues from its accounts and ensure revenues are effectively held in trust until democracy is restored.” Fortify Rights urged the U.K. to sanction the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise and other specified entities to ensure the country’s natural gas wealth is not controlled by the illegal military junta. As the penholder at the U.N. Security Council, the U.K. should table a resolution that includes a global arms embargo, targeted sanctions, and a referral of the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC), forcing a veto from China or Russia, if necessary, Fortify Rights said. The U.K. should simultaneously lead efforts beyond the Security Council to build an international coalition to achieve these same aims. Fortify Rights also called on the U.K. government to reverse recently announced funding cuts to Rohingya refugee response efforts in Bangladesh and to conduct an urgent public review of U.K. aid spending in Myanmar to ensure it does not reach the military junta. The U.K. government should also work with countries receiving Myanmar refugees, including Thailand, Bangladesh, India, and Malaysia, to ensure refugee protection. In November 2019, The Gambia opened a case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, alleging Myanmar violated its obligations under the Genocide Convention with regard to mass-scale, army-led attacks against Rohingya men, women, and children. In light of the coup, long-persecuted minorities in Myanmar, such as the Rohingya, face increased existential risks,Fortify Rights said. “The U.K. should formally join the case at the ICJ brought by The Gambia against Myanmar for violations of the Genocide Convention,” Fortify Rights said in its submission. Since the coup, the junta-controlled military and police reportedly killed more than 800 people and arbitrarily detained more than 4,000 nationwide. In a document seen by Fortify Rights, provided by the Myanmar junta to members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ahead of an emergency summit to discuss Myanmar last month, the junta claimed it detained 9,848 persons, released 4,511, and charged 5,070 between February 1 and April 15. The junta has also launched airstrikes against villages in ethnic army-controlled border areas, reportedly killing, injuring, and displacing tens of thousands of civilians. The junta also cut internet access and mobile data nationally, preventing the population from communicating with each other and the outside world. On April 16, elected legislators in Myanmar and others formed the National Unity Government (NUG) to fulfill the will of the people as expressed through the November 2020 elections. In its submission to the Foreign Affairs Committee, Fortify Rights recommended the U.K. government recognize and engage the NUG as the legitimate Government of Myanmar. In its April 29 announcement launching the U.K. inquiry, the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, referenced “deeply distressing reports” of the junta’s human rights violations against peaceful protesters in Myanmar, noting that “[e]fforts to curb the violence and brutality through the imposition of sanctions have, unfortunately, fallen short.” “This urgent inquiry will determine how the Government can improve its response to the crisis, as well as how the U.K. can use its influence in organizations such as the U.N. to help deliver a peaceful resolution for the people of Myanmar,” he said..."
Source/publisher: "Fortify Rights"
Date of publication: 2021-05-25
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar’s National Unity Govt Vows to Work With World Court on Rohingya Genocide Case
Topic: cooperate, Coup, Gambia, Genocide case, ICC, ICJ, junta, Military, National Unity Government, NUG, proceedings, provisional measures, regime, Rohingya, World Court
Topic: cooperate, Coup, Gambia, Genocide case, ICC, ICJ, junta, Military, National Unity Government, NUG, proceedings, provisional measures, regime, Rohingya, World Court
Description: "Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) said that as the country’s lawful government it is taking all steps necessary to cooperate with the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), on proceedings in a case in which Myanmar is accused of committing genocide against the Rohingya. After a brutal military crackdown in the western state of Rakhine in 2017 that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee across the border to neighboring Bangladesh, Gambia in November 2019 brought a case at the ICJ—which is an organ of the UN and is also known as the World Court—accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya. State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi defended the country against the charge in December 2019. Gambia’s legal team listed the Myanmar military’s atrocities against the minority Muslim group in northern Rakhine state, including mass rapes, the burning of families in their homes and the killing of dozens of Rohingya children. As the case could take years, the African nation asked the ICJ to order “provisional measures” to prevent more violations. Going further than the measures requested by Gambia, the ICJ ordered Myanmar on Jan. 23 to report on its compliance with the provisional measures in four months and then every six months thereafter. The Daw Aung San Suu Kyi-led civilian government submitted two reports prior to its ouster by the military in a coup on Feb. 1. In a statement released on Sunday, the NUG said it is very concerned about the difficult situation facing the Rohingya, especially those who fled to Bangladesh in 2016-17. As the lawful government, ensuring continuity of representation before the court and being mindful of the timetable established by the court are among its duties, the NUG said. It added that it is also considering accepting the exercise of jurisdiction by a separate international court, the International Criminal Court, over the killings, torture and other crimes against civilians committed by the Myanmar junta since the coup on Feb. 1. The Myanmar military seized power from the democratically elected National League for Democracy government, detained civilian leaders and abolished the new Parliament on the day it was scheduled to convene. Since the coup, the Myanmar regime has killed at least 840 people and arrested more than 5,500, of whom 4,409 remain in detention, according to advocacy group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of publication: 2021-05-31
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar’s Troubled History: Coups, Military Rule, and Ethnic Conflict
Description: "Summary: Myanmar, also known as Burma, has suffered decades of repressive military rule, poverty due to years of isolationist economic policies, and civil war with ethnic minority groups. The transfer to civilian leadership in 2011 spurred hopes of democratic reforms. But the military maintained control over parts of the government, and security forces began a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya. The military launched a coup in February 2021, announcing a yearlong state of emergency and arresting opposition figures, including de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and civil society activists.....Introduction: Throughout its decades of independence, Myanmar has struggled with military rule, civil war, isolation from global affairs, and widespread poverty. In 2011, the military junta dissolved, giving way to a military-installed transitional government and ushering in what many believed would be a new era for the Southeast Asian nation. The country’s longtime opposition party—the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi—won majorities in both chambers of parliament in 2015, and some foreign governments and companies that had previously shunned Myanmar began developing ties with it. But the military, known as the Tatmadaw, has continued to dominate many aspects of domestic affairs. Military and civilian leaders, including Suu Kyi, have also faced international condemnation for ongoing human rights abuses and brutal violence against Rohingya Muslims in the western state of Rakhine, which a UN report said were committed with “genocidal intent.” In February 2021, the military staged a coup and officially retook control, dashing hopes for democratic progress..."
Source/publisher: Council on Foreign Relations (New York)
Date of publication: 2021-02-10
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Raab Refusing to Act on Accountability for Burmese Military - New Briefing
Description: "Burma Campaign UK today releases a new briefing paper: ‘Why is Dominic Raab Refusing to Act on Accountability for Burmese Military Crimes? The paper details how, despite British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and other government ministers repeatedly talking about holding the Burmese military to account for its crimes, in practice they are fiercely resisting pressure to take action on accountability. Dominic Raab refuses to say he supports referring Burma to the International Criminal Court. Dominic Raab refuses to join the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice. Dominic Raab repeatedly blocked UK legislation which would have enabled the UK to make genocide determinations and take more action in response to genocide. For decades, the Burmese military has been committing human rights violations which break international law. They have enjoyed impunity for their crimes, encouraging them to commit further crimes. Holding the military to account for their crimes is essential to ending the decades long cycle of human rights violations and military dictatorship in Burma. The British government did not implement the recommendations of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, set up in response to the genocide of the Rohingya and violations of international law against other ethnic groups in Kachin and Shan States. The only action the British government took against the generals in response to genocide of the Rohingya was to stop a handful of generals from taking holidays in the UK (a visa ban). The briefing paper poses the question: “The British government and the rest of the international community need to reflect on whether the military being allowed to get away with genocide would have been a factor in their calculations as to whether they could get away with the coup without facing serious consequences from the international community.” “It is hypocritical of Dominic Raab to talk about accountability at the same time as refusing to act on accountability,” said Mark Farmaner, Director of Burma Campaign UK. “There are millions of good reasons to act on accountability, millions of people suffering under the military. There is no good reason not to act."..."
Source/publisher: "Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of publication: 2021-05-20
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Why is Dominic Raab Refusing to Act on Accountability for Burmese Military Crimes?
Description: "This briefing looks at the gap between the words and the actions of the British government when it comes to action on accountability. At the same time as making repeated statements about holding the Burmese military to account for their crimes, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is refusing to publicly support referring Burma to the International Criminal Court, and refusing to join the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice. One of many examples of a British Government Minister talking about accountability since the military coup on 1st February 2021 came on Saturday 27th March. Following the killing of more than 120 people by the Burmese military, Dominic Raab once again Tweeted about holding the military to account. He stated: “Today’s killing of unarmed civilians, including children, marks a new low. We will work with our international partners to end this senseless violence, hold those responsible to account, and secure a path back to democracy.”.....At the same time Dominic Raab: Refuses to publicly support the UN Security Council referring Burma to the International Criminal Court. • Refuses to join the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice. • Repeatedly blocked amendments to bills in the British Parliament to enable determinations of genocide to be made and more action to be taken in response to genocide.....Impunity has encouraged further human rights abuses: As has been well documented, the Burmese military has been violating international law for decades. It has done so with impunity at a domestic and international level. This impunity encourages further violations of international law and further horrific human rights violations. During the past ten years, as the British government heralded a so-called democratic transition in Burma, human rights violations against ethnic minorities, so serious that they violate international law, actually increased..."
Source/publisher: "Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of publication: 2021-05-20
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Title: Beyond the Coup in Myanmar: Echoes of the Past, Crises of the Moment, Visions of the Future
Description: "On Feb. 1, 2021, the Myanmar military – the Tatmadaw – shattered the all too brief effort to transition to democracy in Myanmar. Over the past two and a half months, the Tatmadaw has continued its illegitimate effort to undermine the democratic elections from last year and prevent the elected government from taking power. In the face of mass popular opposition and international condemnation, the military has only escalated its use of violence against its own population – systematically stripping away rights and violently attacking protestors and dissidents, reportedly killing over 700 civilians as of Apr. 20, 2021, and detaining more than 3,000. Despite the continued threats and extreme violence, the people of Myanmar have stood their ground and refused to be silenced. On Apr. 16, opponents of the coup from across the political spectrum announced the formation of a National Unity Government (NUG) to resist the military. Just as importantly, the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), a grassroots movement aimed at disrupting state functions and crippling the economy in order to undermine the military’s attempt to rule, has been hugely successful in galvanizing collective action since early February. In addition to the tens of thousands of CDM participants walking out of their private and public sector positions, protests across the country have seen massive youth engagement on a scale not seen in a generation. The organizing power has been impressive. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok have been used to spread awareness and coordinate protests, strikes, and other forms of peaceful resistance. The military has taken notice of the CDM’s power, issuing threats against young people protesting and shooting indiscriminately at protestors of all ages, including children. Parallel movements have arisen in areas like neighboring Thailand, with Thai youth protesting their own authoritarian government in solidarity with activists from Myanmar. Today we launch a Just Security series that will take a deep dive into the situation in Myanmar. The series will provide insights that put the coup and civilian response into historical and modern context, deepen unexplored angles on the current crises, and survey possibilities and ways forward over the next six months to a year. This series also aims to elevate policy discussions on a number of issues, ranging from peace and accountability to religion and democracy, asking: What is happening now and why? Within the series, contributions from authors from Myanmar and others working closely on the situation will explore topics such as youth leadership in the CDM and protests, domestic and international solidarity, environmental concerns, the dissolution of rule of law in Myanmar, and what the coup means for ongoing international accountability efforts. Below, we offer an overview of the major themes of the series, along with a timeline of the struggle for democracy in Myanmar. The current uprising against military rule must be understood in the context of these decades-long struggles for peace, democracy, accountability, and justice..."
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Source/publisher: Just Security (New York)
Date of publication: 2021-04-26
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
Category: Anti-coup protesters, Spring Revolution, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association, violations of, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Human Rights Defenders, Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups, Discrimination against the Rohingya, International Criminal Court, Several Groups, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), International Court of Justice (ICJ) - General, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, National Unity Government (NUG), Various groups, Political History, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory
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Title: What is the International Court of Justice? The Role and Activities of the ICJ
Description: "United Nations - The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and the world’s highest international court. It has a dual role: to settle in accordance with international law the legal disputes submitted to it by UN Member States, and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by duly authorized international organs and agencies of the UN system. This short film (available in over 50 languages) presents its main features. Use of this file is free for non-profit and educational/editorial purposes. The ICJ encourages its use, reproduction and distribution for the same purposes. Sale or commercial use strictly prohibited..."
Source/publisher: UNited Nations (New York)
Date of publication: 2017-10-24
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: “Strategic Litigation Handbook for Myanmar”
Sub-title: The ICJ today published a “Strategic Litigation Handbook for Myanmar.” In this, the ICJ seeks to offer an accessible, concise and substantial overview of the conceptual basis and purpose of strategic litigation.
Description: "The Handbook shows the potential impacts of strategic litigation in Myanmar, by drawing on experiences from Myanmar and other countries, while recognizing the related challenges and opportunities, as expressed by legal professionals and civil society actors. It is intended to be useful to all legal practitioners and community activists in Myanmar. While there is no universal definition or conception of ‘strategic litigation,’ the term is typically used to describe litigation whereby the interests may go beyond those of the primary litigants. The various adjudication processes it entails are sometimes referred to as ‘public interest litigation’, ‘impact litigation’, ‘test case litigation’, or ‘community lawyering’. What they all have in common is the idea that courts and the law can be used as part of a campaign to achieve broader change in relation to matters seen to be in the broader public interest. ICJ publishes “Strategic Litigation Handbook for Myanmar” SEPTEMBER 30, 2019 The ICJ today published a “Strategic Litigation Handbook for Myanmar.” In this, the ICJ seeks to offer an accessible, concise and substantial overview of the conceptual basis and purpose of strategic litigation. The Handbook shows the potential impacts of strategic litigation in Myanmar, by drawing on experiences from Myanmar and other countries, while recognizing the related challenges and opportunities, as expressed by legal professionals and civil society actors. It is intended to be useful to all legal practitioners and community activists in Myanmar. While there is no universal definition or conception of ‘strategic litigation,’ the term is typically used to describe litigation whereby the interests may go beyond those of the primary litigants. The various adjudication processes it entails are sometimes referred to as ‘public interest litigation’, ‘impact litigation’, ‘test case litigation’, or ‘community lawyering’. What they all have in common is the idea that courts and the law can be used as part of a campaign to achieve broader change in relation to matters seen to be in the broader public interest. Part one of the Handbook explores core aspects of strategic litigation, including its origins, key concepts, potential impacts, challenges and forums. In part two, areas of law are identified which offer potential options for strategic litigation actions, including procedures, legislation and constitutional writs. Practical steps for the planning and application of strategic litigation, such as media strategy and case selection, are outlined in part three. Finally, part four of the Handbook discusses related challenges in the Myanmar context, including a discussion of requisite reforms required in the justice sector more broadly.."
Source/publisher: International Court of Justice (ICJ) (The Hague)
Date of publication: 2019-09-30
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 514.91 KB (34 pages)
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Title: International Court of Justice (Website)
Description: "The creation of the Court represented the culmination of a long process of developing methods for the pacific settlement of international disputes, the origins of which can be traced back to classical times. Article 33 of the United Nations Charter lists the following methods for the pacific settlement of disputes between States: negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, and resort to regional agencies or arrangements, to which should also be added good offices. Some of these methods involve the services of third parties. For example, mediation places the parties to a dispute in a position in which they can themselves resolve their dispute thanks to the intervention of a third party. Arbitration goes further, in the sense that the dispute is submitted to the decision or award of an impartial third party, so that a binding settlement can be achieved. The same is true of judicial settlement (the method applied by the International Court of Justice), except that a court is subject to stricter rules than an arbitral tribunal, particularly in procedural matters. Historically, mediation and arbitration preceded judicial settlement. The former was known in ancient India and the Islamic world, whilst numerous examples of the latter can be found in ancient Greece, in China, among the Arabian tribes, in maritime customary law in medieval Europe, and in Papal practice..."
Source/publisher: Website
Date of publication: 2019-12-12
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Aung San Suu Kyi appears at ICJ as UN rights expert urges greater protection for Myanmar activists
Description: "“I call on each and every organ of the Myanmar State to ensure that absolutely no reprisals are taken against any group or individual that is advocating for justice and accountability in Myanmar,” said the independent expert in a statement issued on Tuesday, adding that those targeted include members of the Free Rohingya Coalition. Legal proceedings begin The Rohingya are a mainly Muslim population residing in northern Rakhine state in Myanmar, a majority Buddhist country. More than 600,000 members of the minority group fled to neighbouring Bangladesh following a reported military crackdown in August 2017. Numerous alleged human rights abuses took place, with the then UN human rights chief describing it as bearing all the hallmarks of a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. Ms. Lee recalled that The Gambia in November filed an application against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the main judicial organ of the United Nations. The West African country brought the case to the world court on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). The ICJ proceedings began on Tuesday in The Hague, with Nobel peace laureate and Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi also present in court to defend the country against accusations of genocide. She is due to address the court on Wednesday. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has also authorized an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya, while criminal complaints of genocide and crimes against humanity have been filed in Argentina under the principle of universal jurisdiction..."
Source/publisher: UN News
Date of publication: 2019-12-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Aung San Suu Kyi impassive as genocide hearing begins
Sub-title: World’s failure to act over Myanmar is ‘stain on collective conscience’, UN court told
Description: "Aung San Suu Kyi has sat impassively through graphic accounts of mass murder and rape perpetrated by Myanmar’s military at the start of a three-day hearing into allegations of genocide at the UN’s highest court. “I stand before you to awaken the conscience of the world and arouse the voice of the international community,” Abubacarr Marie Tambadou, the Gambia’s attorney general and justice minister, said as he opened his country’s case against Myanmar at the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague. “In the words of Edmund Burke: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ “Another genocide is unfolding right before our eyes yet we do nothing to stop it,” he said. “This is a stain on our collective conscience. It’s not only the state of Myanmar that is on trial here, it’s our collective humanity that is being put on trial.” Before dawn on Tuesday, a long queue had formed outside the Peace Palace in the Dutch city to witness the first of three days of hearings that will focus attention on military clearance operations in 2017 against the Rohingya Muslim minority, 700,000 of whom were forced to flee across the border to neighbouring Bangladesh..."
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Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
Date of publication: 2019-12-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Ethnic Groups Support ICJ Rohingya Genocide Lawsuit Against Burma Government And Its Military
Sub-title: The International Court of Justice began its hearing on December 10 in The Hague, Netherlands on its genocide lawsuit filed by Gambia against Burma government.
Description: "Prior to the court hearing, several ethnic Karen, Karenni and Shan civil society groups put out a joint statement supporting Gambia’s lawsuit. On December 2, 2019 the Worldwide Karen Community issued a statement welcoming the filing of the genocide case against Burma at the ICJ and the decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to proceed with an investigation into the crime of deportation against the Rohingya. The statement endorsed by 48 Karen civil society organizations around the world said that as the Rohingya case, Karen people suffered for decades from systematic human rights violations by the Burma Army. The Worldwide Karen Community statement said; “this is a critical time for action. It is urgently needed for the international community to exert further pressure, including economic sanctions, to push for a complete halt to Burma Army offensives throughout the country – and to start a genuine, inclusive dialogue. Only a new federal constitution, granting the ethnic people their right to autonomy, and bringing the Burma Army under civilian control, can bring an end to the civil war and the ongoing crimes by the Burma Army.” On December 8, the Karen Grassroots Women Network put out a statement supporting the ICJ lawsuit saying that for decades, women have experienced and witnessed the abuse of ethnic people in Burma taking place with impunity..."
Source/publisher: "Karen News" (Myanmar)
Date of publication: 2019-12-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: 'Genocidal intent': Myanmar faces genocide case at ICJ
Description: "A three-day hearing initiated after Gambia filed lawsuit in November on Rohingya crisis. Aung San Suu Kyi arrived at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Tuesday for a highly anticipated genocide case against Myanmar. The case, the first international legal attempt to bring Myanmar to justice over alleged mass killings of the Rohingya minority, comes after the Gambia on November 11 filed an application at the ICJ, accusing Myanmar of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention. More than 700,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh to escape the violence..."
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Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2019-12-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: International Court of Justice (Wikipedia)
Description: "The International Court of Justice (ICJ),[1] sometimes called the World Court, is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). The ICJ's primary functions are to settle international legal disputes submitted by states (contentious cases) and give advisory opinions on legal issues referred to it by the UN (advisory proceedings). Through its opinions and rulings, it serves as a source of international law. The ICJ is the successor of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), which was established by the League of Nations in 1920 and began its first session in 1922. After the Second World War, both the League and the PCIJ were succeeded by the United Nations and ICJ, respectively. The Statute of the ICJ draws heavily from that of its predecessor, and the latter's decisions remain valid. All members of the UN are party to the ICJ Statute. The ICJ comprises a panel of 15 judges elected by the General Assembly and Security Council for nine-year terms. The court is seated in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, making it the only principal U.N. organ not located in New York City.[2] Its official working languages are English and French. he first permanent institution established for the purpose of settling international disputes was the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), which was created by the Hague Peace Conference of 1899. Initiated by Russian Czar Nicholas II, the conference involved all the world's major powers, as well as several smaller states, resulted in the first multilateral treaties concerned with the conduct of warfare.[3] Among these was the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, which set forth the institutional and procedural framework for arbitral proceedings, which would take place in The Hague, Netherlands. Although the proceedings would be supported by a permanent bureau—whose functions would be equivalent to that of a secretariat or court registry—the arbitrators would be appointed by the disputing states from a larger pool provided by each member of the Convention. The PCA was established in 1900 and began proceedings in 1902. A second Hague Peace Conference in 1907, which involved most of the world's sovereign states, revised the Convention and enhanced the rules governing arbitral proceedings before the PCA. During this conference, the United States, Great Britain and Germany submitted a joint proposal for a permanent court whose judges would serve full-time. As the delegates could not agree as to how the judges would be selected, the matter was temporarily shelved pending an agreement to be adopted at a later convention. The Hague Peace Conferences, and the ideas that emerged therefrom, influenced the creation of the Central American Court of Justice, which was established in 1908 as one of the earliest regional judicial bodies. Various plans and proposals were made between 1911 and 1919 for the establishment of an international judicial tribunal, which would not be realized into the formation of a new international system following the First World War..."
Source/publisher: Wikipedia
Date of publication: 2019-12-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: A Journalist Looks Back as Myanmar's Government Faces Genocide Charges
Description: "The sight of more than a dozen young men armed with machetes walking out of a burning village in Western Myanmar is the moment I realized that I was witnessing a genocide in progress. In the eight years I spent documenting a campaign of oppression against the country's ethnic minority Rohingya Muslims, I had heard countless tales from victims who had endured or witnessed atrocities committed by Myanmar's security forces. Now, I was witnessing it in real time during the tail end of a government-approved press tour to Rakhine state’s conflict zone in September of 2017. Two men, barefoot and wearing traditional longyis, stopped briefly on a dirt footpath in front of me as I filmed the destruction. A journalist asked what they were doing. Speaking a local dialect, one replied that they had been ordered by Myanmar's Border Guard Forces (BGF) to burn the village. At their feet lay plastic jugs with diesel fuel. Behind them, orange flames devoured the bamboo huts in the now-empty hamlet of Gaw du Thara.
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Source/publisher: "VOA" (Washington, D.C)
Date of publication: 2019-12-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar's Suu Kyi to take stand in genocide case at The Hague
Sub-title: In an unprecedented move, former human rights icon defends Myanmar generals over mass killings, rape, and displacement.
Description: "Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi will defend genocide allegations against Myanmar's military on Wednesday amid accusations of mass killings, rape, and expulsion of the Rohingya Muslim minority. The Gambia, a small West African country, launched the case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations's highest court, alleging it violated the 1948 Genocide Convention. More: New Rohingya book tells of the 'slow burn of genocide' Aung San Suu Kyi arrives at ICJ as Myanmar faces genocide case US slaps sanctions on Myanmar military chief over Rohingya abuses Aung San Suu Kyi - once a human rights icon who fought against the powerful military for democracy - shocked critics and galvanised supporters at home by travelling to The Hague to head her country's delegation. Her office said she was going to "defend the national interest". She listened impassively on Tuesday as lawyers for The Gambia detailed graphic testimony of suffering of Rohingya at the hands of Myanmar's security forces, including gang rape, torture, and murder. "It was very important to see her have to sit inches away from people who were describing - in really painfully excruciating detail - all the horrible crimes of the Burmese military that happened on her watch," Brad Adams, of New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), told Al Jazeera..."
Source/publisher: "Al Jazeera" (Qatar)
Date of publication: 2019-12-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Netherlands: ICJ begins hearings on Myanmar genocide allegations
Description: "The International Court of Justice (ICJ) kicked off its first hearings on The Gambia's case against Myanmar over accusations of genocide against the Rohingya people in The Hague on Tuesday. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, and one-time champion for human rights, Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi attended Tuesday's hearing at the ICJ, representing Myanmar, in a move which has been widely criticised. "All that The Gambia asks is that you tell Myanmar to stop these senseless killings, to stop these acts of barbarity that continue to shock our collective conscience, to stop this genocide of its own people." Gambia's Attorney General and Justice Minister Abubacarr M. Tambadou said during the hearing. The Gambia is seeking provisional measures to protect the rights of Rohingya people under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention..."
Source/publisher: "Ruptly" (Berlin)
Date of publication: 2019-12-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-11
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948.
Description: "The Contracting Parties , Having considered the declaration made by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its resolution 96 (I) dated 11 December 1946 that genocide is a crime under international law, contrary to the spirit and aims of the United Nations and condemned by the civilized world, Recognizing that at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity, and Being convinced that, in order to liberate mankind from such an odious scourge, international co-operation is required, Hereby agree as hereinafter provided : Article I The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish. Article II In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Article III The following acts shall be punishable: (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt to commit genocide; (e) Complicity in genocide..."
Source/publisher: ICJ, United Nations
Date of publication: 1948-12-09
Date of entry/update: 2017-10-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
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