‘The Most Persecuted Minority in the World’ — THE GENOCIDE OF THE ROHINGYA

‘The Most Persecuted Minority in the World’ — THE GENOCIDE OF THE ROHINGYA

By Islamic Human Rights Commission, U.K.

1. This report focuses on the way in which the international crime of genocide is being committed against the Rohingya with impunity by the state of Myanmar, in particular, its military. It also details how crimes against humanity are being perpetrated. The Islamic Human Rights Commission has collected evidence from Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh regarding atrocities committed on and around 25 August 2017. The report also considers the history of persecution of the Rohingya, contextualising the international crimes that have and are currently being committed.
2. Our report shows that the three elements of the international crime of genocide are present in violence committed against the Rohingya. They are a group, there have been genocidal acts committed against them, and these acts have the intent to destroy them in whole or in part.
3. The crimes committed against the Rohingya also amount to crimes against humanity. Our report shows how the violence meets the legal threshold for crimes against humanity. We show that there have been widespread and systematic attacks against civilian populations, the acts committed fall within the definition contained in Article 7 of the Rome Statute, and there is a state or organizational policy to commit the attacks.
4. The Islamic Human Rights Commission makes the following recommendations based on its findings:
5. The international community should pressure the Myanmar government to immediately stop attacks against the Rohingya and anti-Muslim violence in general by groups in Myanmar. There are also Hindu Rohingya that have been persecuted and displaced.
6. The UN Security Council should refer the matter to the ICC Prosecutor in accordance with Article 13(2) of the Rome Statute. It is clear that Myanmar is unwilling and unable to investigate the crimes itself.

iii. IHRC welcomes the ICC Prosecutor’s request for a ruling from the ICC on whether it may exercise jurisdiction over the deportation of Rohingya to Bangladesh, under the crime of deportation (the enforced displacement of individuals across an international border),1 and recommends the ICC Prosecutor’s continued investigation into crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide committed in Myanmar.

1. In support of the recommendation given by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, IHRC suggests that the UN Human Rights Council make a recommendation to the General Assembly to establish a “new impartial and independent mechanism… to assist individual criminal investigations of those responsible.”
2. UN mandated International Observers should be sent to Arakan State, which may discourage further attacks and can provide the international community with reliable information.
3. The international community, including ASEAN and the UN, should urge the government of Myanmar to abide by the decision of the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee of 12 November 2013 to grant citizenship to the Rohingya, allow the internally and externally displaced to return, and cease all forms of discrimination and abuse against them in particular and Muslims and other discriminated minorities in general. vii. The international community should support governments in the region in abiding by the international law of nonrefoulement by protecting refugees and asylum seekers, allowing them into their country and not removing them to Myanmar where they are in danger of further persecution.
4. The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) is an independent, non-profit, campaigns, research and advocacy organisation based in London, UK. Since its establishment in 1997, the IHRC has developed relations with a wide range of different organisations around the world in order to campaign for justice for all peoples, regardless of their racial, confessional or political background.
5. IHRC has at the core of its mandate the investigation of human rights abuses and seeks to utilise the existing international legal framework for the referral of such abuses to all relevant international bodies, including the UN Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
6. This report focuses on the way in which the international crime of genocide is being committed against the Rohingya with impunity by the Myanmar state, in particular, the military. It also details how crimes against humanity are being perpetrated. IHRC has collected evidence from Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh regarding atrocities committed on and around 25 August 2017. The report also considers the history of persecution of the Rohingya, contextualising the international crimes that have been and are currently being committed.

The International Legal Framework – Accountability and Enforcement

8. The international criminal framework and the international human rights framework provide two overlapping bases for analysing the atrocities committed in Myanmar.
9. Myanmar is a signatory to the Genocide Convention. Under Article 1 of the Convention, signatories accept that genocide is an international crime. Under the same provision, Myanmar is bound to prevent and punish genocide. However, the enforcement mechanisms under the Convention for any genocide committed by Myanmar are particularly weak for two reasons. Firstly, Myanmar has made a reservation against the Genocide Convention that prevents any “foreign Courts and tribunals jurisdiction over any cases of genocide … within the Union [or Burma] territory.” Secondly, the Genocide Convention does not have an associated Treaty Body to monitor state compliance with the Convention. Consequently, whilst the Genocide Convention provides a legal definition of genocide by which to analyse what is happening in Myanmar, it does not necessarily provide an international judicial mechanism for holding Myanmar authorities to account.
10. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) uses the same definition as that contained in the Genocide Convention. Myanmar is not a signatory to the Rome Statute and therefore has not accepted the jurisdiction of the ICC in relation to the crimes contained within it. However, in accordance with Article 13(2), the UN Security Council has authority to refer cases to The Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC and one of the objectives of this communication is to encourage such a referral.
11. IHRC is aware that the ICC will only exercise its jurisdiction when the country in question is unwilling or unable to investigate the crimes itself. Myanmar’s UN representative has denied that there has been genocide or ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. The state also maintains that its actions against the Rohingya have been for national security purposes, to tackle ‘terrorism’ and ‘militants’, with Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, blaming ‘fake news’ for promoting the interests of ‘terrorists’. The fact the state refuses to acknowledge that potential international crimes may have been committed demonstrates an unwillingness and inability to investigate the crimes itself.
12. The UN Human Rights Commissioner and successive Special Rapporteurs on the human rights situation in Myanmar have investigated and collected evidence regarding the “widespread, systematic and shocking brutal attacks against the Rohingya community by the Myanmar security forces, acting at times in concert with local militia.” This report relies on and builds on that evidence, supporting the recommendation given by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that the UN Human Rights Council make a recommendation to the General Assembly to establish a “new impartial and independent mechanism… to assist individual criminal investigations of those responsible.”

Structure of this report

13. This report starts by setting out the methodology used by IHRC during its factfinding mission in Bangladesh in September 2017. This is followed by some geographical context for the crimes committed in Myanmar (for historical context please see Appendix A). The report goes on to consider the crime of genocide, setting out the legal framework and providing factual evidence satisfying each of the legal components of this crime. Thereafter, crimes against humanity are dealt with in the same way. The report ends by offering some recommendations to international bodies, with the objectives of ending the suffering of the Rohingya and holding those responsible for these international crimes to account.