Staff Reporter:Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2020 published on Tuesday that the wheels of international justice are finally turning on atrocities committed against the Rohingyas in Myanmar, as the two international courts now examining the atrocities committed against the Rohingyas in Myanmar.
The HRW report said that the Myanmar government faced increasing pressure last year for international justice for its human rights violations against the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities.
HRW Asia Deputy Director Phil Robertson said, “The report also said that in Myanmar, the respect for free expression and assembly also declined sharply as the authorities escalated their use of repressive criminal laws.”
He said, “Myanmar’s failure to hold its military accountable for atrocities against the Rohingya is finally turning the wheels of international justice.Two international courts are now examining whether Myanmar committed genocide and who should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity against the Rohingyas.”
In the World Report, the global rights body reviewed human rights practices about 100 countries.
In his introductory essay, HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth also said that the Chinese government, is carrying out the most intense attack on the global human rights system in decades.
Myanmar appeared before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on December 10-12 in 2019 to respond to a complaint filed by Gambia for alleged violations of the Genocide Convention. Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi rejected the genocide allegations, claiming that there was no orchestrated campaign of persecution despite considerable evidence of military atrocities against the Rohingyas.
Earlier in November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) authorised the ICC prosecutor to investigate alleged crimes against humanity, namely deportation, other inhumane acts, and persecution against Rohingyas in Myanmar since October 2016.
Almost one million Rohingyas are living in camps in Bangladesh after fleeing the Myanmar military’s ethnic cleansing campaign that began in August 2017. The estimated 600,000 Rohingyas still remaining in Myanmar live in dire conditions, subjected to government persecution, violence, extreme restrictions on movement, and deprivation of food and health care, HRW mentioned in the report.
“Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy government promised to overturn repressive laws enacted during military rule. Instead they are using those laws to attack their critics and have even introduced new repressive legislation,” the report said.
