‘Violence in Rakhine state could amount to crimes against humanity’

KUALA LUMPUR: The violence against the Rohingya community in Myanmar’s Rakhine state as documented in a recent United Nations ( UN) human rights report could amount to crimes against humanity and need to be stopped right now, said UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng.

“If people are being persecuted based on their identity and killed, tortured, raped and forcibly transferred in a widespread or systematic manner, this could amount to crimes against humanity, and in fact be the precursor of other egregious international crimes,” he said in a statement Monday, on the UN’s website.

Dieng added that the scale of violence against the minority population is a level of dehumanisation and cruelty that is ‘ revolting and unacceptable’, underlining the Government’s responsibility to ensure that populations are protected.

He said the flash report issued last week by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ( OHCHR) gave further credibility to allegations that security forces were committing serious human rights violations against civilians from the very beginning of the recent escalation of violence, which was precipitated by attacks on border posts in early October 2016 and the ensuing operations by those forces.

According to the findings contained in the OHCHR report, human rights violations committed by the security forces include mass gang-rape, extrajudicial killings including of babies and young children, brutal beatings and disappearances.

Dieng also expressed concern that the commission previously appointed by the Government to investigate the allegations and which, despite having unhindered access to the region, found no evidence, or insufficient evidence, of any wrongdoing by Government forces. — Bernama