Stop killing by the Myanmar junta
THE Muslim Judicial Council of South Africa (MJC) is outraged by authentic reports that have emerged from Myanmar regarding the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya, a minority Muslim ethnic civilian population.
In recent months, about 200 000 Rohingya have been internally displaced with more than 300 000 having fled to Bangladesh amid an alleged military crackdown on insurgents in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state.
Innocent Rohingya are being killed, burnt or tortured with impunity.
Amnesty International has accused the Myanmar army of gross human rights violations while a Human Rights Watch report said the Rohingya are being targeted in a campaign described as “ethnic cleansing”.
Hundreds of buildings have been destroyed in at least 17 sites across the Rakhine state since August 25, including 700 structures that appeared to have been burnt down, satellite imagery analysed by Human Rights Watch illustrated.
Further atrocities include forceful seizure of babies from their mother’s arms and throwing them into rivers; rape of women and beheadings evidenced by horrific, graphic images.
These ghastly acts are being perpetrated against the Rohingya by the Myanmar military junta in Rakhine state, aided by ultra-nationalist right-wing Buddhist groups and Rakhine Buddhists.
As South Africans who experienced the tyranny of apartheid – with family or friends who fought for and died for the freedoms we are experiencing – we cannot and will not sit idly by when the same curtailment of religious freedom occurs in another country.
The MJC (SA) calls on you to jointly take a stand against the genocide of the Rohingya people. Protect the Rohingya staged a protest at the Embassy of the Union of Myanmar in Pretoria on Friday where it demanded:
The immediate cessation of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The immediate arrest, investigation and prosecution of ultra-nationalist right-wing Buddhists who spew out anti-Muslim hate speech and incite violence that is casually linked to the genocide of the Rohingya.
Access to rehabilitation for all victims suffering from the effects of war and genocide.
Rohingya people must be given back their citizenship, freedom to practice their religion, the rights to freely associate, freedom of trade, freedom of movement, education, privacy and all other fundamental rights accorded with human dignity.
The Myanmar government and its military junta must cease immediately the purchase of “field tested” weapons and arms used on the Rohingya, from the apartheid state of Israel which uses such munitions in the persecution and subjugation of the Palestinian people.
International human rights organisations and prominent activists, including and Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have said that the failure to act on the Rohingya crisis would be a failure on the part of Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi as a Nobel laureate representing peace and the fight for human rights.
Silence and inaction will lead to starvation, disease and ultimately the genocide of the Rohingya. SHAYKH IRAFAAN ABRAHAMS
President of the Muslim Judicial Council of South Africa