‘Rohingya must be seen as valued members of pro-democratic revolution’: rights activists

ISTANBUL (AA) – On the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, human rights defenders have renewed the call for granting full rights to the persecuted community.

“Rohingya are citizens of the country and should be seen by our fellow citizens as valued members of the pro-democratic revolution,” said Zaw Win, human rights specialist at Fortify Rights.

Nearly 1.2 million Rohingya are living in Bangladesh, the majority of whom fled a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August 2017.

While most of them remain in overcrowded camps in the southern Cox’s Bazar district, approximately 30,000 have been relocated to the Bhasan Char islet since late 2020.

Six years on, the Myanmar junta continues to create conditions to destroy the Rohingya and erase their identity, Win said in a statement.

“The military’s misuse of identity documents has been a factor in the genocide trial in The Hague,” he stressed, pointing out: “The world must hold all perpetrators accountable for the ongoing genocide against the Rohingya, including coup leader Min Aung Hlaing.”

In an animated film, the Fortify Rights group said the Myanmar junta is coercing the Rohingya to accept the National Verification Card (NVC), which identifies the Rohingya Muslims as “foreigners.”

It is an effort to “erase their identity,” said the group, calling the NVCs “discriminatory.”

Myanmar is facing a case of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), filed by The Gambia. The junta administration is set to file its response in the international court at The Hague.

“The junta’s efforts violate binding ‘provisional measures’ issued by the ICJ in January 2020, specifically requiring Myanmar to protect the Rohingya from genocide in Rakhine State,” it added.