ICC arrest warrant sought for Myanmar junta chief over Rohingya crimes against humanity

The International Criminal Court’s main authoritative has requested an apprehension warrant for Myanmar’s subject person for crimes against humanity linked to the persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority.

General Min Aung Hlaing – who overthrew elected person Aung San Suu Kyi successful a 2021 coup – faces accusations of crimes against humanity for orchestrating the deportation and persecution of the Rohingya minority.

In a statement, the ICC main authoritative Karim Khan said that the tribunal has been investigating alleged crimes committed during the 2016 and 2017 waves of unit successful Rakhine State, Myanmar, and the consequent exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar to Bangladesh.

“After an extended inquiry, the ICC has recovered tenable grounds to judge that Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing is criminally liable for crimes against humanity, including deportation and persecution of the Rohingya, committed with the engagement of Myanmar’s subject and constabulary forces,” Mr Khan said.

The exertion for his apprehension – the archetypal targeting a high-ranking Myanmar authoritative – is supported by witnesser testimonies, documents, and technological evidence, with important backing from the Rohingya community, the Bangladeshi government, and the UN, the ICC main authoritative said.

“More than a million members of their (Rohingya) assemblage person been forced to fly violence successful Myanmar. We are grateful to each those who provided grounds and enactment to my Office, those that person shared their stories, those that person fixed america accusation and material,” Mr Khan said.

The Myanmar authorities person not yet responded to ICC main prosecutor’s announcement. Min Aung Hlaing has antecedently denied allegations of persecuting Rohingyas, and rejected claims of engagement successful unit successful the 2017 crisis. He has claimed that the Myanmar subject cognition was a morganatic effect to attacks by Rohingya militants.

In June this year, UN peculiar rapporteur Thomas Andrews warned that the Rohingya successful Myanmar’s Rakhine authorities faced a renewed hazard of “genocidal violence,” akin to the 2016-2017 atrocities. Ongoing clashes betwixt Myanmar’s subject and the Arakan Army – an taste equipped radical operating successful Myanmar’s Rakhine State that advocates for the rights of the Rakhine taste number and aims to execute greater autonomy oregon self-determination for the portion – person displaced tens of thousands, with reports of killings, abductions, and spot destruction.

The subject has forcibly conscripted implicit 1,000 Rohingya men and boys contempt their deficiency of citizenship, exacerbating tensions.

Human Rights Watch and the UN person documented superior abuses, including airstrikes and civilian attacks.

“For Rohingya radical – oppressed, scapegoated, exploited, and stuck betwixt warring parties – the concern carries echoes of the lead-up to genocidal unit successful 2016 and 2017,” Mr Andrews told the United Nations Human Rights Council successful June.

Mr Khan said connected Wednesday: “In my visits to the Kutupalong exile camp successful Cox’s Bazar implicit the past 3 years, including conscionable yesterday, I met with Rohingya women who spoke with clarity and intent astir the request for accountability.

“I sat with younker activists who wanted to play their ain relation successful seeking justice. And I spoke with men of each ages including the aged and the sick, who were agreed successful demanding to beryllium seen and to person accountability for what befell them. Our work, the enactment of the International Criminal Court, seeks to vindicate their resilience and their anticipation successful the powerfulness of the law.”

ICC judges volition present determine if the apprehension warrant exertion meets the required standards and if approved, the tribunal volition enactment with its registrar to facilitate the subject leader’s arrest.

Myanmar’s subject junta has faced important sanctions and isolation from Western countries, particularly aft the 2021 coup and for its relation successful what has been called the 2017 Rohingya “genocide”.

On Wednesday, speaking from a exile campy successful Bangladesh, Mr Khan announced plans to question further apprehension warrants for Myanmar’s leaders successful the adjacent future. “In doing so, we volition beryllium demonstrating, unneurotic with each of our partners, that the Rohingya person not been forgotten. That they, similar each radical astir the world, are entitled to the extortion of the law.”