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Bangladesh lawyers working to refer Myanmar to ICC on behalf of Rohingya

Myanmar soldiers are seen in Maungdaw township, in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State, on September 27, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

A group of lawyers working on behalf of hundreds of Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh is pushing for Myanmar’s military to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for widespread violence against the Muslims.

Lawyers representing some 400 refugees argue that now that the Rohingya people have crossed the border into Bangladesh — a signatory to the Rome Statute of the ICC — they could take action to hold Myanmar accountable.

The case can be described as “one person standing on one side of a border and shooting a person across the border; in that case, a crime is committed in both countries,” they argued.

“Without accountability, without focus on bringing these perpetrators to book, then these types of crimes will continue and are continuing in Myanmar as we speak,” Sky News quoted defense attorney Wayne Jordash as saying. “I have little doubt that they continue because the Myanmar authorities understand that legal options are narrow and bad state actors will shield them from accountability.”

He said the lawyers would press the charges of “apartheid, the crime of genocide and the crime of persecution... by the authorities in Myanmar” at the ICC.

Members of the Rohingya Muslim community have been killed, arbitrarily arrested, and raped by Myanmar’s forces and extremist Buddhists, who have also burned and destroyed Rohingya villages in mass arson attacks.

More than 700,000 members of the minority Muslim group have fled the state-sponsored violence to southeast Bangladesh over the past nine months.

The UN has described the campaign as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing, saying it possibly amounts to genocide as well.

Meanwhile, a Berlin-based civil society organization called on the Bangladeshi government to submit its observations and detailed information obtained from the Rohingya refugees to the ICC.

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) said in a statement on Tuesday that the observations made by Dhaka over the past months would increase the possibility of justice for the Rohingya.

Rohingya refugees are pictured near their shelters in the no man’s land in southern Bangladesh. (Photo by AFP)

“It will be a significant step for Bangladesh to send its observation to ICC,” said TIB Executive Director Iftekharuzzaman. “Also, ethically, Bangladesh can play this role being a member of state to the ICC as part of the responsibility to bring mass killing under the jurisdiction.”

Earlier this month, the ICC sent a letter to Bangladesh saying that the country had been “affected by the events concerning the alleged deportation of Rohingya people from Myanmar,” and it was appropriate to seek its observations on the matter.

Any observation by Bangladesh should include significant legal analysis of the crime of deportation, territorial jurisdiction, and evidence to demonstrate that the Rohingya were lawfully residing in Myanmar and were coerced into leaving the country, according o ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

This prompted “serious concern” in Myanmar, with a government spokesman threatening that the “ICC will have no effect on Myanmar, and the ICC cannot take action on Myanmar.”

Though the Muslim community has lived in Myanmar for generations, its members are denied citizenship and are branded illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, which likewise denies them citizenship.


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