Is Rohingya genocide related to their religion?
Answers
Answer:
Explanation:
The Rohingya genocide is a series of ongoing persecutions by the Myanmar government against the Muslim Rohingya people which consists of two phases, the first of which began in October 2016 and ended in January 2017 and the second of which began in August 2017 and is ongoing as of now. The crisis has forced over a million Rohingyas to flee to neighboring countries, most of whom have fled to Bangladesh with others going to India, Thailand, Malaysia and other parts of South and Southeast Asia. The largest wave of Rohingyas to flee Myanmar occurred in 2017 and it resulted in the largest human exodus in Asia since the Vietnam War.[10] The 2016 military crackdown on the Rohingya people has drawn criticism from the UN (which cited possible "crimes against humanity"), the human rights group Amnesty International, the U.S. Department of State, the government of neighboring Bangladesh, and the government of Malaysia (where many Rohingya refugees have fled). The Myanmar leader and State Counsellor (de facto head of government) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has particularly been criticized for her inaction and silence over the issue and for doing little to prevent military abuses.[11][12][13][14][15] Under her leadership, Myanmar has also drawn criticism for prosecutions of journalists.[16]
In late 2016 Myanmar's armed forces and police started a major crackdown on Rohingya people in Rakhine State in the country's northwestern region. The Burmese military have been accused of ethnic cleansing and genocide by various United Nations agencies, International Criminal Court officials, human rights groups, journalists, and governments including the United States.[17][18][19][20][21][22] The UN[23][24][25] has found evidence of wide-scale human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings; gang rapes; arson of Rohingya villages, businesses, and schools; and infanticides, which the Burmese government dismisses as "exaggerations".[26][27]
Using statistical extrapolations based on surveys conducted with a total of 3,321 Rohingya refugee households in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, a study[4] estimated in January 2018 that during the genocide, the military and the local Rakhine Buddhists killed at least 24,000 Rohingya people, gang rapes and other forms of sexual violence against 18,000 Rohingya Muslim women and girls, 116,000 Rohingya were beaten, and 36,000 Rohingya were thrown into fire.[4][5][6][7][8][9]
The military drive also displaced a large number of Rohingya people, spurring a refugee crisis. According to UN reports, as of September 2018, over 700,000 Rohingya people had fled or had been driven out of Rakhine state who then took shelter in the neighboring Bangladesh as refugees. In December 2017, two Reuters journalists who had been covering the Inn Din massacre event were arrested and imprisoned. Foreign Secretary Myint Thu told reporters Myanmar is prepared to accept 2,000 Rohingya refugees from camps in Bangladesh in November 2018.[28]
The 2017 persecution against the Rohingya Muslims and non-Muslims has also been termed as ethnic cleansing and genocide by various UN agencies, ICC officials, human rights groups, and governments.[29][30][31][32][33][22][34] Former British Prime Minister Theresa May and former United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called it "ethnic cleansing" while the French President Emmanuel Macron described the situation as "genocide".[35][36][37]
The UN described the persecution as "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing". In late September that year, a seven-member panel of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal found the Myanmar military and the Myanmar authority guilty of the crime of genocide against the Rohingya and the Kachin minority groups.[38][39] Suu Kyi was again criticized for her silence over the issue and for supporting the military actions.[40]
Subsequently, in November 2017, the governments of Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a deal to facilitate the return of Rohingya refugees to their native Rakhine state within two months, drawing a mixed response from international onlookers.[41]
In August 2018, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, reporting the findings of their investigation into the August–September 2017 events, declared that the Myanmar military generals should be tried for genocide. [42][43][44][45][46] On 24 September 2018, Jeremy Hunt, the British Foreign Secretary, held a meeting with some other foreign ministers on the sideline of the United Nations General Assembly to discuss the crisis in Rohingya.[47]
On 27 September 2018, members of the Canadian Parliament voted unanimously to dispossess Suu Kyi of her honorary Canadian citizenship for the atrocities against Rohingya Muslims.[48]
On 23 January 2020, the United Nations’ highest court has ordered Myanmar to prevent genocidal violence against its Rohingya Muslim minority and preserve evidence of past attacks.[49]