{"id":13136,"date":"2018-08-29T10:35:21","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T10:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13136"},"modified":"2018-08-29T10:35:21","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T10:35:21","slug":"myanmar-rejects-un-findings-in-rohingya-genocide-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13136","title":{"rendered":"Myanmar rejects UN findings in Rohingya genocide report"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Myanmar<\/a>‘s government has rejected a United Nations’ report on mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya<\/a>, which calls for Myanmar officials to face genocide charges over their campaign against the Muslim minority.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, a senior spokesperson for the government denied the UN<\/a>‘s findings, calling the allegations false, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.<\/p>\n

“We didn’t allow the FFM (the UN Fact-Finding Mission) to enter into Myanmar, that’s why we don’t agree and accept any resolutions made by the Human Rights Council,” Zaw Htay said in the newspaper<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Htay said Myanmar has “zero tolerance for human rights violations”, adding that his country has an “accountability and responsibility framework regarding human rights issues.”<\/p>\n

“We shall take any action against violation of human rights”, Htay said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also said the country has set up its own Independent Commission of Inquiry in “response to the false allegations by the UN agencies and other international agencies”.<\/p>\n

On Monday, UN investigators said they had found<\/a> Myanmar’s armed forces had taken actions that “undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law”, forcing more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee starting in late August 2017.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Geneva on Monday, Marzuki Darusman, the mission’s chairman, said his researchers amassed evidence based on 875 interviews with witnesses and victims, satellite imagery, and verified photos and videos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marzuki said victim accounts were “amongst the most shocking human rights violations” he had come across and would “leave a mark on all of us for the rest of our lives”.<\/p>\n

Its assessment suggests crimes against the Rohingya could meet the strict legal definition used for genocide in places such as Bosnia<\/a>, Rwanda<\/a> and Sudan’s Darfur<\/a> region.<\/p>\n

The team cited a “conservative” estimate from aid group Reporters Without Borders that some 10,000 people had been killed in the violence, but outside investigators have had no access to the affected regions, making a precise accounting elusive, if not impossible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The UN report said military generals, including Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing, must face investigation and prosecution for “genocidal<\/a> intent” in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state, as well as crimes against humanity and other war crimes in the states of Kachin and Shan.<\/p>\n

The report singled out Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, but added that other Myanmar security agencies were also involved in abuses.<\/p>\n

Myanmar UN Ambassador Hau Do Suan questioned the report’s, saying that Myanmar “did not accept the mandate of the mission because we have our concern about the mission’s impartiality.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Following the release of those findings, several countries in the UN Security Council – including the US, Britain, France and Sweden – called for Myanmar’s military leaders to be held accountable.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

China and Russia, both permanent members of the Security Council, said they prefer engaging in dialogue with Myanmar in an attempt to resolve the issue.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is currently unclear if the International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction over the crisis since Myanmar is not a signatory to the court.<\/p>\n

However, the crisis spilled over into Bangladesh, which is part of the ICC, possibly allowing for legal action to be taken.<\/p>\n

Facebook’s\u00a0<\/h2>\n

The government spokesperson also heavily criticised social media Facebook for its removal of the pages\u00a0Myanmar’s army chief and other high-ranking military officials.<\/p>\n

“We have many questions regarding the removal of these Facebook accounts and pages, such as: why did they ban, further details on the reasons of banning and how can we retrieve these accounts and pages,” Htay said.<\/p>\n

Facebook undertook action last week, months after the UN said hate speech against the Rohingya was spread on Facebook, playing a major role in the humanitarian crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, said in March<\/a>\u00a0that social media had played a “determining role” in\u00a0Myanmar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It has … substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict, if you will, within the public. Hate speech is certainly, of course, a part of that. As far as the Myanmar situation is concerned, social media is Facebook, and Facebook is social media,” he said.<\/p>\n

At the time, Facebook said “there was no space for hate speech” on its platform.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Myanmar’s government has rejected a United Nations’ report on mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya, which calls for Myanmar officials to face genocide charges over their campaign against the Muslim minority. On Wednesday, a senior spokesperson for the government denied the UN’s findings, calling the allegations false, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}