Rohingya Muslim refugee Mohammad Karim, 26, shows a mobile video of a massacre, in Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh, on Jan 14, 2017. On Sept 9, a villager from Gu Dar Pyin in Myanmar’s Rakhine state captured three videos of mass graves that were time-stamped between 10.12am and 10.14am, when he said soldiers chased him away. When he fled to Bangladesh, Karim removed the memory card from his phone, wrapped it in plastic and tied it to his thigh to hide it from Myanmar police. (AP Photo)
JAKARTA: The UN’s human rights chief has warned that Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority has the potential to spark regional conflict.
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein reiterated while in Indonesia on Monday that acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing may have occurred in the campaign of violence against Rohingya that sparked an exodus of nearly 1 million people to neighbouring Bangladesh.
“Myanmar faces a very serious crisis with a potentially severe impact on the security of the region,” Zaid said in a speech to a rights conference at Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“It is sometimes said that today’s human rights violations will become tomorrow’s conflicts,” he said. “If the Rohingya crisis were to spark a broader conflict based on religious identities, the ensuing disputes could be a cause for great alarm.”
Zeid said the spasms of violence that began in August and sparked the refugee crisis were the culmination of five decades of discrimination and violence against Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
The government of predominantly Buddhist Myanmar denies any atrocities have taken place and insists Rohingya are illegal immigrants.
Zeid also expressed concern about the deteriorating state of democracy in Asia even as countries in the region become wealthier.
On the pretext of protecting public security, numerous governments are cracking down on freedom of expression and attacking the independence of the court system and independence of the press, he said.
Indonesia’s poor human rights record including persecution of religious minorities, LGBT people and indigenous Papuans is expected to be under scrutiny during Zeid’s three-day visit.
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As Myanmar continues to deny killing the Rohingya people, 5 mass graves have been uncovered pic.twitter.com/YyjQNaF30I
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) February 3, 2018
