Arakan News Agency
Forty one eminent citizens called on the government on Sunday to respond to the request of the International Criminal Court for providing it with observations and evidences so that the court could decide if it has jurisdiction over Myanmar to open an investigation into the expulsion of minority Rohingyas from the country.
The government, they said in a joint statement, ‘should provide the court with all information in its possession about the circumstances surrounding the presence of the Rohingya’ in Bangladesh.
‘It needs to do so as a matter of principle, because as a State Party to the ICC, Bangladesh has committed itself to promoting accountability for mass atrocities,’ they said.
This would be an important first step in ensuring justice for the victims of the crimes against humanity, which occurred in Myanmar, they said
It would be a significant action for Bangladesh to take as a people and a nation that had suffered horrific war crimes during the Liberation War of 1971, which went unaddressed for too long, they added.
About 7,00,000 Rohingyas, mostly women, children and aged people, entered Bangladesh fleeing unbridled murder, arson and rape during ‘security operations’ by Myanmar military in Arakan, what the United Nations denounced as ethnic cleansing and genocide, beginning from August 25, 2017.
The ongoing Rohingya influx took the number of undocumented Myanmar nationals and registered refugees in Bangladesh to about 11,16,000, according to estimates by UN agencies and Bangladesh foreign ministry.
No significant action was taken within Myanmar to address the alleged crimes.
DRIK founder Shahidul Alam, rights activists Zafrullah Chowdhury, Maleka Begum, Hameeda Hossain, Nur Khan, and Asif Munier, jurists Shahdeen Malik, Jyotirmoy Barua, and Sara Hossain, professors Shahnaz Huda, Sumaiya Khair, Asif Nazrul, Ali Riaz, Lamia Karim, and Ridwanul Hoque, Khushi Kabir of Nijera Kori, Bangladesh Mahila Parishad president Ayesha Khanum, Shujon secretary Badiul Alam Majumdar, UBINIG executive director Farida Akhter, Transparency International Bangladesh executive director Iftekhar Zaman, Shadhona artistic director Lubna Marium, Manzoor Hasan of BRAC University, paediatrician Naila Z Khan, Shireen Huq of Naripokkho, Central Women’s University vice-chancellor Perween Hasan, University Press Limited director Mahrukh Mohiuddin, ActionAid Bangladesh country director Farah Kabir, Gonoshasthaya Kendra CEO Manzur Kadir Ahmed and COAST executive director Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, among others, served the statement.
