Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (Rome) Takes up ‘Urgent Case’ of Myanmar’s Rohingya

Dear Mr Ippolito, Dr Tognoni and Ms Fraudatario,

We, the undersigned group of researchers, academics, and activists, in coalition with global Rohingya refugees, hereby request that the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) take up the urgent case of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority. We make this request in response to the well documented unfolding and escalating genocide in Rakhine state, Myanmar.

We ask that the Tribunal examine the current crisis in the context of historical evidence of recurring patterns of persecution by the Myanmar state against the Rohingya, that have precipitated at least three waves of mass exodus since the 1970s.

We make this request on the basis of compelling evidence of ongoing: widespread institutional discrimination; state sponsored hate crime; mass killings; mass sexual violence; wholesale destruction of communities and neighbourhoods; massive forced displacement; apartheid structures of segregation; targeted population control; state denial of Rohingya identity; forced labour; denial of access to livelihood, healthcare, freedom of movement, and food. Evidence of these genocidal violations, with blanket impunity, is to be found in the extensive and systematic research conducted by a range of academic and human rights organisations (Green, MacManus and de la Cour Venning, ISCI, 2015; Zarni and Cowley, 2014; Fortify Rights, 2015; Human Rights Watch, 2012, 2013; ASEAN, 2015). (Courtesy of statecrime.org)