Dozens of humanitarian groups demand UN rights council session on Rohingya crisis
Dozens of humanitarian groups have called for the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to hold a special session on the ongoing violence against the persecuted Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
The Britain-based Amnesty International and nearly three dozen other humanitarian groups made the demand in an open letter addressed to the 47-member council on Monday.
We “strongly support calls for a UN Human Rights Council special session on the deteriorating human rights situation in Myanmar and urge your delegations to support holding such a session as soon as possible,” the groups said.
“In light of serious reports of human rights violations … we believe that a special session is imperative to launch decisive action and ensure international scrutiny and monitoring of the situation.”
The groups said the council should adopt a resolution that would call on the Myanmar government to “immediately cease all human rights violations, including crimes against humanity” and allow human rights groups “full and unfettered access to all parts of the country.
In all, the UN group has held 26 sessions since its inception in 2006. A special session may be held at the request of at least a third of the member states, or 16 countries.
Earlier this month the UN Security Council dropped plans to adopt a resolution demanding an end to the violence in Myanmar.
More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have so far fled the predominantly-Buddhist Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh since August 25, when the crackdown on the Rohingya intensified in Rakhine state.
During the past three months, government troops, apart from raping, have been committing killings, making arbitrary arrests, and carrying out mass arson of houses in hundreds of predominantly-Rohingya villages in the restive state.
The UN has already described the Rohingya as the most persecuted community in the world, calling the situation in Rakhine similar to “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
Rights groups say Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya constitutes crime against humanity.
Estimates as to how many Muslims have been killed vary from 1,000 to 3,000.
At the root of the crisis is the refusal by Myanmar to grant citizenship to the Muslim minority community.
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