40th Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council
Item 2: General Debate on the High Commissioner’s country reports and oral updates
Oral Statement Delivered by Ahmed Adam
On behalf of the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)
Wednesday, 20 March 2019
Mr President,
FORUM-ASIA welcomes the High Commissioner’s report on the situation of human rights of Rohingya in Rakhine State. We share her concerns on the continuing violations, including sexual and gender-based violence in Rakhine state, and the lack of consultation and participation of Rohingya in decision-making processes both in public life in Rakhine state and in discussions on repatriations.
The Government of Myanmar must urgently implement her recommendations to end the practice of issuing national verification cards to Rohingya, which has no legal basis and, in effect, consolidate their status as foreigners and deny citizenship. We call on the government to restore the full citizenship of the Rohingya, guarantee all civil and political rights to the Rohingya as well as all ethnic and religious minorities, and repeal discriminatory provisions of the “protection of race and religion laws” of 2015.
We call on the Council to take immediate steps to operationalise the Independent Investigative Mechanism (IIM) on Myanmar and on the international community to refer Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to ensure accountability for grave international crimes including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
We further call for coordinated international action against military-run business enterprises that funnel vast revenues to the so-called “Other Accounts” outside the national budget with no transparency and accountability as the military continues to commit these grave international crimes against Rohingya and other minorities in Myanmar.
Thank you.
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