{"id":147732,"date":"2019-11-18T12:01:50","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T12:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=147732"},"modified":"2019-11-25T11:03:31","modified_gmt":"2019-11-25T11:03:31","slug":"icc-gives-green-light-for-probe-into-violent-crimes-against-rohingya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/11\/icc-gives-green-light-for-probe-into-violent-crimes-against-rohingya\/","title":{"rendered":"ICC Gives Green Light for Probe into Violent Crimes against Rohingya"},"content":{"rendered":"

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15 Nov 2019 \u2013 Judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) yesterday authorized an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity, namely deportation, which have forced between 600,000 and one million Rohingya refugees out of Myanmar, into neighboring Bangladesh since 2016. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The pre-trial judges \u201caccepted that there exists a reasonable basis to believe widespread and\/or systematic acts of violence may have been committed that could qualify as crimes against humanity of deportation across the Myanmar-Bangladesh border\u201d the Court said in a\u00a0press statement<\/a>, in addition to \u201cpersecution on grounds of ethnicity and\/or religion against the Rohingya population.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a reported military-led crackdown, widespread killings, rape and village burnings, nearly three-quarters of a million Rohingya fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state in August 2017 to settle in crowded refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh.<\/p>\n

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Pictured here, Rohingya refugee children wade through flood waters surrounding their families’ shelters following an intense pre-monsoon storm in Shamlapur makeshift settlemen in Cox’s Bazar district, Bangladesh.
UNICEF\/UN0213967\/Sokol<\/p><\/div>\n

This is\u00a0the second strike against the alleged crimes this week,\u00a0as\u00a0the\u00a0tribunal\u2019s\u00a0decision follows a Monday\u00a0submission<\/a>\u00a0by Gambia to the UN\u2019s principal judicial organ, the International Court of Justice\u00a0(ICJ),<\/a>\u00a0accusing Myanmar of \u201cmass murder, rape, and genocidal acts\u201d which violate its obligations under the\u00a0Genocide Convention<\/a>, in addition to destruction of villages, arbitrary detention, and torture.<\/p>\n

As a member to the Genocide prevention treaty, Gambia \u201crefused to stay silent\u201d, and as a member of the\u00a0Organisation\u00a0of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the small African nation has taken legal action to assist the persecuted majority-Muslim Rohingya, with support by other Muslim\u00a0countries.<\/p>\n

While the UN\u2019s ICJ, known as the \u2018World Court\u2019, settles disputes submitted by States on a range of matters, the ICC is the world\u2019s only permanent criminal tribunal with a mandate to investigate and prosecute individuals who participate in international atrocity crimes, including genocide and crimes against humanity.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In July, the ICC\u2019s top Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda,\u00a0requested<\/a>\u00a0an investigation be open into the alleged crimes committed since October of 2016, concerning Myanmar and Bangladesh.<\/p>\n

At that\u00a0time,\u00a0her\u00a0Office\u2019s preliminary examination found \u201ca reasonable basis\u201d to believe that at least 700,00 Rohingya were deported from Myanmar to Bangladesh \u201cthrough a range of coercive acts causing suffering and serious injury.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the\u00a0Rome Statute<\/a>\u00a0that created the ICC, which highlights crimes against humanity as one of its four crucial international crimes, the top Prosecutor concluded sufficient legal conditions had been met to open an investigation.<\/p>\n

While Myanmar is not a State party to the treaty, Bangladesh ratified the\u00a0Statute in 2010, meaning\u00a0authorization\u00a0to investigate does not extend to all crimes potentially committed in Myanmar, but will focus on violations committed in part on Bangladeshi territory, the ICC\u00a0said in July.<\/p>\n

\u2018Only Justice and Accountability\u2019 Can Stop the Violence\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Judges forming the pre-trial chamber, Judge Olga Herrera\u00a0Carbuccia, Judge Robert\u00a0Fremr, and Judge\u00a0Geofreey\u00a0Henderson received views on this request by or on behalf of hundreds of thousands of alleged victims.<\/p>\n

According to the ICC Registry, victims insist they want an investigation by the Court, and many \u201cbelieve that only justice and accountability can ensure that the perceived circle of violence and abuse comes to an end.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNoting the\u00a0scale of the alleged crimes and the number of victims allegedly involved, the Chamber considered that the situation clearly reaches the gravity threshold,\u201d the Court said.<\/p>\n

The pre-trial Chamber in addition authorized the commencement of the investigation in relation to any crime, including future crime, so long as it is within the jurisdiction of the Court, and is allegedly committed at least in part in the Rome Statute State Party, Bangladesh, or any other territory accepting the jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

The alleged crime must also be sufficiently linked to the present situation, and must have been committed on or after the date of the Statute\u2019s entry into force for Bangladesh or the relevant State Party.<\/p>\n

Judges from the\u00a0ICC have\u00a0given the greenlight for prosecutors to commence collection of necessary evidence, which could result in the judge’s issuance of summonses to appear in court or warrants of arrest. Parties to the Statute have a legal obligation to cooperate fully with the ICC, nonmembers invited to cooperate may decide to do so voluntarily.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 news.un.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15 Nov 2019 – Judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) yesterday authorized an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity, namely deportation, which have forced between 600,000 and one million Rohingya refugees out of Myanmar, into neighboring Bangladesh since 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":109474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[677,82],"tags":[229,240,1149,1198,526,120,1199,865,267,260,487,926,866,651,1417,291,287,103,107,870,527,985,380,124,126,92,118],"class_list":["post-147732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-updates-on-myanmar-rohingya-genocide","category-united-nations","tag-activism","tag-asia","tag-asia-and-the-pacific","tag-buddhism","tag-burma-myanmar","tag-conflict","tag-ethnic-cleansing","tag-genocide","tag-geopolitics","tag-history","tag-human-rights","tag-humanitarianism","tag-indigenous-rights","tag-justice","tag-maung-zarni","tag-military","tag-power","tag-racism","tag-religion","tag-reviews","tag-rohingya","tag-social-justice","tag-solutions","tag-united-nations","tag-violence","tag-violent-conflict","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}