DHAKA, Bangladesh
A Europe-based human rights group accused Myanmar’s government on Thursday of complicity in a “slow-burning genocide” against the Rohingya Muslim minority and suggested the international community should intervene to end human rights violations.
At a press conference in neighboring Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, the European Rohingya Council demanded both the international community and Bangladesh’s government take an active role in ending alleged human rights violations in Myanmar.
“They are killed and their homes and villages destroyed by security forces and state sponsored non-state actors and their women are systematically raped as an instrument of ethnic cleansing,” the group said in a press statement.
“These crimes amount to ‘slow-burning genocide’ as they have been carried out with the knowledge of the government, with intent to destroy the Rohingya people.”
The group called on the international community to ensure Myanmar’s government recognize Rohingya ethnicity and citizenship of Myanmar and allow refugees in neighboring countries to return.
It also demanded a UN inquiry into alleged human rights abuses in western state Arakan.
“Our demand to the peoples and government of Bangladesh is to play a ‘key role’ to find out a just and lasting solution to the long-standing Rohingya problem, in the interest of Bangladesh and persecuted Rohingya peoples,” said the group’s spokesperson Mohammed Ibrahim.
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