Press Release:
Myanmar must owe up to its responsibilities under
international law
Media Statement for Immediate
Release
4th December 2016
MYANMAR MUST OWE UP TO ITS RESPONSIBILITIES UNDER
INTERNATIONAL LAW – CENTHRA
The Centre for Human Rights
Research and Advocacy (CENTHRA) deplores the recent protest by Buddhist monks
against Malaysia ahead of the Solidarity March scheduled to be held here in
Kuala Lumpur today in solidarity with the Rohingya people in Myanmar.
We also condemn in the
strongest terms the recent warning by the Myanmar government spokesperson, U
Zaw Htay, against the Malaysian government for alleged ‘interference’ by the
latter into the former’s internal affairs contrary to the ASEAN principle of
non-interference.
CENTHRA fully supports the
stand of the Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its reply thereto that
the Rohingya in Myanmar are suffering from ethnic cleansing and are being
driven out of Myanmar into neighbouring states, including Malaysia, thereby making
the same an international concern.
CENTHRA remind Myanmar that
quite apart from the ASEAN Charter, which binds members of ASEAN to
international principles of human rights, in particular the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR), ASEAN also has its own declaration on human rights,
namely the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD).
Article 4 of the Declaration
states that the rights of vulnerable and marginalized groups, which includes
the Rohingya, are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of human rights
and fundamental freedoms while Article 9 of the same states that the principles
of impartiality, objectivity, non-selectivity, non-discrimination,
non-confrontation and avoidance of double standards and politicization should
always be upheld.
Clearly, the unwarranted
warning by the Myanmar government as well as the protest by radical Buddhist
monks against Malaysia are an attempt at denying the Rohingya their human
rights on the basis of the ethnicity amounting to partiality, non-objectivity,
discrimination, confrontation, affirmation of double standards as well as politicization
contrary to the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration as well as and is thus
deplorable and unacceptable.
Myanmar must not scapegoat
Malaysia, but owe up to its responsibilities under international law lest it
stand accused of committing what can only be described as genocide and crimes
against humanity.
CENTHRA calls upon the Myanmar
government to implement, on an immediate basis, its responsibilities under the
UDHR, ICCPR, ICESCR, the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration as well as the Geneva
Conventions towards the Rohingya people, and cease immediately its highly
disproportionate response to the Maungdaw border incident last October by
imposing and continuing to impose what can only be described as collective
punishment of a barbaric magnitude against Rohingyas.
Press Statement by Azril Mohd
Amin, lawyer and Chief Executive of CENTHRA