The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been asked to issue an arrest warrant against Myanmar’s Acting President, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, allegedly for the persecution of the Muslim minority group Rohingya between August and December 2017.
A statement issued by the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) said the ICC has since November 2019 been investigating alleged crimes committed during the 2016 and 2017 violence in Rakhine State which drove hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from Myanmar into Bangladesh.
“My office has concluded that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Senior General and Acting President Min Aung Hlaing, Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Defence Services, bears criminal responsibility for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya,” said ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC.
He added that the application relied on evidence from witness testimonies, documentary evidence, and authenticated scientific, photographic, and video materials.
The application comes just a day after the Prosecutor concluded his third visit in three years to the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, where many Rohingya from Myanmar fled.
This is the first filing for an arrest warrant against a high-level Myanmar government official, but the Prosecutor promised that more would follow.
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“We will continue this focus in the coming weeks and months as we submit additional applications in this situation,” Khan said, adding that the ICC’s action demonstrated that the Rohingya have not been forgotten. “That they, like all people around the world, are entitled to the protection of the law.”
Since the February 2021 coup in Myanmar that deposed the democratically elected government, human rights defenders have reported widespread and systemic abuses by the junta against the population, which they claim amount to crimes against humanity. They have lauded the ICC’s action.
“The ICC prosecutor’s decision… comes amid renewed atrocities against Rohingya civilians that echo those suffered seven years ago. The ICC’s action is an important step toward breaking the cycle of abuses and impunity that has long been a key factor in fuelling the military’s mass violations,” Maria Elena Vignoli, Senior International Justice Counsel at Human Rights Watch, said.
“ICC member countries should recognise this action as a reminder of the court’s critical role when other doors to justice are closed,” she added.
Mass casualties have been reported in the renewed fighting. Witnesses described seeing numerous bodies in fields and rivers, where nearly 200 Rohingya were reportedly killed and some 20,000 more were displaced on August 5, 2024, in drone strikes and shelling near the Bangladeshi border.
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The violations committed against the minority group in the recent past range from collective punishment, where the Myanmar junta has ramped up blockages of humanitarian aid, to forced conscription of thousands of young boys and men from Rakhine State and the refugee camps in Bangladesh, with support from Rohingya armed groups.
The renewed fighting has deepened the humanitarian crisis, leading to the displacement of an estimated 320,000 people in Rakhine State since November 2023.
