Rights group calls for ICC probe into Myanmar crackdown

THE HAGUE – A quality rights radical has called connected the International Criminal Court to unfastened an probe into the crackdown connected dissent by Myanmar's subject rulers, alleging that the person of the February coup successful the Southeast Asian federation is liable for wide and systematic torture.

The Myanmar Accountability Project said successful a connection connected Friday that determination was capable grounds to unfastened an probe into the caput of the country's military-installed government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

“The person of the amerciable coup is criminally liable for the information forces nether his bid committing wide atrocity crimes,” task manager Chris Gunness said.

The documents filed with prosecutors astatine the tribunal successful The Hague were not made public, but Gunness said they incorporate grounds from a defector “that shows work for the torture goes each the mode up to Min Aung Hlaing himself.”

Gunness said the grounds corroborates findings by the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, which was established by the U.N. Human Rights Council.

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The caput of the mechanism, Nicholas Koumjian, said successful November that preliminary grounds collected since the subject seized powerfulness connected Feb. 1 shows a wide and systematic onslaught connected civilians “amounting to crimes against humanity.”

Koumjian said his enactment had received implicit 200,000 communications since the service takeover and has collected implicit 1.5 cardinal items of grounds that were being analyzed “so that 1 time those astir liable for the superior planetary crimes successful Myanmar volition beryllium brought to account.”

Earlier this week, witnesses and different sources said that Myanmar government troops rounded up villagers, immoderate believed to beryllium children, tied them up and slaughtered them. A video of the aftermath of Tuesday’s battle — seemingly carried retired successful retaliation for an onslaught connected a subject convoy — showed the charred bodies of 11 radical lying successful a ellipse amid what appeared to beryllium the remains of a hut.

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Myanmar’s military-installed authorities described the reports arsenic “fake news.”

Myanmar is not 1 of the International Criminal Court's 123 subordinate states, meaning the Netherlands-based tribunal does not automatically person jurisdiction implicit crimes committed there. However, Myanmar's self-styled National Unity Government sent a declaration to the tribunal successful July saying it accepted the ICC's jurisdiction dating backmost to 2002, erstwhile the planetary tribunal started work.

“So the question is, volition (ICC prosecutor) Karim Khan judge the declaration of the NUG?” Gunness told The Associated Press. “We judge determination is beardown diplomatic, ineligible justification for the ICC moving up with an investigation.”

The ICC prosecution bureau did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

The National Unity Government bills itself arsenic the country’s morganatic administrative body, arsenic opposed to the the State Administration Council, the military-installed junta that came to powerfulness by force. The National Unity Government stakes its assertion to legitimacy to its assignment by the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, a assemblage formed successful the days pursuing the coup by elected lawmakers who were prevented by the service from taking their seats.

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The United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution connected Monday delaying enactment connected requests by Myanmar’s subject junta — and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers — to instrumentality their countries’ seats astatine the United Nations, a determination that leaves the ambassadors from the 2 countries' ousted governments successful their jobs.

The International Criminal Court already is investigating wide expulsions of members of the Rohingya taste number by the Myanmar subject arsenic a imaginable transgression against humanity. However, the tribunal based its jurisdiction successful that lawsuit connected the information that hundreds of thousands of Rohingya were forced implicit the borderline into neighboring Bangladesh, which is an ICC member.

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