GENEVA / MYANMAR HUMAN RIGHTS
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STORY: GENEVA / MYANMAR HUMAN RIGHTS
TRT: 02:15
SOURCE: UNTV CH / OHCHR
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 3 FEBRUARY 2017, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND / FILE
FILE, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior Palais des Nations
3 FEBRUARY 2017, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“Mass gang-rapes, killings, including of babies and young children, brutal beatings, disappearances and other serious human rights violations by Myanmar security forces in a sealed-off area north of Maungdaw in northern Rakhine State have been detailed in the report that our team has put together.”
4. Wide shot, journalists
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR):
“Especially revolting were the accounts of children – including an eight month old, a five year old and a six-year old who were slaughtered with knives. One mother recounted how her five-year-old daughter was trying to protect her from rape when a man took out a long knife and killed her slitting by the throat. In another case, an eight-month-old baby was reportedly killed while his mother was gang-raped by five security officers.”
6. Med shot, journalists
7. Wide shot, press briefing room
8. Close up, name tag
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Linnea Arvidsson, Mission Leader:
“I must say, we didn’t meet a single person out of the 204 that hadn’t experienced some type of violation. No, either the house had been burnt, or looted, or a family member had disappeared or a family member had been killed.”
10. Med shot, panel
11. SOUNDBITE (English) UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein:
“We have heard of beatings, enforced disappearances, torture, the entire range of the most severe violations seem to have found expression in Northern Rakhine and they don’t seem to be incidental. There is so much testimony that was corroborating itself, that it seemed to be a campaign and as such organised, and if that is the case then it meets the threshold of an international crime and very likely crimes against humanity.”
OHCHR - JANUARY 2017 - BANGLADESHI BORDER WITH MYANMAR
12. Various shots of burned property and living conditions obtained during mission
Devastating cruelty against members of the Rohinghya minority in Myanmar has been detailed in a new United Nations (UN) human right report issued today (3 Feb) which indicates the case may meet the threshold of crimes against humanity.
A statement read to the press in Geneva by UN human rights spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani detailed “mass gang-rapes, killings, including of babies and young children, brutal beatings, disappearances and other serious human rights violations by Myanmar security forces in a sealed-off area north of Maungdaw in northern Rakhine State.”
The flash report issued today was the result the UN High Commissioner's decision to deploy a four-member team of human rights officers to the Bangladeshi border with Myanmar to where an estimated 66,000 Rohingyas have fled since 9 October 2016 in the aftermath of attacks.
This decision came after the repeated failure of the government of Myanmar to grant the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) unhindered access to the area of Northern Rakhine state most affected by violence against the Rohinghya.
Shamdasani said “especially revolting were the accounts of children, including an eight- month-old, a five-year-old and a six-year-old who were slaughtered with knives."
She added that “one mother recounted how her five-year-old daughter was trying to protect her from rape when a man took out a long knife and killed her slitting by the throat. In another case, an eight month old baby was reportedly killed while his mother was gang-raped by five security officers.”
The UN human rights investigators deployed to the Bangladeshi border with Myanmar gathered testimony interviews from 11 to 23 January, interviewing 204 people who have fled Rakhine State.
The vast majority had witnessed killings, and almost half reported having a family member who was killed as well as family members who were missing. Of the 101 women interviewed, more than half reported having suffered rape or other forms of sexual violence.
OHCHR's Linnea Arvidsson, who led the mission to Bangladesh, said “we didn’t meet a single person out of the 204 that hadn’t experienced some type of violation, either the house had been burned, or looted, or a family member had disappeared or a family member had been killed .”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called for an international investigation into the human rights violations in the Rakhine State, citing that they possibly could amount to crimes against humanity.
He said “we have heard of beatings, enforced disappearances, torture, the entire range of the most severe violations, seem to have found expression in Northern Rakhine and they don’t seem to be incidental. There is so much testimony that was collaborating itself, that it seemed like a campaign and as such organised, and if that is the case then it meets the threshold of an international crime and very likely crimes against humanity.”
About one million Rohingya are living in Myanmar today. They are a Muslim ethnic group who reside mainly in the northern part of the Rakhine state on the border with Bangladesh.
According to the 1982 National Citizenship Act, the Rohingya are not considered to be one of the 135 indigenous population groups and therefore have no claim to Myanmar citizenship. Because of repression and persecution, at least one million Rohingya live as refugees in Bangladesh and other Asian countries.