Iran Urges UN to Form Fact-Finding Committee on Myanmar

Rasa - Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani condemned massacre of Muslims in Myanmar, stressing the need for an international probe into the crimes committed against them by a UN fact-finding committee.

News ID: 432248

Date: 07 September 2017 - 23:52

RNA - In a statement on Wednesday, Larijani said that the painful incidents, suppression and forced displacement of tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar disturbs all freedom-seeking human beings.

Horrible images of daily killing of men, women and children as well as defenseless old people indicate a new immense catastrophe in the current era, he said.

Larijani blasted the silence of the so-called advocates of the human rights and certain governments and international organizations which are observing the appalling incident and genocide of Muslims in Myanmar indifferently, and said, “I strongly condemn massacre and expulsion of Muslims from Myanmar and underline Myanmar government’s responsibility against the recent incidents and the need for supporting the minority Muslims."

As per the UN Charter and international resolutions, the parliament speaker stressed the need for shunning double- standard policies in human rights, underlining responsibility of all governments, parliaments, international and regional institutions in line with establishing security and supporting Muslims in Myanmar.

“I will set a committee under the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission to adopt necessary parliamentary measures to immediately stop the crimes and send humanitarian aid,” Larijani said.

In relevant remarks on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif urged Muslim countries to take practical measures to end the inhuman crackdown on the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s troubled Rakhine State.

In separate phone conversations with his Turkish, Malaysian and Indonesian counterparts Mevlut Cavusoglu, Anifah Aman and Retno Marsudi, Zarif said expressed Iran’s deep concern over the sad situation of Rohingya Muslims, and said that Iran was prepared to help adoption of collective strategies by international organizations and Muslim countries in order to solve the ongoing crisis plaguing Myanmar’s Muslim community.

Myanmar’s military intensified attacks on Rohingya Muslims on August 25, after dozens of police and border outposts in the western state of Rakhine came under attack by an armed group, which is said to be defending the rights of the Rohingya.

The Muslim community had already been under a military siege in Rakhine since October 2016. The government used a militant attack on border guards back then as the pretext to enforce the lockdown. The Rohingya had already been subject to communal violence by extremist Buddhists for years.

Myanmar’s military is accused of committing atrocities and crimes against Rohingya people, who are considered by the UN as the “most persecuted minority group in the world.”

According to a United Nations report published on Monday, a total of 87,000 mostly Rohingya Muslims—including women and children, many with bullet wounds— have arrived in Bangladesh since last month.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Zarif criticized the global community for remaining silent on the persisting violence against the Rohingya Muslims, calling for "crucial" action to end the acts of aggression against the minority group.

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