ISLAMABAD (Staff Report) – Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has urged United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to end the persecution and genocide of Rohingyas within Myanmar.
In an open letter written to the UN secretary general on Wednesday, Imran Khan said the silence and complete inaction by the UN on the continuing plight and persecution of the Rohingyas is a shameful testament to the failure of the UN to fulfill its basic principles of upholding human rights.
Giving a reference of Rwandan genocide, Khan said the UN has once again failed to protect a people from persecution and genocide: this time the Rohingyas of Myanmar.
Imran Khan also called on the UN secretary general to move the UNSC to end the persecution and genocide of Rohingyas within Myanmar and to bring to an end their inhumane plight on the high seas, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.
On his twitter account, Imran Khan hinted dismay that except a few, no one in the Muslim World is taking up the issue including Pakistan.
Turkish President Erdogan orders Turkish naval ships to help the suffering Rohingya refugees on high seas, but Pak govt inexplicably silent.
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) June 3, 2015
ROHINGYA MUSLIMS
The Rohingya community consists of Muslim people live in several Asian countries. Although they do have their existence in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, India, yet they are outnumbered in Mayanmar (Arakan). They have been living in Arakan for more than 500 years and speak Rohingya language, which is derived from Indo-Aryan sub-branch of the greater Indo-European language family.
SEEKING REFUGE
Many of the more than 4,000 migrants who have landed in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar over the past two months are members of the Rohingya ethnic minority who say they are escaping persecution in Myanmar.
Myanmar does not recognise its 1.1 million-strong Rohingya minority as citizens, rendering them effectively stateless. Many have fled the apartheid-like conditions of the country’s Rakhine state. Myanmar denies it discriminates against them.
Images of desperate people crammed aboard overloaded boats with little food or water has focused international attention on the region’s latest migrant crisis, which blew up last month after a Thai crackdown made it too risky for people smugglers to land their human cargo, who were instead abandoned at sea.
