21, Sep 2018

Canadian lawmakers have unanimously voted to consider crimes committed by Myanmar’s military against the Rohingya as ‘genocide’, Al Jazeera reported. On Thursday, September 20, Canada’s House of Commons backed the findings of a the United Nations fact-finding mission on Myanmar that released its report in August 2018; the mission said it found that crimes against humanity were committed against the Rohingya and were authorised by senior officials in Myanmar’s military. The Canadian lawmakers said in a motion that they “recognise that these crimes against the Rohingya constitute genocide”. They have sought for the case to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), and for Myanmar’s generals to be investigated and tried for genocide. Myanmar’s military mounted a major crackdown in late August 2017 after Rohingya rebels attacked several army posts, forcing more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh.