Mizzima
With Myanmar dictator, Min Aung Hlaing, set to take the presidency following fixed elections, a Rohingya genocide survivor, Yasmin Ullah, and ten leading Indonesian public figures, including former Attorney General, Marzuki Darusman, and Busyro Muqoddas, Chair of Indonesia’s largest Muslim charity, Muhammadiyah, are to present a criminal complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office in Jakarta on 6 April 2026, accusing him of genocide.
Yasmin Ullah, founder and Director of the Rohingya Maìyafuìnor Collaborative Network, will present evidence of genocidal acts against herself, her family, her wider community and the Rohingya People, including the deliberate killing of her cousin, the inflicting of serious physical and mental harm, mass rape, arson attacks on whole villages, torture, persecution and imposing conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Rohingya People in whole or in part.
The criminal complaint names specific Light Infantry Division responsible for the genocide. It sets out clear genocidal intent and traces command and control responsibility to Myanmar’s military dictator, Min Aung Hlaing. Ms Ullah’s testimony gives a first hand account of the escalation of violence and repression against the Rohingya People beginning in 2016, the events of August 2017 when the genocide engulfed her own family and the continuing harm and restrictions imposed on those Rohingya who have remained in Rakhine State until today. These acts amount to crimes clearly defined in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide.
Yasmin Ullah appealed to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, to take action in the face of the ongoing genocide against a defenseless Muslim population. “This genocide is being inflicted right now against hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians. In the name of humanity and Islamic solidarity, on behalf of all my sisters and brothers, I urge the Indonesian authorities to uphold the rule of law and hold the Myanmar dictatorship to account. The junta has become a regional embarrassment and this genocide case sends send a powerful signal that impunity for the crime of crimes must end”.
Chris Gunness, Director of the Myanmar Accountability Project, (MAP), which supports cases against the junta particularly in the ASEAN region, said it was “extraordinary that these fresh genocide allegations against Min Aung Hlaing come as he claims the fake presidency following sham elections.
What brazen disdain for the wishes of the Burmese people and for the rule of law, that this mickey mouse dictator commits genocide against his own people while simultaneously claiming to be their president”.
The Jakarta case is filed under to the principle of universal jurisdiction, according to which certain crimes are considered so serious that all states have an obligation to bring their perpetrators to justice, regardless of the nationality of the victims or perpetrators, and regardless of where the crime was committed. Indonesia’s new penal code which came into force in January this year, explicitly permits universal jurisdiction for certain atrocity crimes, such as genocide.
Feri Amsari, one of the complainants and Director of Themis Indonesia which is representing Yasmin Ullah, said “the evidence of genocidal acts and genocidal intent is overwhelming. In addition to Yasmin’s testimony, we are filing evidence gathered by grass-roots investigators in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State of the junta’s systematic forced displacement, and a degrading denial of rights and basic services, born out of deliberate state policies of racial discrimination and segregation. These policies make it impossible for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to return to their homes. All of our evidence is backed up by UN and other investigations, and reports by the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar. Beyond all reasonable doubt we have evidence of genocide writ large, and Indonesia has an obligation to act now”.
The Rohingya genocide has been ongoing for decades, but reached a peak in 2017, when the Myanmar military initiated a campaign of mass killings, rape and industrial-scale arson attacks on entire villages, which drove over 700,000 people across the border into Bangladesh. Today, there are some 1.2 million Rohingya in refugee camps where they are denied the right to work and to education, and where they face the threat of starvation because the UN is unable to feed them.
Hundreds of thousands have been forced to undertake perilous journeys by sea driving up numbers in a regional refugee crisis that worsens by the week. Meanwhile, in Myanmar’s Rakhine State the Rohingya face an apartheid system, denied the right to education, the right to work, and the right to freedom of movement. Many Rohingya inside Myanmar also face the threat of starvation because the junta and Arakan Army are unlawfully impeding the flow of food and other essential items, and are attacking humanitarian objects, in clear violation of international humanitarian law.
“The Myanmar junta is the most potent source of transnational crime in South East Asia”, said Chris Gunness. “In addition to genocide, dictator Min Aung Hlaing and his clique have become a prime driver of international crime, such as scam centres, drugs, human trafficking, and an ever-growing refugee crisis, affecting all ASEAN members. It is time for ASEAN to admit that its five-point plan for Myanmar has achieved nothing. The Association must give new ideas a chance, and accountability under the principle of universal jurisdiction is gaining ground. Civil society groups across South East Asia are setting the “UJ agenda” and it is time for governments to catch up”.
