Afsaneh Chatrenoor scored the winning goal in the 52nd minute.

The two sides will meet again on Saturday in the reverse fixture.

The seven group winners from Round 1 will continue their quest in Round 2, which is expected to commence in October.

In the next round, they will be joined by the five highest seeded teams – DPR Korea, Japan, Australia, China PR and Korea Republic – and divided into three groups.

Four teams – the three group winners and the best-ranked runners-up – will then progress to Round 3 to play two pairs of home and away matches, slated for February 2024, with the eventual winners qualifying for the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament Paris 2024.

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The post UN Called for New Solutions for Rohingya Crisis appeared first on Iran News Daily.

TEHRAN (Iran News) – An independent commission established by Myanmar government has concluded there are reasons to believe that security forces committed war crimes in operations that led more than 700,000 members of the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.

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The 193-member UN on Friday voted 134-9 with 28 abstentions in favor of the resolution which also calls on Myanmar’s government to take urgent measures to combat incitement of hatred against the Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan states.

General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding but they do reflect world opinion.

Earlier this month, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laureate and Myanmar’s de facto civilian leader, denied that her country’s military acted with “genocidal intent” towards the Rohingya.

Myanmar has long considered the Rohingya to be “Bengalis” from Bangladesh even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Nearly all have been denied citizenship since 1982, effectively rendering them stateless, and they are also denied freedom of movement and other basic rights.

The long-simmering Rohingya crisis exploded on August 25, 2017, when Myanmar’s military launched what it called a clearance campaign in Rakhine in response to an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. The campaign led to the mass Rohingya exodus to Bangladesh and to accusations that security forces committed mass rapes and killings and burned thousands of homes.

Hau Do Suan, Myanmar’s UN ambassador, called the resolution “another classic example of double-standards (and) selective and discriminatory application of human rights norms” designed “to exert unwanted political pressure on Myanmar.”

He said the resolution did not attempt to find a solution to the complex situation in Rakhine and refused to recognize government efforts to address the challenges, The Telegraph reported.

The resolution, the ambassador said, “will sow seeds of distrust and will create further polarization of different communities in the region.”

The resolution expresses alarm at the continuing influx of Rohingya Muslims to neighboring Bangladesh over the past four decades, now numbering 1.1 million including 744,000 who arrived since August 2017, “in the aftermath of atrocities committed by the security and armed forces of Myanmar.”

The assembly also expressed alarm at an independent international fact-finding mission’s findings “of gross human rights violations and abuses suffered by Rohingya Muslims and other minorities” by the security forces, which the mission said, “undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law.”

The resolution called for an immediate cessation of fighting and hostilities.

It reiterated “deep distress at reports that unarmed individuals in Rakhine state have been and continue to be subjected to the excessive use of forces and violations of international human rights law, international humanitarian law by the military and security and armed forces.”

And it called for Myanmar’s forces to protect all people, and for urgent steps to ensure justice for all rights violations

The resolution also urged the government “to expedite efforts to eliminate statelessness and the systematic and institutionalized discrimination” against the Rohingya and other minorities, to dismantle camps for Rohingyas and others displaced in Rakhine, and “to create the conditions necessary for the safe, voluntary, dignified and sustainable return of all refugees, including Rohingya Muslim refugees.”

It noted that the Rohingya have twice refused to return to Myanmar from Bangladesh because of the absence of these conditions.

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Members of the stateless minority had been swept in Saudi raids against undocumented workers after coming to the Persian Gulf kingdom on passports obtained via fake documents.

Many had spent up to five years in Saudi detention without trial or charge, with some Rohingya detainees developing mental health conditions due to their prolonged detention.

The hunger strike comes after hundreds of Rohingya with Saudi residency papers were released by Riyadh in March after spending years in detention.

Fearing retribution from the Saudi authorities, Rohingya detainees requested their names be changed to protect their identities.

“We have only one demand, and that is our freedom,” said Hasan, a Rohingya detainee who has gone on hunger strike.

“The Saudis are saying that they can deport us to the countries where our fingerprints are registered, but we are telling them that we can’t go back.

“If we are not free then we will go hungry and die.”

Since the beginning of the hunger strike on Saturday, at least six Rohingya inmates have been hospitalized, according to activists and detainees.

Detainees said that the Saudi authorities had begun “mentally torturing” them by taking away their blankets and bedding on Monday.

“The air conditioning is on 24/7, and now they have taken away our pillows and bed sheets,” said Hasan.

“We are sitting on our metal bed frames feeling light-headed and weak from not eating.

“They are trying to make things as uncomfortable as possible to stop.”

Videos posted online by activists also corroborated reports that Saudi authorities had taken away bedding from the Rohingya detainees.

Other detainees described being forced to go into “hot rooms”, where they were told by Saudi police that they would be taken out if they ended their hunger strike.

Sayed, another detainee imprisoned in the Shumaisi detention centre for the last five years, told another detainee that he had been taken into a “hot room”.

“They have put us in a room that is just so hot and telling us to end our hunger strike,” Sayed said in a voice-note that was shared by the other unnamed detainee.

“I don’t know how long we can last. It is unbearably hot, but we have no other choice.”

Inmates added that Saudi authorities had confiscated a number of mobile phones from Rohingya inside Shumaisi since the hunger strike began.

Human rights groups and activists have said that hundreds of Rohingya are being detained indefinitely by Saudi Arabia.

Scores of them have resorted to obtaining passports from people smugglers, often via forged documents, following Myanmar’s ban on Rohingya obtaining Burmese passports.

Many Rohingya locked up in the Shumaisi detention center came to Saudi Arabia on Bangladeshi passports, while others entered on passports from different South Asian countries, including Bhutan, India, Pakistan and Nepal.

Upon arrival, the refugees have their fingerprints taken and registered to the passport they used upon entry. This means scores of Rohingya who have been registered on passports obtained via fake documents now risk being deported to these countries – even if they have never been there before.

Nay San Lwin, a Rohingya activist with the Free Rohingya Coalition, urged Riyadh to release the detainees who had been locked up without trial or charge.

“This is the third time that 650 Rohingya detainees have gone on hunger strike to demand their freedom,” Lwin said.

“Saudi Arabia has hosted more than 300,000 Rohingya refugees for decades. None of these refugees came to Saudi Arabia with a Burmese passport because citizenship was taken away from the Rohingya in 1982.

“Riyadh must revise their decision and release these Rohingya detainees to show their solidarity and support for thousands of Myanmar’s genocide survivors who are now in Bangladesh.”

A spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that they had been following reports of Rohingya facing indefinite detention in Saudi Arabia after MEE broke the story in October 2018.

“(The) UNHCR expressed its concern and sought confirmation about these reports of detention and deportation of substantive numbers of Myanmar Rohingyas,” Marco Roggio, deputy regional representative of the UNHCR in (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council ([P]GCC) countries, said.

“UNHCR has also repeatedly sought with the Saudi authorities access to any Myanmar Rohingyas in detention for purposes of ascertaining their needs for international protection and the possibility to find solutions to most vulnerable cases.”

Roggio added that UNCHR had made requests to the deputy governor of Mecca in March to discuss the situation of the city’s Rohingya community.

The Saudi Embassy in Britain did not respond to requests for comment at the time of writing.

Earlier this year, UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar Yanghee Lee condemned Riyadh’s decision to deport 13 Rohingya detainees to Bangladesh.

During a press conference in Bangladesh, Lee urged Riyadh to offer the stateless Rohingya sanctuary, instead of sending them to a third country.

“India and Saudi Arabia must ensure that Rohingya within their borders are protected and that their status as refugees, unable to return to Myanmar, is recognized,” Lee said, after a ten-day visit to the Rohingya refugee camps in southern Bangladesh.

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“Notwithstanding the challenges facing our two countries, I believe that, through our joint efforts based on genuine goodwill and good neighborliness, the bonds of friendship and cooperation between Myanmar and Bangladesh can be nurtured strengthened,” he said in a congratulatory message to Hasina, who was re-elected as the country’s Prime Minister last month.

President Win Myint extended his best wishes for the continued economic development, peace and prosperity of Bangladesh during Sheikh Hasina’s new term, Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

Bangladesh and Myanmar have been at loggerheads over the repatriation of Rohingya refugees’ current living in makeshift camps in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh, the largest destination for Rohingya refugees, has received a large number of Rohingyas since 1978 in four phases— before the 1990s, after the 1990s, post-2012, and post-2017.

In the wake of continuous influx of large number of Rohingyas, the government of Bangladesh has long been pursuing Myanmar for a peaceful and sustainable solution of the Rohingya crisis.

Myanmar and Bangladesh had signed a bilateral repatriation agreement last year, according to which the process of voluntary repatriation was to begin in 60 days. But the plan was shelved.

In June, Myanmar inked an agreement with UN to expedite the process of Rohingya repatriation, but the memorandum of understanding (MoU) was kept under wraps. Rohingya community leaders, after seeing the leaked MoU, rejected the agreement, saying it did not address their concerns.

International aid groups and bodies fighting for refugees have also opposed the idea of repatriating Rohingya refugees in present circumstances.

Bangladesh government last week stressed the need for political will of Myanmar for expediting the process of repatriation of Rohingya people to Bangladesh.

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In a written statement, the London-based human rights agency said: “With atrocities continuing against the Rohingya and other Burmese minorities, these sanctions are an important step, but more clearly needs to be done – this includes the EU extending its sanctions to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, named by the recent Fact-Finding Mission.”

On Monday, the Council announced that it intends to adopt additional restrictive measures against senior military and border guard police officers in Myanmar for human rights abuse, Anadolu Agency reported.

It also expressed the need for an independent mechanism to further investigate the issue and initiate criminal proceedings in accordance with jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

The human rights group termed the Council’s decision — which also explore sanctions against entities, particularly companies linked to the military leadership — as a “potential game-changer in the punitive approach taken by the international community.”

The BHRN particularly hailed the European Council’s decision “to adopt additional sanctions against senior military and border guard officials complicit in what the UN has now found likely constituted an act of genocide against the Rohingya people.”

The EU leadership has played a key role with its efforts in the UN’s Human Rights Council and in the General Assembly’s Third Committee.

“But now is the time for the EU to step up these efforts, including through helping ensure the newly mandated independent mechanism, which will investigate and prepare trial-ready cases, is able to be fully funded to get to work.

“This week’s Fifth Committee negotiations in the General Assembly are crucial in this regard and the EU, OIC, and others must stand strong in the face of any attempt to gut the mechanism of its proposed funding,” the statement added.

According to Amnesty International, more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women and children, have fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community.

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world’s most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

The UN has documented mass gang rapes, killings — including of infants and young children — brutal beatings and disappearances committed by Myanmar state forces.

In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.

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 It has been one year since Rohingya Muslims were forced to leave Myanmar following brutal crackdown by Myanmar military with tacit support from the government.

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Monday’s report by a UN fact-finding mission said there was evidence of genocide and crimes against humanity “perpetrated on a massive scale”.

In a session of the UN Security Council late Tuesday several countries — including the United States — called for Myanmar’s military leaders to face international justice.

But Myanmar on Wednesday rejected the remit of the UN mission and its findings.

“We didn’t allow the FFM (the UN Fact-Finding Mission) to enter into Myanmar, that’s why we don’t agree and accept any resolutions made by the Human Rights Council,” government spokesman Zaw Htay said according to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

He pointed to the formation of Myanmar’s own Independent Commission of Enquiry, which he said was set up to respond to “false allegations made by the UN agencies and other international communities”.

Zaw Htay also lashed out at Facebook for pulling down the pages of Myanmar’s army chief and other top military brass, saying that it could hamper the government’s efforts with “national reconciliation”.

The social media giant has admitted it was too slow to react to the crisis, which saw its platform — which is wildly popular in Myanmar — become an incubator of hate speech against the Rohingya.

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Driven from Myanmar over decades, Rohingya Muslims have been labelled the most persecuted people on earth. But resilience and ingenuity have led members of the stateless community to forge new lives — everywhere from refugee camps in Bangladesh to the hospitals of Switzerland.

Many fled Myanmar as children. Some have been granted refugee status, others live in the shadows with no legal status or protection.

Half a million of the Muslim minority remain in their ancestral homeland of Rakhine state inside Myanmar — the country that denies them citizenship — in camps or hemmed in by hostile neighbours.

Their history is of persecution. But success stories are being forged and those who have escaped are often willing to give back to those left behind.

– ‘The Yorkshire Boy’ –

A “proud Yorkshire boy”, Nijam Uddin Mohammed arrived with his family in Bradford, in northern England, in 2008 after 17 years in a Bangladeshi refugee camp.

He is 36, or close enough.

“My father, mum, my wife, my brothers, my grandmother, we all have the same birthday party,” he says, joking about the celebration expenses saved.

Nijam learned English and now drives a taxi and works as a part-time interpreter for the National Health Service.

But as the head of the British Rohingya Community charity he says his real calling is advocacy work for his people.

“I hope my children will (also) work for the Rohingya people to free them,” he says.

– The Taekwondo champ –

Freedom is a long way off for the hundreds of thousands of new refugees who have poured into the camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, since last year, driven out by a merciless Myanmar army crackdown.

Their lives are on pause. But Mohammad Selim is refusing to waste time.

Inside his mud walled hut deep in the Kutupalong megacamp, he is teaching eight-year-old daughter Nasima Akhtar taekwondo.

“We’re poor and have never been given respect,” he says. “But after I entered this sport, I learned what respect is… so I’m teaching it to my daughter,” he says.

Nasima, whose shyness evaporates when she trains, wants to follow her dad in competitive bouts.

“When I grow up I want to fight,” she says.

– The Doctor –

Life was a battle from a very young age says Anita Schug, who was forced from Myanmar in the early 1980s but soared through education in Europe to become a neurosurgeon.

“If others worked 100 percent to achieve their goals I had to work at least twice as much as them,” the 37-year-old says from Solothurn, Switzerland.

“I got used to the challenges and as a result I went for the challenging tasks. Neurosurgery, I saw it as a challenge and that’s why I went for it.”

Activism runs in the family, and Anita is now prominent advocate working with the lobby group the European Rohingya Council.

A warping of history by Myanmar’s army has cast the Rohingya as “Bengali” infiltrators to the Buddhist-majority country.

But, says Anita, “there is historical evidence that both Rakhine and Rohingya community existed peacefully side by side for generations”.

– The Peacemaker –

In Yangon, Aung Kyaw Moe, 35, works to diffuse tensions between all communities in a nation cross-stitched by different ethnicities and civil wars.

“We’re a peace-building organisation,” he says from the Yangon office of the Center for Social Integrity.

“My registration says “Bengali”… it’s not something I claim to be. I am from Myanmar,” he says.

“I don’t want young people to go through my life.”

– The Activist –

One of the largest overseas Rohingya communities is in Malaysia, a Muslim country where 75,000 Rohingya have fled.

But few Rohingya — especially women — have access to education, jobs and healthcare, something Sharifah Shakirah is trying to amend.

In a Kuala Lumpur classroom, more than two dozen Rohingya women study languages, crafts, religion and drama.

“I want women to feel like they can do things so they can stand for themselves,” says 25-year-old founder of the Rohingya Women Development Network.

She challenges traditional values inside her community, railing against issues like domestic violence and child marriage. That has prodded a negative reaction from some men, but Sharifah has no intention of stopping.

“They feel that (way) because they’re losing their power, and feel I should be in the kitchen,” she said.

But with Rohingya women on the very margins of an already vulnerable refugee community, Sharifah says her work is too important to be stopped by prejudice.

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