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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The three-day hearings in the United Nations’ top court kicked off at The Hague on Tuesday following a November lawsuit filed by the West African country of Gambia.

Acting on behalf of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Gambia called on the ICJ to take emergency measures to halt Myanmar’s “ongoing genocidal actions” against the Rohingya.

“All that The Gambia asks is that you tell Myanmar to stop these senseless killings, to stop these acts of barbarity that continue to shock our collective conscience, to stop this genocide of its own people,” Gambian Justice Minister Abubacarr Tambadou told judges on Tuesday.

Demonstrations have been planned outside the court and across the Dutch city against and in support of Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who attended the tribunal.

Rohingya Muslims, recognized by the UN as the world’s most persecuted minority group, are denied Myanmarese citizenship as the country’s leading brands them as “illegal” immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, which, for its part, says they are from Myanmar.

A military crackdown that began in 2016 saw thousands of the Muslims being killed, injured, arbitrarily arrested, or raped by Myanmarese soldiers and Buddhist mobs.

After the initiation of the military campaign that the UN itself has already said was perpetrated with “genocidal intent,” more than 730,000 members of the minority fled Myanmar’s northwestern state of Rakhine to Bangladesh. They have largely been camped in the country’s southern district of Cox’s Bazar in squalid conditions.

Myanmar has repeatedly justified the crackdown on the Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine and insists its own committees are adequate to investigate allegations of abuse.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel “Peace” Prize winner now in the dock at the World Court, refused to stop or take any action against the military and the Buddhist mobs.

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In an interview to Tehran Times, Prof. Nasir uddin talks about repatriation of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar, detention of Rohingya trying to flee to Malaysia, his fieldwork in Cox’s Bazar refugee camps and what could be the possible solution to this crisis.

Following are the excerpts:

Q. The governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh have been discussing repatriation of Rohingya refugees. Do you think the timing is right for them to return?

A. At this stage and under the situation prevailing in Rakhine state, I don’t think it is safe for the Rohingya refugees to return to Myanmar. In fact, there are four stakeholders in the entire repatriation process: Bangladesh, Myanmar, Rohingyas and the international community.

None expect Bangladesh are in the position of supporting repatriation process at this stage. Rohingya refugees don’t want to go back because they think that they are not safe in Myanmar as the situation there has not changed yet.

Myanmar has always been reluctant to bring the Rohingya back. International community also thinks that Myanmar situation is still not feasible to accept the Rohingya. Bangladesh, for valid reasons, wants to repatriate the Rohingya refugees because it has exerted huge process on it. However, I think it is not safe for them to be repatriated at this stage.

Q. Many Rohingya refugees were detained recently while trying to flee to Malaysia. Could you tell us what exactly took place?

A. If you are talking about the recent case, to my knowledge, it was Myanmar which detained 93 Rohingya while they attempted to flee to Malaysia.

According to the available information, the boat heading to Malaysia was carrying 28 men, 33 women, and 32 children from the Darpaing displacement camp in Rakhine’s Sittwe township. It was seized on Nov. 25 off the coast of Tanintharyi’s Dawei district in southern Myanmar, according to a police document. Then they were detained.

Q. Should the world community play more proactive role in resolving the Rohingya refugee crisis by putting pressure on the Myanmar government?

A. Yes, I think so because Bangladesh is not the creator of the crisis, but the worst victim. Myanmar has systematically created difficult living conditions in Rakhine state which has triggered massive influx of more than 730,000 Rohingya in 2017.

Bangladesh sheltered the Rohingya people on humanitarian grounds, but Bangladesh as an over-populated country cannot bear the 1.3 million (including old and new arrivals) for too long. So, international community must play more proactive role to resolve the crisis.

Q. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently came under fire after tweeting touristy pictures from his Myanmar visit. How important is social media in mobilizing public support for Rohingya campaign?

A. Jack’s praise of Myanmar was widely criticized across the world, and finally he felt compelled to agree with the critical condition of the Rohingya although he stopped short of naming the Rohingya!

I do think social media can play a vital role in mobilizing public support for Rohingya campaign. But, at the same time, we need to be cautious that social media also contributes to ‘hate-campaign’ against Rohingya people. We know how Facebook instigated anti-Rohingya sentiment which supported mass killing in Rakhine state.

The top executives of social media platforms can play important role by standing beside the oppressed people and advocating social justice.

Q. There are 900,000 Rohingyas in more than two dozen camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, living in appalling condition. What are the problems they face?

A. The total number of Rohingya living in Bangladesh are now around 1.3 million (including old and new arrivals) and the number of camps are 32. While I was doing fieldwork in Rohingya refugee camp, I was trying to understand what kind of problems they face in Bangladesh.

In response to one of my question, Mr. Alam, a 52-year old Rohingya living in Kutupalong camp who crossed the border in September 2017, told me that they are no longer under life-threat in Bangladesh, and here the degree of safety is better than Burma. He said they feel human dignity here.

However, the conditions are more or less the same, for instance food scarcity, inadequate medical facility, no education for children, poor living conditions, no proper sanitation, insufficient water supply, and the threat of women and child trafficking.

Q. You have been working with the Rohingya since long time. Many of them have distressing stories of killings, rapes andtorture in Rakhine. How did you get involved with them?

A. It is not something like a massive attack took place in Rakhine in 2017 which triggered a massive influx and I became interested in Rohingya people. I have been engaged in research on/with the Rohingya people for more than two decades, have been doing ethnographic research for years, and been a close observer of the evolving Rohingya refugee situations in Bangladesh for more than three decades as a local resident born in Cox’s Bazar.

However, the recent case in terms of the intensity of atrocity and the degree of brutality has superseded all previous campaigns in 1978, 1991/92, 2012 and 2016.

The situation on the ground touched me deeply and prompted me to stand beside the Rohingya people and to help and support them.

Q. What do you think is the possible solution to this simmering crisis?

A. Based on my year-long engagement, the Rohingya refugees gave me some ideas about how to resolve the problem. Fulfillment of three basic requirements could bring a lasting solution: Everyone wants to go back to Myanmar but everyone echoes the same narratives: joboner nirapotta (life-safety), nagorikottto (citizenship) and maan-ijjat (dignity).

I recorded hundreds of similar stories from many Rohingya men and women living in Ukhia and Teknaf refugee camps. Some, of course, demand an active involvement of the UN bodies like UNHCR in the repatriation process. But, majority of those I met and interviewed gave me the impression that they would go back to Myanmar if the following three demands are met: legal recognition, life-safety, and human dignity.

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 During the three-day International Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran this week, many brainstorming discussions were held as part of various commissions on some of the most pressing and significant issues facing the Muslim world today.

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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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“We’re back in a situation of full alert as far as influxes are concerned. It is a big increase to see 11,000,” said the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Adrian Edwards, on Tuesday.

Myanmar’s army renewed its bloody crackdown on the ethnic minority population in August, with numerous documented incidents of massacre and rape of Muslim men and women.

Authorities in Myanmar, led by de facto leader Aug San Suu Kyi, have been tightly controlling access to Rakhine since August, when purported attacks by Rohingya fighters prompted a brutal military response that has forced over 515,000 Rohingya to flee for Bangladesh. The crackdown, backed by radical Buddhist monks, has left scores of Rohingya villages torched and completely destroyed.

“We have had big numbers coming across by the day over the six weeks of this emergency. So we are back up to approaching some of those peak arrivals. Clearly we have to be prepared for more arrivals,” Edwards added.

“Some said they had fled torching and killings back home; one boy was seen with a big gash across his neck,” he added.

“Some of these people have fled their homes several days ago and in some cases two weeks ago, so they moved toward the border before coming across,” Edwards said. “As you may have seen from media reports which I can’t verify, but there are reports about fires being seen close to the border (and) other problems there.”

Meanwhile, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), a large scale cholera immunization campaign has begun near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, with the goal of safeguarding newly-arrived Rohingya and host communities from the deadly disease.

WHO noted that 900,000 oral vaccine doses are set to be distributed among children to the age of five, 650,000 of which during an initial 10-day campaign to be followed by a second round from October 31.

WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said that despite no confirmed cases of cholera, there was a “clear and present risk” of the disease spreading among the population.

Myanmar’s government denies full citizenship to Rohingya Muslims, branding them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Witnesses and rights groups have reported systematic attacks, including rape, murder and arson, at the hands of the army and Buddhist mobs against the Rohingya.

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According to the Disasters Emergency Committee charity, more than 14,000 of the refugee children under the age of five are already suffering from “severe acute malnutrition.”

There were also more than 50,000 pregnant and breastfeeding Rohingya women among the refugees who need of proper food rations, the charity said on Thursday.

Myanmar soldiers and Buddhist mobs have been attacking Rohingya Muslims and torching their villages since October 2016.

The children are among the over half a million Rohingyas who have fled their country following a sharp rise in violence since August 25, following a number of purported armed attacks on police and military posts in the western state of Rakhine.

Evan Schuurman, the spokesperson for Save the Children humanitarian response team in Bangladesh, told The Independent that the “sheer speed” at which the crisis has expanded provides the biggest challenge for relief efforts to save the stranded children and their families.

“It’s truly staggering,” the activist said, noting that the refugee influx had amounted to an average of 10,000 people a day over the last six weeks.

This is while, according to the United Nations deputy spokesperson, Farhan Haq, there were already some 200,000 Rohingya in Bangladesh before the latest wave arrived.

Steve Taravella, the World Food Program’s senior spokesperson, told the British daily that Bangladesh’s own problems had exacerbated the problems.

“The flow of people is constant and rapid and overwhelming a country that is struggling to manage its own development needs,” he said.

According to Schuurman, Bangladesh has been hit “particularly hard” with rains that have triggered heavy flooding and interrupted aid operations by causing transportation and logistics issues.

Bangladesh says it plans to expand a massive settlement under construction in its southernmost district to house nearly 900,000 persecuted Rohingya Muslims.

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