Tell Congress to Support Bill Calling Attacks on Rohingya Genocide
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 12/5/18) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on all Americans who value religious liberty to contact their members of Congress and urge them to support bipartisan legislation calling the attacks on Rohingya Muslims a genocide and urging the Secretary of State to make the same designation.
In August 2017, the Burmese government undertook a military-led ethnic-cleansing campaign of the Rohingya Muslims in the northern state of Rakhine, killing thousands and causing upwards of 700,000 to flee their homes for neighboring Bangladesh.
Introduced by Representatives Steve Chabot (R-OH), Eliot Engel (D-NY), and Ed Royce (R-CA), in September, H.Res. 1091 calls the Burmese military’s attacks on the Rohingya genocide as defined in the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and also calls on the Burmese government to release two journalists imprisoned for investigating the attacks. Nine other members of Congress have cosponsored the legislation, which the House is scheduled to vote on December 5.
“It is time we call these atrocities against the Rohingya what they are: genocide,” said Representative Chabot. “If this determination wasn’t obvious before, the recent report from the State Department on the crimes should leave little doubt in anyone’s mind. The perpetrators must be held accountable.”
Yesterday, the Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG), an independent human rights law group contracted by the State Department to investigate atrocities committed against the Rohingya, found that there were “reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes” were committed by the Burmese military. Separately, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said it found compelling evidence that ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and genocide occurred.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com
Tell Congress to Support Bill Calling Attacks on Rohingya Genocide
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 12/5/18) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on all Americans who value religious liberty to contact their members of Congress and urge them to support bipartisan legislation calling the attacks on Rohingya Muslims a genocide and urging the Secretary of State to make the same designation.
In August 2017, the Burmese government undertook a military-led ethnic-cleansing campaign of the Rohingya Muslims in the northern state of Rakhine, killing thousands and causing upwards of 700,000 to flee their homes for neighboring Bangladesh.
Introduced by Representatives Steve Chabot (R-OH), Eliot Engel (D-NY), and Ed Royce (R-CA), in September, H.Res. 1091 calls the Burmese military’s attacks on the Rohingya genocide as defined in the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and also calls on the Burmese government to release two journalists imprisoned for investigating the attacks. Nine other members of Congress have cosponsored the legislation, which the House is scheduled to vote on December 5.
“It is time we call these atrocities against the Rohingya what they are: genocide,” said Representative Chabot. “If this determination wasn’t obvious before, the recent report from the State Department on the crimes should leave little doubt in anyone’s mind. The perpetrators must be held accountable.”
Yesterday, the Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG), an independent human rights law group contracted by the State Department to investigate atrocities committed against the Rohingya, found that there were “reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes” were committed by the Burmese military. Separately, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said it found compelling evidence that ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and genocide occurred.
END
CONTACT: CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com