Azhar calls for prosecution of Rohingya genocide criminals

CAIRO – 8 September 2017: Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayyeb called on the international community to deliver an act of justice to the Rohingya Muslim minority community being subjected to a brutal genocide, as he put it.

In his speech on Friday, Tayyeb called for the international prosecution of the perpetrators behind the Muslims’ genocide that amounts to a “war crime,” stressing that everyone should be cognizant that such crimes serve the crux of the terrorist crimes that have long plagued humanity.

He also called on decision-makers around the globe to exert more political and economic pressure on Myanmar’s rulers to get them to stop the religious discrimination they practice against the Muslim minority, claiming they are the "only citizens" who bear the brunt of the situation.

Al-Azhar lamented the “contradictory situation” of Myanmar’s de facto ruler, Aung San Suu Kyi, Tayyeb said, adding that it is regretful to see the Nobel Peace Prize laureate is the one who gesticulates the unjustified killings of others.

Rohingya is one of Myanmar's numerous ethnic minorities and are descendants of Arab traders, among other groups who have been in the region for multiple generations, BBC reported in January 2017.

The Burmese government denies the group citizenship and regards their members as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

An estimated one million Muslim Rohingya live in the western Rakhine state, according to the BCC. Over 100,000 people were displaced due to an outbreak of communal violence in the area in 2012.