Myanmar court begins trial of 95 Rohingya Muslims

A court in Myanmar has begun the trial of about 100 Rohingya Muslims arrested for attempting to flee persecution, the defendants’ lawyers say.

The country’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, meanwhile, has defended the military crackdown against the Rohingya in 2017 at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), denying “genocidal intent.”

The detainees had been weary when they arrived at the courthouse in the western city of Pathein on Wednesday. They face accusations of leaving their home townships without permission from authorities.

For years, the persecuted Rohingya in the state of Rakhine have embarked on dangerous journeys aboard rickety vessels, trains and buses, fleeing state-sponsored violence and conditions Amnesty International describes as tantamount to “apartheid.”

Lawyer Thazin Myat Myat Win told AFP that the 95 people, including 25 children, each paid several hundred dollars for a chance at a better life. “Some even sold their labor in advance” to pay the broker fees, he added.

They were arrested on November 29 after travelling by boat from Rakhine to a southern beach where buses were waiting to transport them to the commercial capital Yangon.

The next hearing for the detained Rohingya is scheduled for December 20. They likely face a two-year-jail term for violating the immigration act.

About 740,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh after a bloody crackdown by the military in 2017, which UN investigators have already described as ‘genocide.’

Acting on behalf of dozens of Muslim countries, the Gambia is asking the ICJ to take emergency measures to halt Myanmar's “ongoing genocidal actions.”

SS