Background
Action required
Model Template
Recipient contact information
Background
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, is visiting the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazaar to assess the refugees’ conditions. She arrived on the 14th of August and will remain until the 17th in what is the first-ever visit from a High Commissioner to Bangladesh.
During the visit, she will meet government members in Bangladesh, including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the human rights NGO the National Human Rights Commission. The National Human Rights Commission is partly an organ of the Indian government that recently had its Jammu and Kashmir section shut down. It is hard to believe that National Human Rights Commission would be considered a legitimate human rights NGO to speak about the conditions of a community who have been heavily persecuted due to their Islamic beliefs. Just as the Rohingya are facing ethnic cleansing now, many analysts and human rights campaigners are commenting that India is on the brink of a similar form of ethnic cleansing.
The refugees in Bangladesh are suffering without access to basic necessities, with over a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and around 1,600 being forcibly removed to Char Island. Meanwhile, the camp at Cox’s Bazaar is the biggest refugee camp in the World, with very unsafe conditions, and has recently suffered a great fire in which 15 people died.
Action required
- Please send a letter to the High Commissioner of Human Rights demanding that they do not water down their report of conditions in Cox’s Bazaar.
- Please donate to the refugees to help alleviate some of their suffering https://donations.ihrc.org.uk/Rohingya-Appeal
- Share this alert and the reports and resources, and encourage others to join this campaign, including human rights organisations, pressure groups and NGOs.
- Please ensure you share verified stories and information. Despite this situation for decades, mainstream media has only given it importance now, often spreading unverified reports and cases.
- Keep checking the IHRC’s website:  https://www.ihrc.org.uk/to see any updates on this campaign or others involving the plight of the Rohingya.
Model Template
[Your name]
[Your address]
[Date]
Re. Rohingya Genocide Case
Dear Ms Bachelet,
I would like to congratulate you on taking the initiative to visit Cox’s Bazaar, the largest refugee camp in the World, to see first-hand the suffering of the Rohingya. I would like to add that this issue is critical to me, and one that concerns me deeply, as I agree with many analysts that the Rohingya are amongst the most persecuted minorities in the World.
Since entering Bangladesh, these people who have suffered severe physical and mental injuries due to the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Arakan are now subjected to horrific conditions in the Cox’s Bazaar refugee camp. Many have died due to fire; others are facing discrimination, police brutality and a lack of basic necessities. Many have been forced to relocate to the recently created Char Island, which is often subject to flooding.
For this reason, I hope that you will be thorough and unforgiving in your report on the conditions that Rohingya refugees face. It is clear that the situation needs dire improvement and that groups like the UNHCR should be doing everything in their power to improve the plight of these people.
I look forward to hearing about your findings and am confident that you will do all your power to help their cause.
Yours Sincerely
[Your signature]
[Your name]
Recipient Address
Michelle Bachelet
OHCHR
CH-1201 Geneva,
Switzerland.
Alternatively, you can email her at: mbachelet@ohchr.org
You can insert the links of some of our India/kashmir report here.
