This week-end we mark two very significant anniversaries which are interlinked and inter-dependent and matter to the entire world. Saturday is the 75th anniversary of the Genocide Convention. On Sunday is the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Within the Asia region alone, at least two genocides are being committed right now. Both began within the past decade, both impact Muslim populations and both have been officially recognized as genocides by the US State Department as well as by parliamentarians and legal experts around the world.
They are the genocide of the Rohingyas in Myanmar and the Uyghurs in western China’s Xinjiang region. Both involve marginalization, discrimination, dehumanization, hate speech, false accusations of terrorism made against entire people groups, as well as rape, torture, the destruction of places of worship, and incarceration of large proportions of the population.
Across Asia, there are other atrocity crimes – war crimes and crimes against humanity – committed below the radar of the world’s media.
North Korea’s human rights violations were recognized a decade ago as crimes against humanity by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry into North Korea chaired by the Australian judge, Justice Michael Kirby.
In Tibet, atrocities continue and forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China, particularly Falun Gong practitioners, has been declared a crime against humanity by the China Tribunal. Indeed, that independent tribunal has declared China “a criminal state.”