Anwar warned as he rolls out red carpet for man wanted by ICC for genocide of Rohingya Muslims

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s move to welcome Min Aung Hlaing has been met with condemnation due to the Myanmar leader facing genocide charges at the International Criminal Court, with global group Human Rights Watch (HRW) describing the rare official visit as “an invitation for further abuse” in Myanmar.

HRW said Anwar must instead urge Myanmar’s junta leader to stop the atrocities that have killed more than 100,000 people since he came to power in a military coup in 2021, causing millions to flee from a brutal campaign mainly targeted at the Rohingya Muslim community.

“The Malaysian government, which has provided protection to Rohingya and other refugees from Myanmar for decades, should halt any more returns and urge the junta leader to stop the abuses that have caused millions to leave the country,” said HRW’s Asia director Elaine Pearson, as Anwar’s government presses ahead with an opaque deal to deport thousands of refugees including those who fled the Myanmar military junta’s brutal campaign in Arakan against the Rohingya.

HRW also called on Asean member states to maintain the ban on Min Aung Hlaing and other junta leaders from attending the bloc’s meetings or participating in bilateral visits.

“Concerned governments should press Malaysia to halt the returns, and expand resettlement places and support for countries hosting refugees from Myanmar. They should not treat returns arranged with Myanmar’s military-backed authorities as evidence that the country is safe,” Pearson added.

Meanwhile, prominent lawyer P Waytha Moorthy Ponnusamy has formally notified Min Aung Hlaing that he intends to seek his arrest, investigation and prosecution if he enters Malaysia, citing the Geneva Conventions, to which Myanmar is a party.

“The fact that Your Excellency is a Myanmar national or the alleged crimes occurred in Myanmar does not, by itself, exclude Malaysian jurisdiction. Nor does the nationality of the victims, by itself, exclude the jurisdiction which Parliament has expressly conferred,” said Waytha Moorthy in a notice issued by his law firm and copied to top government leaders from both countries.

“The jurisdiction created by the Geneva Conventions Act 1962 (Act 512) cannot be extinguished merely by diplomatic invitation, political recognition, executive convenience or the purpose for which an alleged offender enters Malaysia.”

Min Aung Hlaing rarely makes official visits, and his scorched-earth policy has left more than 100,000 people dead since he came to power through a bloody military coup in 2021.

In 2024, then ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan said an arrest warrant had been requested for Min Aung Hlaing for crimes against humanity.

His visit will be the first time that a leader named by ICC to face genocide charges is openly feted by the Malaysian government.

A similar episode took place 15 years ago, when the Malaysian government invited Sudan’s then president Omar al-Bashir in 2011, despite him being wanted by ICC for genocide and war crimes in Darfur.

He subsequently cancelled his visit following domestic outrage as well as pressure from rights groups.

Malaysia has for decades adopted a policy of not recognising the Myanmar junta due to its appalling human rights record, including the burning of entire villages in Arakan which has led to a refugee crisis that the United Nations says is one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises.

But a recent online campaign backed by AI, fake accounts and bots has targeted the Rohingya refugee community, numbering at least 150,000, leading to a section of political leaders in the country, including Anwar, appearing to repeat the xenophobic narrative.

Anwar recently announced a sudden reversal of Malaysia’s decades-old policy of protecting the Rohingya – an ethnic Muslim community who were stripped of their citizenship by the Myanmar junta – alongside an announcement that a deal had been reached with the regime to deport thousands of Myanmar nationals under what is called a “voluntary repatriation programme”.

Last week, the first batch of about 1,500 people were sent back even as the Myanmar junta carried out an air strike on a crowded market in Kyauktaw near Rakhine, which killed at least 49 people and injured 58, many of them women and children.

Yesterday, Anwar told Parliament that no Rohingya refugee was among those deported.

The revelation sparked a flurry of online criticism from those behind the xenophobic campaign, causing a host of major media outlets to take down their reports in what many believe was due to government pressure, signalling how the artificial pressure generated online is guiding recent crackdowns against refugees.

Politicians have largely remained silent over the hate campaign for fear of backlash from some sections of their vote bank.

But a pushback has come from independent Muslim activists, who warned Malaysian Muslims supporting the hate campaign against the Rohingya of double standards.

Prominent preacher Firdaus Wong said the hate campaign was a prelude to “greater crimes”, citing the Nazi-era atrocities against Jews and the current genocide by Israel against Palestinians.

“The way we dehumanise them – and I will be as blunt as possible – is just a carbon copy of how the Nazis had done to the Jews. They begin by dehumanisation first, then they will start to justify with a greater crime,” Wong told an Islamic convention on Sept 13.

More recently, a major umbrella group representing local Islamic organisations questioned the silence of authorities over the hate campaign on social media.

The Malaysian Consultative Council of Islamic Organisation (Mapim), which represents scores of Muslim groups and NGOs nationwide, also called for the setting up of a “National Digital Hate and Disinformation Monitoring Task Force” made up of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), police, the home ministry, as well as digital forensics experts and civil society groups.

“Are we seeing a spontaneous spread of hatred, or is there a network of accounts deliberately manipulating public sentiment?” asked Mapim president Azmi Abdul Hamid.

“Do not allow social media algorithms to determine who Malaysians should hate.”