UN seeks report from Myanmar on rapes and deaths of Rohingya women

A UN women's rights panel called on Myanmar on Tuesday to report within six months on rapes and sexual violence against Rohingya women and girls by its security forces in northern Rakhine state. 

The Rohingya exodus from Rakhine state began after August 25, when Rohingya militants attacked security posts and the Myanmar army launched a counter-offensive.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) also asked authorities to provide details on women and girls killed in the violence since the army crackdown began in late August.

"The Committee requested information concerning cases of sexual violence, including rape, against Rohingya women and girls by State security forces; and to provide details on the number of women and girls who have been killed or have died due to other non-natural causes during the latest outbreak of violence," it said in a statement.

The UN watchdog panel, composed of 23 independent experts, set a six-month deadline for the government to submit the report to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

'Clearance operations'

The experts requested information on "investigations, arrests, prosecutions, convictions and sentences or disciplinary measures imposed on perpetrators, including members of the armed forces, found guilty of such crimes."

Specifically, they sought information on the battalions that have undertaken the "clearance operations" in northern Rakhine state since August 25 "and under whose command".

They asked whether instructions have been given or are being issued to all branches of state security forces that torture, sexual violence and expulsions are banned "and that those responsible will be prosecuted and punished".

The panel said it wanted to know how many Rohingya women and girls are being detained by security forces.

The rare request for an "exceptional report" from a country was only the panel's fourth since 1982.

The watchdog panel said it had also "requested information on investigations, arrests, prosecutions, convictions and sentences or disciplinary measures imposed on perpetrators, including members of the armed forces, found guilty of such crimes."

Oxford strips Suu Kyi of city's freedom

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been stripped of the honorific freedom of Oxford, the British city where she studied and raised her children, over her "inaction" in the Rohingya crisis.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner has come under fire for failing to speak up in defence of the minority Muslim community.

"When Aung San Suu Kyi was given the Freedom of the City in 1997 it was because she reflected Oxford's values of tolerance and internationalism," the city council said in a statement issued late Monday.

"Today we have taken the unprecedented step of stripping her of the city's highest honour because of her inaction in the face of the oppression of the minority Rohingya population," added the release, which was published after a unanimous vote.

"Our reputation is tarnished by honouring those who turn a blind eye to violence."

Oxford's world-renowned university removed portraits of Suu Kyi, a former student, from its walls in September.

The UN says more than 620,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since August and now live in squalor in the world's largest refugee camp after a military crackdown in Myanmar that the UN and Washington have said clearly constitutes "ethnic cleansing."