Responding to the news that parliamentarians loyal to former Senior General Min Aung Hlaing voted him in as the next president of Myanmar on 3 April, Amnesty International Myanmar Researcher Joe Freeman said:
“If Min Aung Hlaing thinks that an official civilian title will shield him from prosecution for the many grave violations of international law that he is accused of overseeing as head of the military, that is not how international justice works. He may exchange his military fatigues for civilian attire, but this changes nothing with respect to his suspected responsibility for serious crimes under international law in Myanmar.
“For the many Myanmar people who have been victims of Min Aung Hlaing’s violently unfettered military in the aftermath of the 2021 coup and beforehand, seeing their oppressor formally elevated instead of prosecuted will be deeply painful. They may also fear that this will entrench impunity across the country.
“No individual should have immunity from prosecution for crimes under international law, no matter their position. There is an existing arrest warrant request for Min Aung Hlaing at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Should that be granted, ICC member states have a duty to enforce it if he travels to their territory, and the whole international community should ensure he is denied safe haven and immediately arrested if he leaves Myanmar, rather than use this political development as an excuse to ignore their international legal obligations.
“Until Min Aung Hlaing, his alleged co-perpetrators in the military and others are prosecuted fairly in independent courts for the crimes they are accused of being responsible for, Myanmar’s cycle of impunity will continue, and a Myanmar where human rights are protected, promoted and fulfilled will recede ever further into the distance.
“We also urge the ICC to proceed with arrest warrants for Min Aung Hlaing and other Myanmar junta officials under the ICC’s investigation, and for the UN Security Council to refer the whole situation in Myanmar to the ICC.”
Background
On 3 April, Min Aung Hlaing, the former head of Myanmar’s Armed Forces, and the leader of the February 2021 coup that deposed Myanmar’s elected government, was voted in as president by a loyalist-stacked parliament.
He assumed the presidency following an election imposed by the junta, dismissed by observers as fraudulent and conducted in December and January amidst the ongoing conflict and a repressive environment rife with human rights abuses.
Min Aung Hlaing led the 2021 coup, in which military authorities jailed the previous president Win Myint and de facto civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as several other senior officials, many of whom remain imprisoned more than five years later. In the coup’s aftermath, he was the head of the junta that carried out violence against civilians nationwide, including mass arbitrary arrests, raids, violent crackdowns on protests, and unlawful air strikes that altogether have killed more than 7,000 civilians.
Min Aung Hlaing was also one of 13 individuals named in the June 2018 Amnesty International report “We Will Destroy Everything”. The report gathered extensive, credible evidence that these individuals bore direct or command responsibility for crimes against humanity in a campaign against the Rohingya minority in Rakhine State following attacks by Rohingya militants in August 2017.
In November 2024, ICC prosecutors sought an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing and other unnamed officials for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution against the Rohingya in Myanmar and Bangladesh during their expulsion from Rakhine State into Bangladesh in 2017.
However, the application is pending since then and no arrest warrants for any Myanmar junta official under the ICC’s investigation have been made public. Separately, provisional measures have been issued by the International Court of Justice in the Rohingya genocide case against Myanmar brought by The Gambia, with hearings on the merits of the case having concluded in January.
