Rohingya persecution (Myanmar)
Myanmar military (Tatmadaw)
A years-long campaign of dehumanization preceded 2017 “clearance operations” that a UN mission found warranted prosecution for genocide, driving 700,000+ mostly-Muslim Rohingya into Bangladesh.
What happened
After attacks by a Rohingya insurgent group, Myanmar security forces launched “clearance operations” of mass killing, rape, and arson; over 700,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh. The UN Fact-Finding Mission documented a months-long “campaign of hate and dehumanisation” — Rohingya labeled the slur “kalar,” “illegal immigrants,” and “terrorists,” and portrayed as an existential demographic threat — and found sufficient evidence of “genocidal intent” to prosecute senior generals.
“Rohingya were labelled ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘terrorists’ and portrayed as [an] existential threat that might ‘swallow other races’ with their ‘inconceivable birth rates.’” (UN Fact-Finding Mission)
Under each definition
Racialized dehumanization (“kalar”) plus mass violence against a Muslim group is anti-Muslim racism in its most extreme form.
Victims targeted as a Muslim (and racialized) minority.
Anti-Muslim dehumanization and violence are Islamophobic on the broadest test.
Genocidal violence against Muslims as people is squarely within the strict test.
Who called it Islamophobic
The UN Fact-Finding Mission, UN bodies, HRW, Amnesty, and (at the ICJ) The Gambia — which called it dehumanization amounting to genocide against a Muslim group.
The defense
Myanmar’s government framed the operations as a legitimate counter-terrorism response and denied genocidal intent; officials refuse even to use the word “Rohingya.”
Outcome
The UN named six generals as prosecution priorities; The Gambia filed a genocide case at the ICJ (2019); the US formally determined it was genocide (2022). Most Rohingya remain in Bangladeshi camps.
In their words
The crimes in Rakhine State, and the manner in which they were perpetrated, are similar in nature, gravity and scope to those that have allowed genocidal intent to be established in other contexts.
UN team says Myanmar military chiefs should face genocide case.
The verdicts above are how each framework would most likely treat this case — illustrative guidance, not official rulings. The frameworks diverge most on speech and ideas: the OIC “defamation of religion” lens and the secular/free-speech position often reach opposite conclusions on the same act. See the Definition tab for each framework’s full text. Inclusion is documentation, not a finding.