The Myanmar Accountability Project (MAP), led by Chris Gunness, and Rohingya genocide survivor Yasmin Ullah will launch a criminal complaint under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction against Myanmar regime leader and recently-elected President Min Aung Hlaing in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Monday.
“I urge the Indonesian authorities to uphold the rule of law and hold the Myanmar dictatorship to account. The junta has become a regional embarrassment and this genocide case sends send a powerful signal that impunity for the crime of crimes must end,” Ullah, the co-founder of the Rohingya Maiyafuinor Collaborative Network, said in a statement on Friday.
The criminal complaint was filed under a legal principle that allows national courts to prosecute individuals for the most serious international crimes, such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, regardless of where the crime was committed or the nationality of the perpetrator and the victims.
“What brazen disdain for the wishes of the Burmese people and for the rule of law, that this mickey mouse dictator commits genocide against his own people while simultaneously claiming to be their president,” Gunness, the MAP director, said in the same statement on April 3.
Ullah, along with Indonesia’s former Attorney General Marzuki Darusman and nine Indonesian legal experts and civil society leaders, will file a criminal complaint alleging that Min Aung Hlaing bears responsibility for genocidal acts committed against Myanmar’s ethnic Rohingya nationality at the Prosecutor’s Office in Jakarta on April 6.
Indonesia updated its penal code in January, which allows courts to exercise universal jurisdiction over serious international crimes such as genocide, regardless of where they were committed.
Over one million Rohingya live in refugee camps in Bangladesh, according to the U.N. Over 700,000 arrived following a military “security clearance” operation in 2017, which was labelled a genocide by the U.S. government in 2022.
The Myanmar military defended itself against allegations of genocide during legal proceedings in January at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ case, brought by Gambia in 2019, accuses Myanmar of carrying out genocide against the Rohingya in Rakhine State during a military “security clearance” operation in 2017.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan requested an arrest warrant be filed against Min Aung Hlaing for crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya in Rakhine State in 2016-17 with the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber 1 on Nov. 27, 2024.
An arrest warrant was issued by a court in Argentina for Min Aung Hlaing, along with 24 other senior Myanmar military and government officials, on Feb. 28, 2025. The case was filed by the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) on Nov. 13, 2019 for genocide against the Rohingya under universal jurisdiction.
Timor-Leste’s judiciary opened legal proceedings on Feb. 2 against Min Aung Hlaing, and senior military officials, under universal jurisdiction for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Chin State since the 2021 military coup.
This follows a previous attempt at filing charges against the 10 Myanmar military officials, including Min Aung Hlaing, under universal jurisdiction in the Philippines on Oct. 25, 2023.
The universal jurisdiction case in Indonesia – filed on April 6 – will be the fifth attempt by MAP and Myanmar civil society organizations to hold Min Aung Hlaing and senior military leaders accountable for crimes committed since the 2021 coup, whereas the ICJ and ICC cases are investigating crimes committed by the military prior to the coup.
