A Rohingya rights campaigner spearheading a genocide complaint filed in Indonesia against Myanmar's next president urged the Muslim world on Wednesday to oppose the junta accused of the abuses.
Yasmin Ullah is one of 11 plaintiffs who lodged the complaint with Indonesia's attorney general on Monday, accusing Myanmar's president-elect Min Aung Hlaing of rights abuses against the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority in the country.
Indonesian law gives courts "universal jurisdiction", meaning they can prosecute individuals for heinous crimes committed anywhere. Rohingya activists have previously taken a case before a court in Argentina, which has the same principle.
Ullah, 34, left Myanmar at three years old and eventually settled in Canada, where she founded and runs the Rohingya Maiyafuinor Collaborative Network, a campaign group.
She told AFP news agency on Wednesday that the plaintiffs chose Indonesia "because we have more Muslims here than any other country in the world, and Islam is built on a core principle of accountability".
"I'm really imploring the leadership of this country and the leadership of ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) to actually think... about the future we want," she said.
"If we are thinking about economic prosperity and ASEAN people... perhaps we need to think a little bit more about ending the root cause of instability in this region, which is the Myanmar military."
Myanmar's junta grabbed power in a 2021 coup and has been accused of rights abuses for decades, mostly targeting ethnic minorities like the Rohingya.
Last week, the country's pro-military lawmakers elected Min Aung Hlaing as president, meaning the ex-armed forces commander will retain his rule in civilian guise.
"I really hope that one day we will be able to face Min Aung Hlaing in court and actually get him to face the victims. Some of those victims are here on Indonesian soil," said Ullah.
Myanmar's leaders have not commented on the Indonesia case, but they have previously insisted the Rohingya are ethnic descendants of immigrants from Bangladesh , and that their 2017 crackdown targeted a militant uprising. 'Business as usual' Min Aung Hlaing became military chief in 2011, leading the armed forces in the crackdown that has seen more than one million Rohingya flee to Bangladesh.
Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, has also been receiving Rohingya refugees for years, many risking their lives on long and dangerous sea journeys.
Some 7,000 are in Indonesia today, according to Ullah -- mostly in western Aceh province where life in refugee shelters is tough, especially since cuts to US foreign aid.
Ullah, who describes herself as a survivor of genocide, also works with refugees in Aceh.
"What I'm hoping for... is a test of the moral line. We have seen... complacency from this region for far too long," she said.
"The trade continues, business as usual. That is not where they draw the line."
Most of Ullah's family still live in Myanmar, and she worries about them every day.
After she and her mother fled Myanmar -- an arduous journey through jungles and over mountains -- she spent 16 years in Thailand hiding from the authorities before eventually making it to Canada.
She travelled to Jakarta to present the genocide complaint in person. A spokesman for the attorney general's office said it would be forwarded to a division specialising in serious crimes.
It is the first complaint that the office has accepted under the universal jurisdiction provision in Indonesia's revised criminal code, which came into effect this year, human rights lawyer Feri Amsari told AFP .
Indonesia holds the presidency of the UN Human Rights Council for 2026.