Burmese authorities and members of Arakanese groups have committed crimes against humanity in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State since June 2012, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

The Burmese government is systematically restricting humanitarian aid and imposing discriminatory policies on Rohingya Muslims in Arakan State.

European Union leaders should press Burmese President Thein Sein on adopting key rights reforms during his visit this week to Brussels.

Despite recognition in the Millennium Declaration of the importance of human rights, equality, and non-discrimination for development, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) largely bypassed these key principles. The fundamental human rights guarantees of equality and non-discrimination are legally binding obligations and do not need instrumental justifications. Discrimination can both cause poverty and be a hurdle in alleviating poverty. Even in countries where there have been significant gains toward achieving the MDGs, inequalities have grown. The MDGs have supported aggregate progress—often without acknowledging the importance of investing in the most marginalized and excluded, or giving due credit to governments and institutions which do ensure that development benefits these populations. Recognition of this shortcoming in the MDGs has brought an increasing awareness of the importance of working to reverse growing economic inequalities through the post-2015 framework, and a key element of this must be actively working to dismantle discrimination.