75 report raises important questions as to whether and how the NVC process and the 1982 Citizenship Law relate to two prohibited acts of genocide: (1) causing serious mental harm to Rohingya, and (2) deliberately inflicting on Rohingya conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. Causing Serious Mental Harm as a Prohibited Act of Genocide For an act or omission to qualify as serious mental harm for the purposes of establishing genocide, the harm must be intentionally inflicted.312 Tribunals have held that serious mental harm centers on harm that is “more than a minor or temporary impairment of mental faculties.”313 While such harm need not be “permanent or irremediable,” it must result in “grave and long-term disadvantages to a person’s ability to lead a normal and constructive life” going beyond “temporary unhappiness, embarrassment or humiliation.”314 International tribunals have noted the difficulty of finding “causing serious mental harm” as a prohibited act of genocide due, in part, to evidentiary standards used by the courts in determining if the perpetrators possessed the requisite knowledge of the impact of their actions. Documentation of the knowledge must be “established by clear and public proof,” and the harm must have been deliberate and not accidental.315 Tribunals undertake this assessment on a case-by-case basis with particular regard to the circumstances of each situation.316 The International Criminal Tribunals for both Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia interpreted serious mental harm to encompass “acts of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, sexual violence including rape, interrogations combined with beatings, threats of death, and deportation,” as well as persecution.317 Detaining individuals in conditions designed to cause “degradation, deprivation of . . . rights as human beings and to . . . cause . . . inhumane suffering and torture” may also constitute serious mental harm.318 Fortify Rights documented how Myanmar authorities tortured imprisoned Rohingya who refused to accept the NVC, potentially causing “serious mental harm.” One Rohingya detainee said the authorities stopped feeding him after he refused to accept the NVC.319 Myanmar authorities also explicitly or implicitly threatened Rohingya with death if they did not accept the NVC.320 These threats often came after the person being threatened already experienced physical violence, such as beatings, by the authorities and/or witnessed the authorities beat or kill other Rohingya.321 Myanmar authorities also threatened Rohingya with imprisonment or extending the term of imprisonment 312 Prosecutor v. Brdanin, ICTY, Case No. ICTY-99-36-T, Judgement (Trial), September 1, 2004, para. 690. 313 See also, for example, Prosecutor v. Semanza, ICTR, Case No. ICTR-97-20-T, Judgment (Trial), May 15, 2003, para. 321. 314 Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstić, ICTY, Case No. IT-98-33-T, Judgment (Trial), August 2, 2001, para. 513; Prosecutor v. Akayesu, ICTR, Case No. ICTR-96-4-T, Judgment (Trial), September 2, 1998, para. 502. 315 Krstić, ICTY, Case No. IT-98-33-T, Judgment (Trial), para. 95. 316 Id. at para. 502. 317 Prosecutor v. Blagojevic and Jokic, ICTY, Case No. ICTY-02-60-T, Judgment (Trial), January 17, 2005, para. 646 (citing ICTY and ICTR cases). See also, for example, Akayesu, ICTR, Case No. ICTR-96-4-T, Judgment (Trial), para. 504 (holding that “serious bodily or mental harm [ . . . ] to mean acts of torture, be they bodily or mental, inhumane or degrading treatment, persecution.”) (Emphasis added). 318 Krstić, ICTY, Case No. IT-98-33-T, Judgment (Trial), para. 508. 319 Fortify Rights interview with G.C., Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh, June 18, 2019. 320 Ibid. See also, for example, Fortify Rights interview with A.C., Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh, November 4, 2018; Fortify Rights interview with G.G., Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh, June 22, 2019. 321 See, for example, Fortify Rights interview with G.C., Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh, June 18, 2019; Fortify Rights interview with A.C., Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh, November 4, 2018.

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