(CHIANG MAI, BANGKOK, November 10, 2024)—Between November 1 and 10, 2024, Fortify Rights organized two photo exhibitions in Chiang Mai and Bangkok, Thailand, to highlight the photos of award-winning Bangladeshi photographer Saiful Huq Omi.
The photo exhibition, entitled “Unseen Wounds: Photographs of the Continuing Mental Toll of Genocide,” portrays the mental harm inflicted by the Myanmar military on ethnic-Rohingya genocide survivors. Produced through participatory approaches, the exhibition underscores how the mental harm inflicted by the Myanmar military constitutes an often overlooked and poorly understood act of genocide. Explaining his role as the photographer, Omi says that he became “just a tool…to photograph their imagined selves.” The result is a collection of evocative, artful images that highlight the agency, dignity, and resilience of Rohingya refugees.
On November 1, 2024, Saiful Huq Omi, together with Esther J from Burma War Crimes Investigation, Zaw Win, and John Quinley from Fortify Rights, launched a three-day photography exhibition during the “Beyond Borders: Exploring Forced Migration Reporting and Dialogue in Asia” conference organized by the media outlet DW in Chiang Mai, Thailand. During the exhibition launch, panelists discussed the situation of Rohingya survivors of genocide in Bangladesh and the impacts of the Myanmar junta’s ongoing atrocity crimes against the people of Myanmar. The conference brought together more than 55 journalists and media workers who focus on issues affecting refugees in Asia.
Following the event in Chiang Mai, Fortify Rights organized a second four-day exhibition of Saiful Huq Omi’s photos at The Fort in Bangkok from November 8 to 10. The launch included a panel discussion focused on “The Infliction of Mental Harm as an Act of Genocide Against Rohingya.” In addition to Saiful Huq Omi, panelists included the Deputy Minister of Human Rights with the National Unity Government of Myanmar, Aung Kyaw Moe, Fortify Rights Director John Quinley, and Rohingya genocide survivor and activist Lucky Karim. Fortify Rights Communications Specialist Sippachai Kunnuwong moderated the discussion.
The photos of the exhibition complement comprehensive participatory research conducted by a Rohingya-led research team and Fortify Rights on the lasting toll of mental harm on genocide survivors. This research formed the basis for two reports published by Fortify Rights: The Torture in My Mind, an analysis published in 2021 of the Rohingya-led research findings, and My Tears Could Make a Sea, a joint study published by Fortify Rights and Yale Law School earlier this year providing a legal analysis of mental harm as an act of genocide.