Rohingya refugees rally in Bangladesh camps to demand safe return to Myanmar

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) — Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in dozens of camps in Bangladesh held a rally Tuesday to demand their safe return to their home state, nine years after they fled a government crackdown.

The demonstrators urged the international community to ensure security in Rakhine state as they marked what they call the “Ninth Anniversary of Rohingya Genocide Day.”

More than 1 million refugees from Myanmar’s Rohingya ethnic and religious minority now live in the sprawling camps around the Cox’s Bazar district of southeastern Bangladesh.

Most of them fled across the border in a mass exodus in 2017 after Buddhist-majority Myanmar launched a crackdown in Rakhine, following an attack by a Rohingya Muslim insurgent group.

The Bangladesh government earlier attempted to start the repatriation at least twice, but it did not work out as none of the refugees was willing to go back, citing security concerns. Bangladesh says it will not force anyone to return.

In January the International Court of Justice held hearings in a case accusing Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya in Rakhine state in 2017. During three weeks of hearings, the court reviewed documentary evidence, expert testimony, and private witness statements concerning mass killings, systematic sexual violence, and the destruction of villages.

The scale, organization and ferocity of the operation led to accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide from the international community, including the United Nations.

Myanmar told the court that its deadly military campaign against the Rohingya was a legitimate counter-terrorism operation and did not amount to genocide.

After the 2017 crackdown, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims crossed from Rakhine into neighboring Bangladesh on foot and by boat during shelling, indiscriminate killings and other violence. Rakhine was captured by the insurgent Arakan Army that is fighting Myanmar government forces.

The Bangladesh government opened the border, eventually allowing more than 700,000 refugees to take shelter in the Muslim-majority nation. The influx was in addition to more than 300,000 refugees who already had lived in Bangladesh for decades in the wake of previous violence perpetrated by Myanmar’s military and other forces.

In recent years, the security situation in Rakhine state has become more volatile.

“Whether it is the Arakan Army or the Myanmar military, as long as they continue playing this double game, the situation in Arakan, or Rakhine, will not become safe. Does that mean we are expected to remain here for another 50 years,” Rohingya refugee leader Sayed Ullah said Tuesday. Arakan is the old name of Rakhine.

“We cannot stay here for 50 years. Given the current situation in Arakan, we need to determine how an environment conducive to peace can be created,” he said.

Earlier this month, Myanmar’s military-backed government said that more than 300,000 Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh are former residents of Rakhine state and that it will accept their return once security conditions improve.

But Bangladesh has disputed Myanmar's statistics and its persistent refusal to use the term “Rohingya” noting that labeling them as “Bengali” is an attempt to deny their identity.

Rohingyas gather during an event at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026, marking the anniversary of the their exodus. (AP Photo/Abdul Goni)

Rohingyas gather during an event at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026, marking the anniversary of the their exodus. (AP Photo/Abdul Goni)

Rohingyas shout slogans during an event at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026, marking the anniversary of the their exodus. (AP Photo/Abdul Goni)

Rohingyas gather during an event at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026, marking the anniversary of the their exodus. (AP Photo/Abdul Goni)

Rohingyas gather during an event at a refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026, marking the anniversary of the their exodus. (AP Photo/Abdul Goni)

NEW YORK (AP) — Ghislaine Maxwell's bid to overturn her sex trafficking conviction and be freed from prison was rejected by a federal judge Tuesday who said the claims by Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and longtime associate that new evidence had emerged were “demonstrably meritless.”

Maxwell filed a habeas petition last December seeking to set aside her conviction and free her from a 20-year prison sentence, claiming exonerating information was withheld and false testimony presented at her trial, resulting in a “complete miscarriage of justice.”

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer rejected her arguments, saying in his written ruling they “all or almost all are frivolous” and that she had presented nothing that could upend the outcome of her trial.

“Nearly all its claims are procedurally barred; the overwhelming testimonial and documentary evidence adduced at trial conclusively established her guilt; and her petition’s claims are demonstrably meritless, and generally based on speculation, distortions, and/or outright falsehoods,” Engelmayer wrote.

A request for comment was sent to lawyers who represented Maxwell in the past.

Habeas petitions are often filed as a last resort and to protect against unlawful confinement after appeals are exhausted, as happened after Maxwell’s conviction and sentencing.

Epstein, a millionaire financier, was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges. Ordered detained until trial, he was found dead in his cell at a New York federal jail in August 2019 and his death was ruled a suicide.

Maxwell, a British socialite, was arrested a year later and was convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021. She was moved from a Florida prison to a prison camp in Texas last year, shortly after she was interviewed by the Justice Department’s then second-in-command, Todd Blanche, President Donald Trump's former criminal defense attorney and now U.S. attorney general.

The judge noted that many of Maxwell's claims of “new evidence” stem from documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

As a result of that law, the Justice Department over the last eight months has released 18 categories of investigative materials gathered in the massive sex trafficking probe, including search warrants, financial records, notes from interviews with victims and data from electronic devices.

Engelmayer said that material is “largely irrelevant to the charges against Maxwell and does not support her claims of error.”

“On the contrary, to the extent it is relevant, far from exculpating her, it incriminates her or reinforces the correctness of the legal rulings Maxwell challenges,” he wrote.

The judge also rejected Maxwell's claim that she was selectively prosecuted and made a “scapegoat” when the Justice Department did not indict four co-conspirators named in a government document or 25 men who settled with victims.

Engelmayer said she could have raised that claim on appeal after her trial, but he found it to be frivolous nonetheless.

Among the recently released Justice Department documents, “she does not cite any that reveals the existence of an uncharged confederate, let alone one as instrumental as she in facilitating Epstein’s horrific crimes,” the judge said.

FILE - Audrey Strauss, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, points to a photo of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell during a news conference in New York on July 2, 2020. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)