ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, joins fellow Nobel laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and José Ramos-Horta on the Board, as well as the Editor in Chief of Time, Inc., the President of the UN Foundation, and other notables.

One of the fundamental challenges of a democracy is how to ensure the voice of the majority does not trample the essential rights of the minority. In the founding of the United States this was addressed by the Bill of Rights, some form of which is integrated into most democracies today.

Even as we applaud and rejoice in the new freedoms enjoyed by the Myanmar people, the country’s newly elected government must face this challenge as they evolve from autocratic rule into a democratic state. The tragedy of the Rohingya people, continuing to unfold in Rakhine State in the country’s western corner, on the border of Bangladesh, will be its proving ground.

The minority Muslim Rohingya continue to suffer unspeakable persecution, with more than 1,000 killed and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes just in recent months, apparently with the complicity and protection of security forces.

The charge that the Rohingya are illegal immigrants to Myanmar is false. There is evidence that the Rohingya have been in present day Myanmar since the 8th century. It is incontrovertible that Muslim communities have existed in Rakhina State since the 15th century, added to by descendants of Bengalis migrating to Arakan (Rakhine) during colonial times.

The borders between present-day Bangladesh and Myanmar have shifted back and forth throughout these periods, resulting in ethnic Rakhine Buddhists living in Bangladesh today, and ethnic Bengali Muslims such as the Rohingya in Myanmar. As the Rahkine Buddhists are rooted in their Bangladeshi communities today, the Rakhine State in Myanmar is the only home the Rohingya know.

A glaring injustice was done to the Rohingya in 1982 when the ruling junta instituted a new law excluding the Rohingya from the list of the 135 national races recognized by the Myanmar government, effectively stripping them of their nationality. Since that time they have been banned from travelling even short distances or from getting married without a permit. When a marriage permit is granted, they must sign a commitment to have no more than two children.

Half of the Rohingya population is estimated to have fled the periodic pogroms that have reduced their villages to ashes and left thousands killed or raped in horrendous massacres. After having lived side by side with the Rakhine Buddhist communities, today they are an uprooted and stateless population, with some 200,000 refugees estimated to still be living in neighboring Bangladesh and hundreds of thousands more having fled to other parts of the world.

The 20th century gave us a term for the ugly phenomena of stripping individuals of their nationality and persecuting them for no reason other than the color of their skin, their religion, or their ethnicity: ethnic cleansing.

When the Myanmar government considers its progress on reform toward an open and democratic system of government, they must address one of the most barbaric remnants of their recent past, ethnic cleansing taking place in their midst, and right the wrongs done to the Rohingya population.

We wish the Rohingya to know that they are not alone. We hope to help share their plight with the world, in the hope and faith and trust that when the world knows of their suffering it will no longer turn its back on their persecution.

We humbly add our voices to the simple demand of the Rohingya people: that their rights as our fellow human beings be respected, that they be granted the right to live peacefully and without fear in the land of their parents, and without persecution for their ethnicity or their form of worship.

We ask the world to not look away, but to raise its collective voice in support of the Rohingya. In these days of public diplomacy the citizens, civil societies, NGOs, private investors and the business community have a vital role to play in the context of democratic reforms, human rights and development around the globe. We must use this voice.

We close with an appeal to the Myanmar government. You must amend the infamous 1982 law, and welcome the Rohingya as full citizens of Myanmar with all attendant rights. In doing so you will end the possibility of the radicalization of the Rohingya and channel their energies for the development of Myanmar. You will remove the impetus for extremism and terrorism being generated by the current mistreatment of this vulnerable minority. A strong, stable and democratic Myanmar is not only in the interest to countries of the region, but will serve the cause of global peace and stability as well.

A government must in the end be judged by how it protects the most vulnerable people in its midst, and its generosity towards the weakest and most powerless. Let not the good work of this government be clouded by the continuing persecution of the Rohingya people.

Jose Ramos-Horta is Former President of Timor Leste and the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Muhammad Yunus is Founder and Former Managing Director of Grameen Bank and the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. This article was cross-posted in the Huffington Post.

On January 18, 2013, we shot both a print ad and video message for the UDHR with Ron. He joins other luminaries including Paul McCartney, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Robert De Niro ad others in this vital campaign to raise awareness on the role of human rights in our world.

Mr. Ramos-Horta, who is also the Chairman of the Advisory Board for TheCommunity.com, succeeds Joseph Mutaboba of Rwanda as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and Head of the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNIOGBIS). Mr. Mutaboba completes his assignment at the end of this month.

Mr. Ramos-Horta brings with him more than three decades of a diplomatic and political career in the service of peace and stability in Timor-Leste and beyond. Working closely with the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), he helped to bring about the peaceful elections of the country’s Parliament and President in 2001 and 2002, respectively.

As the President of Timor-Leste, most recently from 2007 to 2012, Mr. Ramos-Horta contributed to “heal the wounds and stabilize the situation in the country following the crisis in 2006,” the statement noted. He has also served as his country’s Foreign Minister and as Prime Minister.

UNIOGBIS was established by the Security Council in 2009 and tasked with promoting stability in the West African nation, which has been beset by coups and political instability since it became independent in the early 1970s.

Most recently, rogue soldiers seized power in a military take-over on 12 April 2012 – just days ahead of the presidential run-off election – prompting calls from the international community for the return to civilian rule and the restoration of constitutional order. Recent incidents include an attack on a military base in October, which reportedly resulted in numerous deaths.

Read press release

Produced by the Abaunza Group and spearheaded with a video by Jada Pinkett Smith, the campaign features notables such as Cher, Oliver Stone, Mila Kunis, Ron Howard, Ken Watanabe, Toni Colette, Kathy Griffen, Chaka Kahn, and many more.

See teh gallery, find out about the campaign, and maybe even add your own photo, here.

On October 27, 2013, TheCommunity.com video team, led by producer and director Suzanne Mitchell, arrived at Tribeca Productions, home of Mr. De Niro’s film production company, and home of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Photographer Michael Collopy shot still photos for the full page ads for the campaign, and we taped a short video message about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Stay tuned to see more.

Spearheaded by Nobel Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President Jose Ramos-Horta, 15 human rights and peace building organizations, and more than 30 artists, athletes and activists have come together to keep that fire burning.

Find out more on Causes on TheCommunity.com. (And yes that is Paul McCartney).

Tutu, 81, met with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on the eve of the inaugural International Day of the Girl Child at the United Nations. Clinton announced new government and private initiatives to prevent child marriage and promote the education of girls, including mandatory reporting of the minimum legal age for marriage and the rate of child marriage in the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.

Video with Hillary Clinton

Q and A in the Independent

We the undersigned Nobel Peace Prize laureates, human rights leaders and concerned individuals wish to express our concern at the current deterioration of the human rights situation in Tibet, and the apparent breakdown of the talks between the Chinese government and emissaries of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. We are dismayed at the lack of any concrete progress toward resolving the conflict over the autonomy and religious freedom of the Tibetan people, and urge all parties involved to redouble their effort to achieve this vital goal.

To our dear friend His Holiness the Dalai Lama, we say: we stand with you. You define non-violence and compassion and goodness. Clearly China does not know you. It is our sincere hope that they will. We call on China’s government to know His Holiness the Dalai Lama, as we and so many others have come to know him during the long decades he has spent in exile.

We ask the esteemed Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Tibet, and request that she be given access to assess and report to the international community the current state of affairs for the Tibetan people. The High Commissioner should be allowed to travel with journalists and other observers and, working with all parties involved, assist in bringing these decades of struggle to a peaceful resolution.

China is uniquely positioned to impact and affect our world. We ask you to please use this position to improve our world by listening to the voices of the Tibetan people, and creating a new solution for Tibet that allows this culture to flourish.

This will help not only Tibet. It will help China. It will demonstrate to us that China is willing to be a responsible partner in international global affairs.

Finally, we ask that China stop naming, blaming and verbally abusing one whose life has been devoted to peace. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, is not simply a holy man. He is recognized throughout the world as one of our few true moral authorities. He is a teacher who has shown us all how to live our lives with compassion, non-violence and love.

In Earnest,

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Click here to see some of the notables who signed the letter.

We re-opened the letter recently at the request of our viewers, who wanted to be able to add their names to the letter. As clearly nothing has changed or advanced on the issue of the Chinese treatment of Tibetan citizens, we are reposting it, with a new target — 120,000 signatures from around the world.

Signatories on the letter have included Nobel Peace Prize winners, internationally recognized artists, activists and people from six continents. Sadly we have lost two of them, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathai, and a dedicated Tibet activist, Adam Yauch, in the interim.

See some of the signatories to date here, then add your name.)