Canada strips Aung San Suu Kyi of honorary citizenship
OTTAWA, Canada — Canada's parliament voted unanimously on Thursday to effectively strip Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi of her honorary Canadian citizenship over the Rohingya crisis.
Ottawa had given the long-detained democracy advocate and Nobel laureate the rare honor in 2007.
But her international reputation has become tarnished by her refusal to call out the atrocities by her nation's military against the Rohingya Muslims minority, which Ottawa last week declared a genocide.
"In 2007, the House of Commons granted Aung San Suu Kyi the status of honorary Canadian citizen. Today, the House unanimously passed a motion to remove this status," said Adam Austen, spokesman for Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland.
A brutal military campaign that started last year drove more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar into neighboring Bangladesh, where they now live in cramped refugee camps -- fearful of returning to mainly Buddhist Myanmar despite a repatriation deal.
Many have given accounts of extrajudicial killings, sexual violence and arson.
The military has denied nearly all wrongdoing, justifying its crackdown as a legitimate means of rooting out Rohingya militants.
But after a fact-finding mission, the United Nations on Thursday set up a panel to prepare indictments against Myanmar's army chief and five other top military commanders for crimes against humanity.
Suu Kyi's democratically-elected government remains in a delicate power balance with the generals, whose presence in parliament gives them an effective veto on constitutional changes.
Austen cited Suu Kyi's "persistent refusal to denounce the Rohingya genocide" for the withdrawal of the Canadian honor, which is symbolic and comes with no special privileges.
"We will continue to support the Rohingyas by providing humanitarian assistance, imposing sanctions against Myanmar's generals and demanding that those responsible be held accountable before a competent international body," he added.
Honorary Canadian citizenship has only been granted to five others including the Dalai Lama, girls education advocate Malala Yousafzai and Nelson Mandela.
A social media account run by the office of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi quotes her as saying that "hate narratives from outside the country" have fueled tensions between Muslim Rohingya and Buddhist Rakhine communities in the country's west.
The Facebook page of the State Counsellor Office says Suu Kyi made the comment in a discussion with Christine Schraner Burgener, special envoy of the United Nations secretary-general for Myanmar. It says topics included the situation in Rakhine state, where about 700,000 ethnic Rohingya have fled since last August to escape violent counterinsurgency activities by security forces responding to attacks by a group of Rohingya militants. — AP
A Rohingya refugee delegation arrived in Myanmar on Friday to tour new facilities built for the revival of a long-stalled plan to return the persecuted minority to their homeland.
Bangladesh is home to about a million Rohingya, most of whom fled a 2017 military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar that is now subject to a UN genocide investigation.
Both countries signed an agreement to return them later that year, but little progress has been made since, and the United Nations has repeatedly warned conditions were not right for their repatriation.
Bangladesh officials said Friday that 20 Rohingya and seven officials including a border guard officer were visiting two model villages erected for the pilot return project.
"We departed from Teknaf jetty with 20 Rohingya members, including three women," Bangladesh's deputy refugee commissioner Mohammed Khalid Hossain told AFP
"They will see the various facilities created for the purpose of repatriation to Myanmar," he said as their boat left the river port for neighbouring Maungdaw township.
Bangladesh refugee commissioner Mizanur Rahman told AFP the new facilities include a market, hospital and reception centre for returning refugees. — AFP
A Rohingya delegation will visit Myanmar on Friday as part of efforts to revive a long-stalled plan to return the stateless minority to their homeland, refugees and Bangladeshi officials say.
Bangladesh is home to around a million Rohingya, most of whom fled a 2017 military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar that is now subject to a UN genocide investigation.
Both countries signed an agreement to return them later that year but little progress has been made since, and the United Nations has repeatedly warned that conditions were not right for their repatriation. — AFP
The United States announces $26 million in new humanitarian aid for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and elsewhere in that region of Asia.
Around one million members of the mostly Muslim Rohingya community live in squalid relief camps in Bangladesh, many after fleeing a 2017 military crackdown in neighboring Myanmar. The onslaught caused one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
"This new funding allows our humanitarian partners to continue providing life-saving assistance to affected communities on both sides of the Burma Bangladesh border," State Department spokesman Ned Price says, using the old name for Myanmar. — AFP
The Human Rights Watch says an elite Bangladesh police unit is engaged in the rampant extortion, harassment and wrongful arrests of the Rohingya refugees it has been tasked with protecting.
The Armed Police Battalion (APBn) operates in camps housing nearly one million members of the stateless minority, most of whom fled neighbouring Myanmar after a military crackdown that is now the subject of a UN genocide investigation.
But refugees and humanitarian workers told the New York-based watchdog that safety had deteriorated after the unit took charge of camp security in 2020, with some Rohingya telling AFP abuses had become "a regular occurrence". — AFP
Authorities say Rohingya refugees received emergency medical treatment after a boat carrying nearly 200 people came ashore in Indonesia on Monday, in the fourth such landing in the country in recent months.
Each year thousands of the mostly Muslim Rohingya, heavily persecuted in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, risk their lives on long, expensive sea journeys -- often in poor-quality vessels -- in an attempt to reach Malaysia or Indonesia.
The wooden vessel arrived at around 5:30 pm (1030 GMT) on a beach in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh, said local police spokesman Winardy. — AFP
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