Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development

Sous-comité des droits internationaux de la personne du Comité permanent des affaires étrangères et du développement international

For immediate release

Ottawa, April 13, 2017 -

On 4 April 2017, the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development (the Subcommittee) held a meeting to receive an update on the human rights situation of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar from two prominent members of the Rohingya community in Canada. The Subcommittee is grateful for the witnesses’ valuable insight on the experiences and abuses the Rohingya are confronting in Myanmar and in neighbouring refugee camps.

The Subcommittee has followed the plight of the Rohingya closely, issuing a report in June 2016, entitled Sentenced to a Slow Demise: The Plight of Myanmar’s Rohingya Minority. The Subcommittee found that Myanmar’s one million Rohingya Muslims continue to be denied citizenship, freedom of movement, access to the most basic services as well as the freedom to worship publicly. On 24 November 2016, the Subcommittee released a Joint Statement expressing alarm over the ruthless and disproportionate response by Myanmar security forces to the violence in Maungdaw district, Myanmar, which began in October 2016.

The Subcommittee was appalled upon learning more details of the Myanmar military’s brutal and disproportionate response to attacks by a Rohingya militant group in Rakhine State in late 2016. While the Subcommittee condemns violence committed by both parties, the Myanmar military’s attacks on thousands of innocent Rohingya civilians, including women and children, are inexcusable. In particular, the Subcommittee is horrified to hear evidence that entire Rohingya villages were burned down, with security forces and mobs of Rakhine villagers setting fire to houses with families inside. Members of the military also committed widespread rape and sexual violence as a form of torture in their brutal operation, targeting women and girls of all ages. Rohingya that have lost their homes, livelihoods, and family members have either fled to refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh, or have become internally displaced in Maungdaw district, further exacerbating the scale of the crisis.

The Subcommittee condemns the ongoing human rights abuses committed by the Myanmar government against the Rohingya, and reiterates its recommendations to the Government of Canada in its June 2016 Report. These recommendations requested that the Government of Canada call on Myanmar to respect and protect the rights of all ethnic and religious minorities in its jurisdiction; urge the Government of Myanmar to repudiate anti-Muslim violence, end impunity for acts of violence against the Rohingya, and develop a strategy for promoting tolerance between the Rakhine and the Rohingya in Rakhine State; and continue to support democratic development programs in Myanmar that include technical assistance in the sectors of rule of law and justice.

QUOTES

“Under the guise of restoring order, the Myanmar military committed horrific crimes against thousands of innocent Rohingya civilians, including women and children, and must be held accountable for their actions.” -Michael Levitt, M.P., Chair

“The silence of the International Community is deafening. The cost of the ongoing failure of the United Nations Security Council to exercise the responsibility to protect and to deliver on its primary mandate to maintain international peace and security is being paid by minority groups around the world, not the least of which is the Rohingya in Myanmar.” -David Sweet, M.P., Vice-Chair

“It is time for the Government of Canada to step up—to call on Myanmar to respect and protect the rights of all ethnic and religious minorities in its boundaries. As a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Mynamar is bound to protect the rights of all individuals within its territory, without distinction of any kind. The international community must come together to hold the Government of Myanmar accountable to its own laws, as well as to international law. There is simply no place for pogroms in the 21st century.” -Cheryl Hardcastle, M.P., Vice-Chair