LONDON: Member of European Parliament (MEP) Amjad Bashir has been calling for comprehensive international sanctions against Myanmar in response to the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims.
According to details, an urgent resolution, which will go before the European Parliament (EP) on Thursday, will press the European Union (EU) to consider all possible means of compelling the Burmese authorities to halt atrocities against Rohingya Muslims. The act has also provoked a refugee crisis in Bangladesh where the persecuted Rohingyas are fleeing.
Bashir, a conservative MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber, is advocating a three-pronged international strategy to impose pressure on Naypyidaw – the capital of Myanmar.
According to reports, he is proposing an immediate halt to any trade and investment discussions between Europe and Myanmar, as part of a reintroduction of sanctions on the country, in coordination with the United Nations (UN).
Secondly, he is urging the United Kingdom (UK), along with the EU and its other member states, to make the support of the Myanmar government conditional on the lifting of all unnecessary, discriminatory and disproportionate restrictions in Rakhine state and on the Rohingya people.
Finally, he is advocating a renewed appeal to Sakharov Prize winner and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, to use her leadership position in Myanmar to condemn unequivocally the violence, murder and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya minority.
Human rights watchdogs have voiced mounting concerns, over Myanmar’s systematic campaign aimed towards ethnic cleansing of its minority population, since sanctions were lifted from the country in 2013.
The European parliamentarian recently highlighted the Rohingya genocide in a report to the EP on the plight of stateless peoples.
He said, “The world is waking up to the horrors being visited upon the Rohingyas, which is ethnic cleansing in the 21st century,” and added, “Time had come for the sympathetic words to be translated into firm actions, which meant sanctions.”
“A trade mission from the EP’s International Trade Committee is scheduled to visit Myanmar next week which, must be halted right now,” the MEP demanded.
“I am all for trade and commerce, but we must put lives and people first. Where there is no fairness and dignity there can be no trade. Commerce cannot turn a blind eye to violence and cruelty,” he concluded.
