Burma Campaign UK
“There are falls from grace, and then there is Aung San Suu Kyi”, says the Guardian’s Southeast Asia correspondent in an examination of how the Nobel peace prize winner has become a global pariah at the head of a regime that has excused a genocide, jailed journalists and locked up critics. Mark Farmaner, Burma Campaign …
As Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh refuse to return to dangerous and volatile conditions in Rakhine State, Burma Campaign UK’s director Mark Farmaner called Burma’s pledge to bring back 150 Rohingya a day a charade. He told the Guardian it would mean repatriation of the million refugees in the camps would take almost twenty years. “Myanmar has …
Our Director Mark Farmaner in his capacity as Director of Justice4Rohingya, in a meeting with Afzal Khan MP, Labour MP for Manchester Gorton and Shadow Home Office Minister for Immigration.
BCUK team with Northern Burma delegation Kachin, Ta’ang and Shan, and Christian Solidarity Worldwide in the UK Parliament where the delegates spoke at the All Party Parliamentary Group on Burma.
With Burma’s general election exactly two years away, the next 12 months may be the last chance to reform the law, give the Rohingya their long overdue citizenship rights, and help create conditions for the safe return of a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, writes in the London …
Karen people who live in Burma’s south-eastern Tanintharyi region are opposing a ridge to reef project planned by British conservation charity Fauna and Flora International and the UN’s development programme. The project aims to protect pristine forest in the area from threats like poachers, loggers and palm oil companies. The Conservation Alliance of Tanawtharyi (Cat), a coalition of local …
Zoya Phan, Burma Campaign UK’s Campaigns Manager, graduated from the University of East Anglia in 2005 with a MA in Politics and Development. Asked by UEA’s alumni team for her advice to students, Zoya said “Use your university education to strive for a better world, take risks, make decisions and go out there to make a difference.” …
In reply to a written question on Burma, the Foreign Office Minister Mark Field MP gave this answer: “The UK initiated the EU’s new sanctions on seven military commanders and a strengthened arms embargo … we would likely need to take further action in response to the UN Fact Finding Mission report. We are now discussing …
Helen Goodman, Labour MP for Bishop Auckland in County Durham, has written to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to ask that he urgently reviews the decision to suspend refugee status for Chin refugees from Burma living in Malaysia and India. She says in her letter “It is not clear to me that any fundamental change …
Burma Campaign UK’s Director, Mark Farmaner, spoke at an event entitled “How to achieve justice for Rohingya”, organised by Justice4Rohingya yesterday at the London Central Mosque.
Burma Campaign UK welcomed Saw Wee Eh Htoo, an environmental activist from Karen Wildlife Conservation Initiative, whose visit enabled us to discuss the current environmental and human rights situation in Karen State. While in the UK, Saw Wee Eh Htoo attended a London conference on illegal wildlife trade, and met British Parliamentarians and the Karen Community …
The Financial Times reports on the message to the European Union from human rights campaigners, including Burma Campaign UK, that cutting off trade preferences for Burma would do little if nothing to sanction military leaders, while further inflaming societal tensions. “If broad-based sanctions harmed average citizens, which is likely, then domestic anti-Rohingya sentiment would escalate,” …
The Irrawaddy reports on the response to the European Union’s threat to remove “everything but arms” (EBA) trade privileges from Burma. The European Burma Network of eleven groups based in the UK, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden and Germany, including Burma Campaign UK and Burmese Rohingya Organization UK, warned the EU that “such a move risks having …
A announcement by the European Union that it is considering suspending trade privileges for Burma has alarmed garment firms, which say hundreds of thousands of jobs are at risk. Frontier Myanmar reports that the move has also puzzled human rights activists and campaign groups, few of whom have lobbied for broad economic sanctions. Burma Campaign UK …
The EU is considering ending Burma’s tariff-free access to the world’s largest trading bloc in a significant ramping up of pressure against the regime, reports the Dubai-based National. Campaign groups criticised the plan as it would not hurt senior military figures responsible for the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority and will hit thousands of young women …
Reviewing Aung San Suu Kyi’s record in office, the New York Times says Burma is in danger of again becoming a pariah state. It highlights missed opportunities such as the failure to abolish hundreds of repressive laws like the Official Secrets Act, which was used to prosecute the two Reuters journalists. Now she is under intense pressure …
Burma’s powerful army should be removed from politics, UN investigators said in the final version of a damning report reiterating calls for top generals to be prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Their presence in parliament gives them an effective veto on constitutional changes, making any transition to full civilian control extremely difficult. Three key …
The UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar calls for the Burmese military to face the International Criminal Court, criticises Aung San Suu Kyi for failure to use her position or her moral authority, and chides the UN for its failure to address human rights concerns. Reporting on Asia-Pacific affairs, the Diplomat says “Yet hitherto, as Mark Farmaner …
Doug Janke, Head of Development, on Burma Campaign UK’s stall at this week’s Trades Union Congress in Manchester. Thank you to the TUC for supporting human rights and democracy in Burma.
The Shan Human Rights Foundation reports that the Burma Army conscripted porters, shot indiscriminately into a village and detained over 50 elderly people, women and children during “clearance operations” near the Upper Yeywa dam site in northern Shan State. Local villagers are strongly opposed to the Upper Yeywa dam. In southern Shan State, Burma Army troops and …
Anna Roberts, Executive Director of Burma Campaign UK, was interviewed for Al Jazeera’s Listening Post on the sentencing of two Burmese journalists working for Reuters to seven years in jail for obtaining state secrets as they researched the killing of 10 Rohingya men in 2017. A police witness alleged that the journalists were victims of a …
Aung San Suu Kyi’s government has not spoken out for the Rohingya nor used its powers to release the two Reuters journalists imprisoned for reporting on their plight, says the Christian Science Monitor. The military are responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Rakhine State. “They have all the levers of power,” says Mark Farmaner, Burma Campaign UK’s director. …
Catherine West, Labour MP and member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on International Trade, joined Mark Farmaner of Burma Campaign UK and others on the panel at a roundtable discussion in London on Monday organised by the Justice For Rohingya Minority, reports Turkey’s Anadolu Agency. “The UK can play a leading role in ending the crisis and bringing …
Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, joined the panel at a roundtable discussion held in London on Monday by the Justice For Rohingya Minority on the genocide against the Rohingya. Also on the panel was Catherine West MP, who said that Britain should use its influence at the United Nations Security Council and table a motion to …