Burma Campaign UK’s press release featured in Mizzima:
“The British Foreign Office has dropped human rights as a priority in Myanmar and instead now focuses on promoting trade, claims Burma Campaign UK.
Dubbing British Foreign Office Minister Hugo Swire an “ostrich”, the rights NGO said the minister ducked recent questions in the British Parliament about the growing number of political prisoners in Myanmar in a push “to win business deals” with the government, according to the group’s press release October 29.
During Foreign Office questions in Parliament October 28, Sir Bob Russell MP asked Mr Swire how many additional political prisoners have been arrested this year. Rather than admit that the number of political prisoners has more than doubled, with hundreds more having been arrested and awaiting trial, the rights groups says Mr Swire bizarrely started talking about the release of 3,000 petty criminals.
The group says Mr Swire was “sticking his head in the sand, trying not to see or talk about human rights problems” in Myanmar.“