Amnesty urges PM Modi to urge Myanmar’s leadership for protection of Rohingyas

Human rights organisation Amnesty International on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to push Myanmar’s leadership to provide assistance to Rohingyas in the violence-hit Rakhine state. PM Modi on Tuesday began his official visit to Myanmar.

Aakar Patel, the Executive Director at Amnesty International India said, “Prime Minister Modi must also use his visit to push the Myanmar authorities to allow full and unfettered humanitarian assistance to people in need. Nothing can justify denying life-saving aid to desperate people.”

It is to be noted that Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday said that Rohingyas who have crossed over to India are illegal immigrants and stand to be deported.

Nobody should preach India on the issue as the country has absorbed the maximum number of refugees in the world, he said.

According to reports, around 40,000 Rohingyas are said to be staying in the country.

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The Amnesty observed that despite being home to thousands of refugees, India is not a state party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, and does not have a domestic legal refugee protection framework.

“The treatment of refugees falls largely under the Foreigners Act of 1946, which makes no distinction between asylum-seekers, refugees and other foreigners. The Act makes undocumented physical presence in the country a crime,” it said.

Meanwhile, Hindus from Myanmar this week joined streams of Muslim Rohingyas to seek refuge in Bangladesh after the killing of 86 people from their community in the ethnic violence in the neighbouring Buddhist-majority country.

Nearly 500 Hindus arrived in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, bordering Myanmar, along with tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims amid escalated violence at home, officials said.

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