Professor Ali Riaz participated in a teleconference on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar organized by Pacific Council on International Policy.
Participants of this teleconference held on January 25th, 2018 were Simon Billenness, the Executive Director at the International Campaign for the Rohingyas; Priscilla Clapp, a senior advisor to the US Institute of Peace and Asia Society and Professor Ali Riaz. The event was moderated by Parveen Parmar, Associate Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine, of the University of Southern California. Members of the Pacific Council and large number of the members of the public joined the event.
In recent months, almost 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from Myanmar’s western Rakhine State into Bangladesh to escape abuse and death at the hands of Myanmar’s army. Myanmar and Bangladesh have recently signed a deal to repatriate them. Professor Riaz argued in his presentation that the planned repatriation of the Roginhya refugees from Bangladesh raises serious concerns due to the absence of any safety guarantees of the Rohingyas. Further, he argued, issues of their citizenship rights have not been resolved. He criticized the international community for failing to raise funds for the relief operation for Rohingyas, and for not holding the Myanmar military accountable for “ethnic cleansing.”
Listen to the entire event.
