Jean Lambert MEP has urged Andrea Radrizzani, chairman of Leeds United Football Club, to cancel or postpone the team’s planned post-season tour of Myanmar.

Her letter explains that cancelling the tour would send a strong message to Myanmar and make it clear that the international community condemns its ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people.

Read the letter below, or click here to view a PDF version.

Dear Mr Radrizzani,

Leeds United’s planned tour of Myanmar

I was extremely alarmed to hear that Leeds United plans to visit Myanmar next week.

Since August, almost one million Rohingya people have been forced to flee the country to escape a military crackdown in Rakhine state.

I recently visited the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, and heard first-hand about the suffering they have faced – from violent torture and abuse, to rape and sexual exploitation.

Sadly, the crisis is far from over. The monsoon season in Bangladesh will begin any day now, and up to 100,000 Rohingya refugees – including 55,000 children – are thought to be at risk from flooding and landslides. Those affected would fill the stands at Elland Road almost three times over. This is nothing short of a major humanitarian emergency.

In this context, I find it astonishing that Leeds United would choose to embark on a post-season tour of Myanmar. The visit will suggest that the international community does not have a problem with the persecution of the Rohingya. This could not be further from the truth.

The actions of Myanmar have been roundly condemned. In December, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on the military and security forces in Myanmar to immediately stop the violence, killings, harassment and rape of the Rohingya. Two months later, when I visited the camps in my role as Chair of the Parliament’s South Asia delegation, I urged Myanmar to respect the dignity of the Rohingya people and return their full citizenship rights to stop this persecution.

If Leeds United’s tour is, as you say, “about people not governments”, I would encourage you to learn more about the ways in which ordinary peoples’ lives have been destroyed by the violence in Rakhine state.

This compilation of devastating personal stories would be a good place to start: http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/09/world/myanmar-rohingyarefugee-stories/

The violence perpetrated by the regime in Myanmar is simply indefensible. If you postpone or cancel the tour, it would send a strong message to Myanmar and make it clear that the international community condemns its ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people. You could, instead, offer sports opportunities to the many young people in the region, in Thailand or Bangladesh for instance, who have been displaced by violence in Myanmar. I urge you to reconsider your plans.

Yours sincerely,
Jean Lambert
Green MEP for London

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Recent rapprochement between Myanmar’s military junta and Europe – which has seen political prisoners including EU Sakharov prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi released from jail – has done little to prevent the persecution of the country’s Rohingya minority.

Ms Lambert has previously called for future trade between the EU and Myanmar to be limited unless the South-East Asian country protects Muslims living there.

Now she will host a discussion in the European Parliament on the plight of the Burmese Rohingya, to coincide with an exhibition of photographs documenting their lives.

Other participants in the debate include photographer Greg Constantine, Tim Khin, President of the Burmese Rohingya Organization UK, and Lotte Licht, EU Director of Human Rights Watch.

The discussion takes place next Thursday, November 28th – with the exhibition, entitled: ‘Exiled to Nowhere: Burma’s Rohingya’, running all week.

Speaking before the event, Ms Lambert said:

“Earlier this year the European Parliament condemned the Government of Myanmar for failing to uphold the human rights and fundamental freedoms of its Rohingya minority, an issue often overlooked in global consideration of Burmese politics – and this exhibition and debate is about raising awareness of their plight.

“Burma’s Rohingya minority has suffered grave human rights abuses – described by Human Rights Watch as a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing.

“Violent attacks against the Muslim Rohingya people have included rape, torture, destruction of property and places of worship as well as official long-standing restrictions on freedom of movement, marriage rights and freedom of education. Thousands of displaced Rohingya are now living in neighbouring Thailand and, especially, Bangladesh.

“I call on the Government of Myanmar to recognise and uphold all their rights and do all it can to protect the Rohingya peoples from organised violence.”

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London’s Green MEP Jean Lambert welcomed the award, which she said represented the EU’s commitment to the values of freedom, democracy and equality.

Ms Lambert, said: “Aung San Suu Kyi has been a resilient and courageous symbol for the advancement of freedom and democracy in her native Myanmar, and well-deserves this award in recognition.

“The Government of Myanmar has made significant strides towards real democracy and equality in recent years – and Aung San Suu Kyi has played a key role in making that happen – but there is still much progress to be made, especially in the way religious and ethnic minorities are treated.

“I hope this award, and the Parliament’s ongoing relationship with its Sakharov Prize-winners, help both the EU and the Government of Myanmar remain focused on making that progress.”

Accepting the award, Aung San Suu Kyi thanked MEPs for their support over the years: “Freedom of thought begins with the right to ask questions and this right our people in Burma have not had for so long that some of our young people do not quite know how to ask questions.

“We want to make sure that the right to think freely and to live according to our conscience is preserved. This right is not yet guaranteed 100%. We still have to work very hard before the basic law of the land, which is the constitution, will guarantee us the right to live according to our conscience.”

Aung San Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest before being released in November 2010.

This year’s Sakharov Prize was awarded to Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzi after Ms Lambert joined a cross-party group of MEPs in nominating her for the award.

The post MEPs present Burmese pro-democracy activist with human rights prize appeared first on Jean Lambert MEP.

Her comments came as MEPs rebuked the state for the ongoing persecution of and violence against its Rohingya minority which has seen 46 killed and 14,000 people displaced since March alone. More have joined the thousands displaced in earlier crackdowns and now in Thailand and especially Bangladesh.

Violent attacks against the Muslim Rohingya people – which began in Rakhine province but have now spread across the country – have included rape, torture, destruction of property and places of worship as well as official long-standing restrictions on freedom of movement, marriage rights and freedom of education.

The Burmese Government is now considering a policy of limiting Rohingya women to having a maximum of two children, in what human rights organisations have called a policy of ethnic cleansing .

Ms Lambert, Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation to South Asia, said:

“Human Rights Watch has called the Burmese Government’s actions towards the Rohingya people a ‘crime against humanity’.

“MEPs have today agreed: we condemn all violations of human rights and express our deepest condolence to all those affected by the violence and ongoing persecution.

“We call on the Burmese Government to do all it can to protect the Rohingya population from organised violence, to allow aid workers, diplomats and journalists unhindered access to all parts of the country, and to amend its law so all religious and ethnic minorities living in the country are granted full citizenship before elections next year.

“The EU allows Burma access to some EU markets through a scheme known as the ‘Generalised System of Preference’ – this must be conditional on an end to all abuses of fundamental freedoms and human rights, against the Rohingya population or more generally.”

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