ကုိသိန္းစိုး(ခ) ရဲရင့္ ၏ ျမန္မာျပည္ ျပန္ပို ့မခံရေစ ေရး အတြက္ စာ ပို
့ျခင္း လုပ့္ရွားမူ ့ကို ျပဳလုပ့္သြားရန္ရွိပါသျဖစ္ ေအာက္ ေဖၚျပပါစာ
ဦး စြာ ပထမ အီး ေမးလ္ ေပးပို ့ရမည့္ သူမ်ား၏ လိပ့္စာ ကို ယၡဳ စာ ၏ ေအာက္
ဆံုး မွ (copy) ကူယူျပီး Recipients တြင္ (Paste) ထည့္ သြင္းေပးရပါမည္။
ျပီးေနာက္ ေအာက္ ပါ စာ တခု ့လံုးကို (copy) ကူယူျပီ စာ ကိုယ္တြင္(paste)
ထည့္ ျပီး ပို ့လိုက္ လို ့ရပါသည္။
ေလးစားစြာျဖင့္
က်ေနာ္ အားလံုးသည္ ရဲ ရင့္ မ်ားျဖစ္ၾကပါသည္။
ရဲရင့္ ကိုယ္စား က်ေနာ္ တို ့မွ ေဖၚ ျပပါ ကေနဒါမွ သက္ဆိုင္ရာ
တာဝန္ရွိသူမ်ားကို အီးေမးလ္ ေပးပို ့ျခင္းျဖစ္ က်ေနာ္တို ့ဆႏၱ ကို
ေဖၚျပသိေစအပ့္ ပါမည္။
------------
က်ေနာ္သိေသာ ခင္မင္သူမ်ားကို tag လုပ့္ေပးထားပါသည္။ tag မလုပ့္ေစလိုသူမ်ား အေၾကာင္းၾကားေပးေစလိုပါသည္။
--------------------------------------------
The Honourable Ahmed D. Hussen
Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
365 Laurier Avenue West
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 1L1
Email: Minister@cic.gc.ca
Telephone: 613-954-1064
Fax: 613-952-5533
With regard to the case of Mr. Than Soe, a Myanmar asylum seeker living
in Canada since 2003, I would like to raise five concerns with regard
to his potential removal from Canada to Myanmar. These concerns argue
strongly against his removal at this time in the absence of guarantees
with regard to his security. I would like to start by acknowledging
Canada’s humanity and generosity in allowing Than Soe to remain in
Canada despite his ineligibility for asylum and the complexities of his
case. I would also like to acknowledge Than Soe’s diligence in adhering
to the conditions of his stay and remaining a productive, tax-paying
resident.
Uneven Reform and Political Uncertainty – Since 2010
Myanmar has been undergoing what has often been referred to as ‘the
triple transition,’ from war to peace, military rule to democracy, and
from a closed, centrally planned to a market economy. The country has
made very significant reform progress since 2012. Areas of progress
include the release of hundreds of political prisoners in 2011 and 2012,
the freeing of the media in 2012, liberalization of the economy, and
free and fair elections in 2015 which saw the opposition National League
for Democracy, led by Nobel Peace Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, win a
strong majority. However, the dominant international narrative that
basic human and civil rights are no longer a concern because the
government is now headed by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is to overestimate the
power of an individual leader, underestimate the long-term institutional
decay of decades of military rule, and disregard events in Myanmar
since the NLD came to power in April 2016. Any transition as sweeping as
Myanmar’s includes stalls and setbacks. In early 2017 Myanmar’s reform
process is in a period of stall. As of January 2017 there are 250
political prisoners in Myanmar, up from 64 during the NLD’s first month
in power, April 2016. Many are people charged with criminal defamation
by officials of the NLD government. End 2016 and beginning 2017 have
seen the worst fighting in the country in over a decade, involving
clashes between the Myanmar army and ethnic armed organizations in
Kachin and Shan States. Armed conflict and the draconian response by the
Myanmar military against Rohingya civilians has attracted global
attention and stands to have destabilizing effect well beyond Myanmar’s
borders. Among the multiple roots of Myanmar’s current instability, two
stand out. First the entire security apparatus and several other core
state functions remain under the control of the Myanmar military. These
functions are not truly under the control of the civilian government led
by State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. In a context of poor relations
between State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the military, the
result resembles rule by two governments, creating competition and
instability, allowing for a continuation of the abuses of power which
have characterized Myanmar’s history. Second Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has
been unwilling or unable to provide significant and definitive moral and
political leadership on the core issues of human rights, rule of law,
and armed conflict. In December 2016, a dozen fellow Nobel Peace
Laureates published an open letter denouncing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s
silence and lack of moral leadership specifically on the persecution of
the Rohingya minority, while the UN has issued a report stating that the
actions of the Myanmar army in Rakhine State may amount to crimes
against humanity. Indicative of the current policy incoherency and
political uncertainty, foreign direct investment has fallen and economic
growth has slowed in 2016. In the long-run Myanmar is likely to right
itself and continue on a path of economic and political reform, however
currently the overall context in Myanmar is one of increasing, rather
than declining, conflict, wavering on reform, and political instability.
Human Rights and Weak Institutionalization of Rule of Law –
Should he return, Mr. Than Soe could be charged under numerous laws. Any
one of these charges could insert Than Soe into a very weak justice
system in which fundamental rights of defense are not consistently
available. As has been exhaustively documented, Myanmar had for decades
one of the worst human rights records in the world. According to the
most recent general report of the UN’s Special Rapporteur of the Human
Rights Council on the situation of human Rights in Myanmar, the
country’s justice institutions remain very weak. During long military
rule (1962 – 2010), the justice system was deeply degraded, functioning
as an administrative agency of the government rather than an independent
branch. In practice the judiciary does not function independently,
there is no ministry of justice, and much of Myanmar’s legal code dates
from the colonial era. Military era laws remain on the books, even if
their enforcement has been selectively suspended. The Penal Code dates
from 1865. A recent report by the British Council details the weaknesses
in Myanmar’s justice system, the common understanding of the legal
system as an enforcement mechanism, not a means of defending rights, and
the difficulty of pursuing court action. To date there is only one
documented instance of someone attempting to sue the government.
According to the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index, Myanmar
ranks close to the bottom, 98th out of 113 countries. In addition to
affecting the everyday lives of Myanmar citizens, the weakness of rule
of law has been demonstrated in prominent cases involving the murder of
journalists. Nothing demonstrates the perilous absence of rule of law
and guaranteed rights than the assassination on January 29, 2017 of the
country’s most prominent constitutional and human rights lawyer, U Ko
Ni, legal advisor to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD. Should Than Soe
return and be arrested, there is no guarantee that he would receive a
prompt and fair trial or access to competent defense. Further if he is
unlawfully detained, he would not have access to any means of redress.
There is no denying fact that the general sense of improvements has
already emerged in the country under the civilian leadership. However,
the military is still in full control of very critical ministries and
the elected body has still been encountering a wide array of challenges,
especially in the areas of protecting human rights, adopting democratic
principles, and implementing justice and rules of law.
Here
are a few of the numerous examples that can lead to question the state
of human rights, democracy, and rules of law in this country:
“The Myanmar Army detained Par Gyi, 49 years old journalist, on 30
September 2014. Five days later, the journalist was shot to death.
Autopsy reports showed that Par Gyi was tortured before he was killed”.
“ It’s totally unacceptable, said Myanmar’s incoming information
minister Pe Myint on the court recommendations to close the case of a
freelance journalist who was killed while in military custody in 2014”
[Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), March 30, 2016:
https://www.seapa.org/courts-drop-par-gyi-murder-case/ ].
A reporter working with Myanmar’s Eleven Media Group was killed in the
northwest of the country in late 2016. [Asia Correspondent: December
13, 2016:
https://asiancorrespondent.com/…/burma-journalist-killed-r…/].
“5 villagers were killed during interrogation by soldiers in Shan State in June 2016”. [The Reuters: July 20, 2016:
http://www.reuters.com/…/us-myanmar-military-massacre-idUSK…]
Ko Ni, a prominent Myanmar human rights lawyer and Aung San Suu Kyi’s
advisor was shot in the head in broad daylight at Yangon International
Airport on 29th January 2017. [Radio Free Asia: January 30, 2017:
http://www.rfa.org/…/prominent-myanmar-rights-lawyer-killed…]
A recent report from a local newspaper in February 2017 showed that a
Myanmar man who starred in Rambo V movie was arrested and has still been
held in prison for his role in the movie.
These are only
selected few of a number of cases in Myanmar. Among them, only a
handful of cases targeting rights promoters have been investigated. In
many cases, the perpetrators have never been brought to face justice.
Rights promoters, democracy activists, and land rights defenders for the
farmers have still been threatened and arrested even under the new
administrations.
Few Returns - Relatively few political exile
or refugees have returned since the suspension of the blacklist at the
end of 2012. Over 100,000 refugees remain in camps in Thailand, and few
have moved to return. UNHCR originally estimated that there would be
15,000 refugee returns in 2016, only 71 returned. Originally 191 had
signed up to return, but many were deterred by the lengthy pre-departure
screening process in the camps carried out by the Myanmar authorities.
The screening was to determine whether the refugees were Myanmar
nationals and eligible for return. It involved over 20 representatives
from four ministries and union, state, and local government. A recent
survey determined that 80% of them do not want to return, citing
concerns over safety and security. Among political asylees in third
countries, only a small number have returned to live and work but the
vast majority remain in the country of resettlement. Although the
government has changed, the repressive state apparatus and security
concerns which motivated departures in the first place to a great extent
remain in place.
Lack of Precedent – Among those who have
returned, there is no precedent for a case like Than Soe’s, i.e.
involuntary removal from a country of sanctuary back to Myanmar for
someone without identification or papers from any nation. Among the
political exiles who have returned from third countries, all but a
handful have done so with the protection of citizenship from a third
country, i.e. the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, or the
Nordic countries. The dozen or less known political exiles who have
returned and reclaimed Myanmar citizenship are very high profile figures
who received assurances from the highest levels of the previous
government led by President Thein Sein (2011 – 2016) Two were graduates
of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government who served as
advisors to President Thein Sein. Nonetheless in both cases the
difficulty of reclaiming Myanmar citizenship still required intervention
from the highest levels of government. Superficially the case of Mr.
Soe Myint who hijacked a plane from Thailand to India is similar.
However at the time of his return to Myanmar from India in 2012, Soe
Myint was the editor of a well-known and highly critical news magazine,
Mizzima, published out of India. He wished to return to Myanmar and, as a
high profile exile editor, was courted by the Thein Sein government as
part of its effort to gain credibility domestically and internationally.
Soe Myint then formed a business partnership with two of the most
influential businessmen in the country, Serge Pun and Sonny Swe, to
launch Mizzima inside Myanmar. In sum there is no political exile with a
record like Than Soe’s who has returned to Myanmar without the
protection of third country citizenship or a high profile. Finally, the
situation of foreigners and returning exiles themselves has become more
difficult since the NLD took power in 2016. There is currently a bill
before the national parliament that would severely curtail the movement
and residence of foreigners in Myanmar. If passed it would require, for
example, that foreigners register in their townships of residence and
inform the local authorities of any movement outside of that township
within 24 hours. As of this writing the bill is still under debate.
Absence of Guarantees of the Right to Citizenship – Than Soe has no
guarantee of obtaining the rights of Myanmar citizenship. Myanmar
maintains a system of population control and surveillance that has its
roots in the colonial and military eras and has remained unchanged.
Every individual is required to be registered as part of a ‘household
list’ maintained by the Ministry of Immigration, Population, and Labor.
This registration occurs at birth or when someone moves in to join the
household. However for those moving to join the household, i.e. spouse,
adopted child, or relative, officially two year residency is required
before they are considered to have ‘registered’ as part of the household
list. Further all records are paper based, so to obtain a copy of a
household registration one must travel to the township of birth or last
registration. In other words Myanmar treats internal migration and
movement the way that many countries treat immigration. Only after
becoming part of a household list can individuals obtain a National
Registration Card (NRC). This NRC card functions as a national ID card.
It is required for movement around the country, including purchase bus,
train, or plane tickets, employment, or accessing services. It must be
shown at any checkpoints or to any officials who ask to see it. It is
also required to access health, education, or other services. Myanmar
has a complex hierarchy of citizenship and it is possible to have an NRC
but still not be a full citizen. To exercise the rights of citizenship
such as voting or obtaining a passport, the Citizenship Scrutiny Card
(CSC) is required. To obtain a CSC an individual must be registered,
have an NRC, and undergo screening to verify eligibility for
citizenship, typically demonstrating multi-generational presence in
Myanmar through household lists. It is not clear how Than Soe would
obtain an NRC and CSC. He has not been part of a household list in
Myanmar for 27 years.Because of the lack of precedent it is not clear
that an NRC or CSC would be granted to someone with Than Soe’s
background. His forced removal to Myanmar could result in him
effectively becoming stateless, with neither Myanmar citizenship nor
permanent residence in another country.
Case Number: Pre- Removal Risk Assessment UCI: 5348-8994
-------------------------------------------------
ပို ့ရမည့္ အီးေမးလ္လိပ့္စာမ်ား
( The e-mail addresses copy and paste are below.
Minister@cic.gc.ca
bruce.stanton@parl.gc.ca
ronald.poulton@sympatico.ca
)
