Evidence of meeting #11 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was camps.
A video is available from Parliament.
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for all of your testimony today. It's very enlightening, and I really appreciate it.
Mr. Neve, I just wanted to clarify something you said in your recommendations, which was that human rights groups be given access to the Rakhine State. Can you describe what the situation is for human rights groups right now? Are they being restricted access into these camps, etc., and who is restricting their access?
1:40 p.m.
Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada, Amnesty International
I'm assuming that Kevin might actually be able to give you more recent on-the-ground information.
Amnesty International has not been able to have access to those areas. That's always troubling for us in our human rights work. It doesn't mean we can't do the kind of monitoring and investigation that we need to do, but having on-the-ground access is obviously key. There have been a number of humanitarian groups, some of which had access in the past and have now been totally denied or significantly restricted. It's my understanding that journalists find it very difficult to get permission to travel in that area as well. Perhaps Kevin has more information that he would share.
1:40 p.m.
Program Manager, Inter Pares
I'm not really sure what efforts human rights groups have made to go in there. You can, for example, go to some of these areas and camps only if you get governmental permission, which takes some time and some connections. Some journalists can get in. It's a hit-and-miss situation. I would suspect it's more difficult for human rights groups and even for the humanitarian organizations.
For example, MSF was delivering some medical assistance. I don't know all the details of this, but this is how it was told to me. They were ordered out of Rakhine State; then they negotiated with the government to go back into Rakhine State, but in the Rohingya areas, they were told they could only deliver assistance to non-Rohingya. Their decision was that if they were going to be restricted in that way, then they were not going in. That's why they are not able to deliver assistance within those camps.
Access is very difficult and controlled. There are checkpoints everywhere. This is only complicated by the fact that there is still armed conflict in Rakhine State between the Burmese military and the Arakan Army, for example.
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Sorry, Chair, but I think that at this point we need to move to adjourn.
1:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Michael Levitt
As discussed previously, we have to cut this a little short today.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming in. If there's any additional information you'd like to send to the committee, please feel free to send that to the clerk. We would appreciate it.
Once again, thank you for your patience, for rescheduling from last week, and for enlightening us with your testimony today.
Thank you very much.
The meeting is adjourned.