Good afternoon. I would like to welcome our two witnesses, Anwar Arkani, the president of the Rohingya Association of Canada; and Ahmed Ramadan, outreach coordinator for Burma Task Force Canada. I know you had some delays getting here, but we're glad you made it.
To give you some background, this subcommittee has been very engaged and troubled by what's been happening in Myanmar and by the plight of the Rohingya. In fact, we published a report last June, “Sentenced to a Slow Demise: The Plight of Myanmar's Rohingya Minority”. We followed that up in November of 2016 with a joint statement expressing alarm over “the ruthless and disproportionate response by Myanmar security forces to the violence in the Maungdaw district”.
We continue to be gravely concerned by the plight of the Rohingya. That is why we decided to hold this second emergency hearing on the subject. It is something that we know is of grave concern, not just to Parliament in Canada, but around the world as we speak with other colleagues in other jurisdictions.
With that, if you both could take maybe five or six minutes to give some initial remarks, then we'll have time for questions after.
Mr. Ramadan, if you want to begin, that would be great.