Mizzima
Human rights defenders from Myanmar based in New Zealand are urging the government to bar members of the junta from entering the country to attend the New Zealand – ASEAN meeting due on 18 and 19 April, according to the NGO Myanmar Accountability Project on 15 April.
On behalf of a group of Myanmar human rights defenders, Sam Lowery of Bankside Chambers in Auckland, has filed an application at the High Court in Wellington for a judicial review of any government decision to permit regime representatives entering New Zealand. The hearing has been set for 1415 New Zealand time on Tuesday 16 April 2024.
One of the complainants, Swam Myaing, said “allowing junta representatives to attend the meeting would give the regime, which has been accused at the International Court of Justice of committing an ongoing genocide against the Rohingya people, the recognition it craves, at the very time when there has been a sharp increase in atrocity crimes and when democratic forces are making significant advances on the ground. We will challenge the decision to let in officials of this illegal clique on the streets and in the courts.”
The other complainants, behind the legal case, Win Htun, Hla Aye and Su Darli Than, argue that “the invitation is sharply at odds with the government’s own policy and that of New Zealand’s international and regional allies.”
New Zealand was one of the first countries to condemn the military coup in 2021, imposing sanctions and travel bans and suspending high-level political engagement. Significantly, the travel ban was expanded in February this year by the current government. Moreover, since the coup, neither New Zealand nor Australia have allowed the illegal regime’s officials to attend meetings they have hosted.
Phil Twyford, Spokesperson for the New Zealand Labour Party “welcomed and fully supported this bid to hold the Government of New Zealand to account for an appalling, unprincipled and shortsighted decision to host representatives of the illegal Myanmar regime for an ASEAN Dialogue meeting in New Zealand. The junta is not the Government of Myanmar, they have no legitimacy, and the New Zealand Government has no business inviting them here.”
Since attempting to seize power in a coup in February 2021, the unelected regime has waged what the UN Rapporteur has described as “a reign of terror on its own people”. They have killed almost five thousand people and arrested or forcibly disappeared over twenty-six thousand, according to conservative estimates. A quarter of the country is dependent on international aid and nearly three million people have been forcibly displaced.
