Amend citizenship law, Quintana says
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The United Nations' Special Rapporteur for Human Rights to Myanmar, Tomas Quintana, says he has urged the parliament again to amend the 1982 Myanmar Citizenship Law to give equal rights to all nationals.
He revealed the news during a meeting with local and foreign media yesterday.
“Dialogues with mutual respect will not emerge as long as there are discriminations based on national citizenship and faith,” Quintana said. “That’s why I want to reiterate that the parliament should amend the 1982 citizenship law so that everyone in the country can have equal rights to become citizens.”
He said he received no single word of promise to amend the law but urged government officials to continue possible measures to do that.
This is the seventh time the UN envoy has come to Myanmar. While in the country, he travelled to conflict areas and refugees camps in Rakhine and Kachin states and visited the prisons.
He also visited some political prisoners, one of whom was Dr Tun Aung in Sittwe Prison in Rakhine State. Dr Tun Aung is serving a 12-year jail term after being charged with alleged involvement in riots between Rakhine nationals and Bengalis in June last year.
“I assume he (Dr Tun Aung) is also a prisoner of conscience. We discussed that if he was released, how he would serve as a bridge to have negotiations between these two societies,” Quintana said.
He also expressed his disappointment over the government’s continued detention of four INGO staff members in Rakhine State without clear charges against them.
For the involvement in the Rakhine conflicts, 811 Bengalis and 137 nationals are under arrest but these figures do not reportedly include women and children.
