Myanmar urged to scrap 'discriminatory laws'

 

“These laws are discriminatory in their very conception and should be scrapped,” said Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) Chairperson and Malaysian Member of Parliament Charles Santiago.

“Over the past three years under Myanmar’s military government we have seen a continuation and proliferation of ethnic and religious-based discrimination that threatens to undermine the entire reform process and destabilise the country as it goes through its democratic transition.”

The draft legislation including curbs on interfaith marriage, religious conversion and birth rates is expected to be devated by MPs and voted on in January 2015.

"The president had to draft the bills, but it is (parliament's) responsibility to enact them," president's office director Zaw Htay told AFP last week.

He said that President Thein Sein has approved the draft, inspired by radical Buddhist monks.

Rising Buddhist chauvinism and the government's apparent willingness to acquiesce to it has sparked fears that religion could becoming increasingly politicised as the former juntarun nation heads towards crunch 2015 elections.

In the statement, APHR noted that it is regrettable that laws based on such discriminatory principles have been able to get this far and they should be rejected by the parliament until they meet international human rights standards. 

 “The use of the title ‘protection of race and religion’ bills is a total misnomer. They should be called the ‘attack on minority race and religion’ bills. They are discriminatory against women and religious minorities and have no place in the laws of a modern democratic nation,” said Walden Bello, vice chair of APHR and Philippines Congressman.

“The legislation as it stands is another step in the institutionalisation of discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities and would serve to legitimise the dangerous views of those groups which have been inciting violence and hate-speech against Muslims and other minorities,” he added.

If passed, the Marriage Bill would compel non-Buddhist men to convert before marrying a Buddhist woman, and the Religious Conversion Bill unnecessarily imposes state and bureaucratic controls that violate freedoms of religion and belief and are clearly aimed at undermining the country’s minority faiths.

The Religious Conversion Bill and the Population Bill were submitted to Parliament by the Union Government on November 24, while the Interfaith Marriage Bill and the Monogamy Bill were submitted by the Union Attorney General on November 26.

 APHR considers the bills to be part of a wider policy of discrimination aimed at the country’s Muslim Rohingya minority.

 “The Myanmar government’s policy towards the Rohingya is clearly discriminatory and illegal under international human rights law. The so-called “Rakhine Action Plan”, which forces the Rohingya to deny their ethnic heritage in return for flimsy semi-citizenship status goes against basic principles of decency and humanity. It should be opposed by all right-thinking persons and the government urged to make an immediate U-turn that ends the desperate plight of the Rohingya,” said Santiago.