Chris Evans – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Evans on 2014-05-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent reports he has received on the situation for religious minorities in Burma.

Mr Hugo Swire

British officials regularly receive reports on a wide range of human rights issues, including the treatment of religious minorities in Burma. We share UN Special Rapporteur for Burma Tomas Ojea Quintana’s concerns, as noted in his final report to the UN Human Rights Council on 2 April 2014, that the Burmese government is “not fulfilling its international human rights obligation to tackle incitement to violence based on national, racial or religious hatred”. We are particularly concerned by the rise in anti-Muslim attacks and hate speech over the last two years, continued intercommunal tensions in Rakhine State and the plight of the Rohingya. I raised our wider concerns about the situation in Rakhine State with senior Burmese Ministers during their visit in January and Baroness Warsi discussed the situation with the Burmese Minister of National Planning and Economic Development, Dr Kan Zaw, during his visit to the UK in March. During my visit to Burma in January, I also met the Kachin Baptist Convention, the largest religious organisation in Kachin State. We continue to encourage religious tolerance and dialogue and call on the Burmese authorities and community leaders to help create a conducive environment for this to take place.