Friday September 28, 2018
Canada’s PM Trudeau told reporters this week that he was open to looking at stripping Aung San Suu Kyi of the citizenship honour. Photograph: Chris Wattie/Reuters
The symbolic vote by Canadian legislators is in response to crimes committed against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar
Canadian politicians have voted unanimously to strip Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi of her honorary citizenship in response to crimes committed against the Rohingya minority.
The move by the House of Commons lower chamber has no effect because honorary citizenship is conferred by a joint resolution of both the House and the upper Senate chamber and officials say it must be removed the same way. Suu Kyi received hers in 2007.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters a day ago that he was open to looking at stripping Suu Kyi of the honour, but said doing so would not end the crisis in Myanmar, where more than 700,000 Rohingya have fled a government crackdown.
The next steps to carry out the motion are not immediately clear, Liberal MP Andrew Leslie told reporters.
The House of Commons last week unanimously voted to call the killings of Rohingya a genocide – a move that Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland at the time described as significant.
Amid the genocide allegations, the UN Human rights council also voted to set up a panel to prepare criminal indictments over atrocities committed in Myanmar.
The top UN rights body voted to “establish an ongoing independent mechanism to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence of the most serious international crimes and violations of international law committed in Myanmar since 2011”.
Thirty-five of the council’s 47 members voted in favour of the resolution and only three - China, the Philippines and Burundi - voted against. The remainder either abstained or refrained from casting a vote.
The council’s decision, which was immediately hailed by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and other rights groups, will go to the UN General Assembly in New York for final approval.
The text was presented after a damning report was released to the council earlier this month, outlining in searing detail atrocities against the Rohingya, who fled a violent military campaign that started in August last year.
Myanmar’s powerful army chief Min Aung Hlaing this week insisted the United Nations had no right to interfere in his country’s sovereignty.