Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - Godalming and Ash)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether her Department plans to refer the Arakan Army in Myanmar to international justice and accountability mechanisms, including via targeted financial sanctions, for potential atrocity crimes and violations of international humanitarian law.
Answered by Seema Malhotra
The UK remains deeply concerned by reports of human rights violations in Myanmar, involving a range of armed actors, and we continue to push for accountability for such abuses, wherever they occur. In April, we co-sponsored the UN Human Rights Council resolution on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, condemning ongoing violations, particularly against ethnic minorities.
The UK has provided £900,000 to the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar since 2021 to support the collection, verification, and preservation of evidence for future prosecution, and established the Myanmar Witness programme to verify open-source evidence of human rights violations.
It has been the long-standing practice under successive governments not to comment on potential future sanctions designations, as doing so could reduce their impact, but we keep all measures to promote peace and accountability in Myanmar under regular review.
Asked by: Jeremy Hunt (Conservative - Godalming and Ash)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to support the investigation of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other mass atrocity crimes and egregious violations of human rights perpetrated by the Arakan Army in Myanmar.
Answered by Seema Malhotra
The UK remains deeply concerned by reports of human rights violations in Myanmar, involving a range of armed actors, and we continue to push for accountability for such abuses, wherever they occur. In April, we co-sponsored the UN Human Rights Council resolution on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, condemning ongoing violations, particularly against ethnic minorities.
The UK has provided £900,000 to the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar since 2021 to support the collection, verification, and preservation of evidence for future prosecution, and established the Myanmar Witness programme to verify open-source evidence of human rights violations.
It has been the long-standing practice under successive governments not to comment on potential future sanctions designations, as doing so could reduce their impact, but we keep all measures to promote peace and accountability in Myanmar under regular review.