{"id":12977,"date":"2015-05-14T13:58:27","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T05:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/?p=12977"},"modified":"2015-05-14T13:58:27","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T05:58:27","slug":"asean-shameless-in-calling-itself-people-centric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/asean-shameless-in-calling-itself-people-centric\/","title":{"rendered":"ASEAN \u2018shameless\u2019 in calling itself \u2018people-centric\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recent move by Malaysian maritime authorities to turn away Rohingya refugees seeking shelter has been rapped as \u2018inhuman and atrocious\u2019.<\/p>\n

DAP Klang MP Charles Santiago today said as a whole, the ASEAN regions\u2019 treatment of Rohingya refugees leave much to be desired.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cASEAN shamelessly calls itself a people-centred bloc, and goes on to self-style the ten nation states as a caring and sharing group. Yet all we have now are thousands of people stranded at sea. Rohingya women, men and children who are starving and diseased are at the mercy of the Malaysian, Thailand and Indonesian navy,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was responding to the news that the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency will be shutting our doors to refugees, as Malaysia does not recognise refugee and classifies them as illegal immigrants. This follows a report that some 1,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshi who arrived on our shores earlier this week seeking refuge are now being detained in Langkawi.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"charles-santiago\"<\/a>

Charles Santiago<\/p><\/div>\n


\n\u201cHundreds more are at detention centers, their fate unknown. I have been made to understand that the media have not been given access to them either. Thailand has indicated it will provide shelter to the fleeing refugees but Malaysia and Indonesia, in sharp contrast, have said they will send the boats back,\u201d Santiago said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is simply inhumane and atrocious. NGOs monitoring the Rohingya boat people say close to 8000 more are still drifting in sea,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Rohingya are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world, having faced decades of state-sanctioned discrimination from a Buddhist-majority Burma. <\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier today, Deputy Home Minister Wan Junaidi Jaafar even suggested a \u2018wall\u2019 be built on the Thai-Malaysia border to prevent \u2018illegals\u2019 from getting in.<\/p>\n

Santiago said ASEAN is already lagging behind in human rights, and that the heads of states should have ironed out the thorny issue of the mass exodus of the Rohingya, which escalated further in June 2012 following state-sponsored violence, at the recently-concluded ASEAN summit earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey failed to discuss about this crucial issue as it would entail looking at Burma’s gross human rights violations against the Rohingya. Malaysia, after being instrumental in bringing Burma into the ASEAN fold, now says it will send the thousands of Rohingya back as they are illegal immigrants,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

He called on Malaysia as chair of ASEAN this year to protect the Rohingya as opposed to sending tham back to Burma to face death and persecution.<\/p>\n

– The Rocket<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recent move by Malaysian maritime authorities to turn away Rohingya refugees seeking shelter has been rapped as \u2018inhuman and atrocious\u2019. DAP Klang MP Charles Santiago today said as a whole, the ASEAN regions\u2019 treatment of Rohingya refugees leave much to be desired. \u201cASEAN shamelessly calls itself a people-centred bloc, and goes on to self-style […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[260],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12978,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12977\/revisions\/12978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}