Local rally protests atrocities against Rohingya in Myanmar
Anwar Arkani’s pleas to a Hamilton rally to help his fellow Rohingyas in Myanmar were followed by cries of “shame” directed at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the United Nations for not stopping the massacre.
The rally in front of City Hall protested the atrocities the military is inflicting on the Muslim minority in Myanmar, also known as Burma. It also called on the Canadian government to act to stop it.
The accounts of horror include the burning of entire Rohingya villages, killing, torturing, beheading and slaughtering men, women and children; mass rapes of young girls and women; and torturing and killing infants.
Condemnation was expressed by speaker after speaker at the rally, attended by about 200 to 300 people.
They called on the Canadian government to send help to the approximately 500,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, to stop sending $42 million in aid to Myanmar, to end the atrocities and to revoke leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s honorary Canadian citizenship from 2007.
Arkani, of Kitchener, escaped Myanmar while a boy and spent 10 years in Thailand before he was able to come to Canada 20 years ago.
He still has a sister and nieces and nephews in Myanmar and told the crowd, “I cannot sleep. I cannot eat because there is absolutely nothing I can do.”
Arkani has been spreading word of the Rohingya plight since 2007.
“Please, people are dying as we speak,” said an emotional Ankari.
“Sometimes I go numb” thinking about the massacres, he told The Spectator afterward. “My brain goes blank.”
Ahmed Ramadan of the Burma Task Force Canada said the federal government should refer to what’s happening to the Rohingya as genocide. “Forget ethnic cleansing. It’s genocide,” he said.
He also called on Ottawa to commit UN peacekeepers to protect the rest of the Rohingya villages, and to airlift food and medicine to the thousands of refugees who have fled into neighbouring Bangladesh.
“It’s time to act,” said Imam Sayed Masood Tora of the Muslim Association of Hamilton. “The only way to stop this is if we treat every atrocity and oppression as if it is (done to us).”
United Church Rev. Christina Paradela said: “This is a crime against humanity. We are the human race so this is a crime against all of us … Trudeau must call for an end to the violence and bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Uzma Qureshi of the Muslim Council of Greater Hamilton urged everyone to go online to stopgeno- cide.ca to send a message to Parliament and to shutdownhate.ca to sign a petition.
The Myanmar government has denied the allegations of systematic slaughter.
At the rally, cries of “shame” came from the crowd when speakers pointed out that Canada has not revoked Suu Kyi’s honorary Canadian citizenship.
Suu Kyi, a previously celebrated Nobel Peace Prize winner, has come under international criticism for failing to stop — or even speak out against — the violence.
Trudeau spoke to her two weeks ago to express “deep concerns” and urge her to publicly condemn the atrocities.
The rally was organized by the Muslim Council of Greater Hamilton, the Beasley community, Hope for Women and Children and other groups.