Explain plan to return 5,000 Rohingya, Saifuddin tells home minister
The former foreign minister says Parliament deserves clarity on whether the plan is lawful and consistent with Malaysia’s long-standing policy on the Myanmar junta.
PETALING JAYA:
Former foreign minister Saifuddin Abdullah has urged the home minister to make a ministerial statement in Parliament explaining the government’s plan to return 5,000 Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.
The Indera Mahkota MP said the statement should clarify the implementation of National Security Council Directive No 23, the government’s overall policy on Rohingya refugees in Malaysia, and how it intends to address the issue in a lawful and transparent manner.
“For many years, Malaysia has consistently maintained that any repatriation must be safe, voluntary and dignified, and that conditions in Myanmar must allow for a sustainable return. Does this remain the government’s policy?” he asked in a statement today.
Saifuddin also asked what assurances Myanmar had provided regarding the citizenship, legal status, safety, freedom of movement and long-term protection of those who might be returned.
He asked whether the government had changed its stance on Myanmar’s military junta, which Malaysia previously said lacked legitimacy and had failed to implement Asean’s five-point consensus.
He also asked whether the government was normalising ties with the junta by entrusting it with the return of Rohingya refugees who had fled persecution and violence.
“Parliament and the Malaysian people deserve clear answers on an issue that goes to the heart of Malaysia’s humanitarian commitments, foreign policy consistency and international standing,” he said.
Home minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said last week that his ministry had started the process of identifying, documenting and screening Rohingya refugees ahead of Malaysia’s plan to repatriate 5,000 of them.
Malaysia hosts one of the largest Rohingya populations in the region, many of whom fled persecution in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. There are some 215,000 refugees registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the country, about 126,000 of whom are Rohingya.
In 2021, Malaysia deported more than 1,000 Myanmar nationals by ship despite a court order to halt the move, with rights groups claiming asylum seekers and UNHCR-registered refugees were among those sent back.
Malaysia, which is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention and considers asylum seekers illegal migrants, recently asked UNHCR to temporarily stop registering new refugees as it develops a domestic system to manage asylum seekers.
