Exiled Burmese democracy activists in Japan demonstrated on Wednesday in a rare show of support of President Thein Sein concerning his plan to expel the Rohingya minority group to third countries.
During his meeting with United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres on 11 July, Thein Sein mooted a plan to hand over the Rohingyas to the body for resettlement in third countries; however, the UNHCR prompted rejected the idea.
On 18 July, Burmese activists led by the Association of United Nationalities in Japan (AUN) was joined by members from around 30 organisations including National League for Democracy-Liberated Area (NLD-LA) in protesting in front of the United Nations’ office in Tokyo in support of the president’s scheme.
While Burmese democratic activist organisations in Japan have protested against the government’s 2008 constitution, the 2007 crackdown and the formation of the nominally civil parliament in 2011, the activists on Wednesday appeared to be supportive of the plan to resettle about 800,000 Rohingyas outside of the country.
