Arakan News Agency
The head of a new international advisory committee on the crisis in Myanmar said Saturday that humanitarian workers and journalists should be allowed free access to Arakan state, where violence has pushed some 650,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh.
Thailand’s former foreign minister Surakirat Sathirathai expressed concern over the arrest of two Reuters journalists in Myanmar last month and said he hoped the case would not lead to wider restrictions on the international media.
“I think that the entry of journalists and humanitarian staff (Arakan) is important, as is the entry of other stakeholders,” Surakirat said in an interview in Bangkok. “We must strengthen the legitimate press coverage,” he said.
Myanmar has imposed severe restrictions on the entry into Arakan state where the army was condemned by the United Nations as ethnic cleansing. Myanmar, which has a Buddhist majority, has denied the accusation.
Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s leader, chose Surakirat, 59, last year to chair a 10-member committee to advise on how to implement the recommendations made by a former committee headed by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Free media coverage was one of the recommendations identified in the 63-page report of the Annan Commission. The Myanmar leader was appointed by the Myanmar leader in 2016 to investigate how to end ethnic and religious tensions that have long existed in Arakan.
