APHR calls on ASEAN Chair and Timor-Leste to renew call for Aung San Suu Kyi ‘Proof of Life’ as ASEAN meeting begins

ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) has written to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., in his capacity as ASEAN Chair, and to President José Ramos-Horta of Timor-Leste, urging both leaders to press for the immediate and unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners in Myanmar, as ASEAN Foreign Ministers gather in Manila this week for the 59th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM). The 20 July letter asked President Marcos to make independent access to Aung San Suu Kyi’s family, legal counsel, and medical professionals a non-negotiable condition of any further engagement with Myanmar’s junta, and urged President Ramos-Horta – whose government opened the region’s first universal-jurisdiction case against Min Aung Hlaing this year – to press the ASEAN bloc to act. The AMM-AICHR Interface Meeting on 20 July, where ministers were expected to discuss regional human rights developments, underscores that this appeal lands squarely within this week’s agenda. APHR notes the Special Envoy’s 19 July statement responding to criticism from the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, which reaffirmed the Five-Point Consensus as ASEAN’s primary reference on Myanmar. APHR stresses that a restated commitment is not a substitute for the verifiable outcomes the Five-Point Consensus is meant to produce – among them, proof that Aung San Suu Kyi is alive and safe. As foreign ministers convene this week, APHR urges the ASEAN Chair to treat proof of life for Aung San Suu Kyi as a concrete, near-term test of whether re-engagement with Naypyidaw is producing results – not a matter deferred once again to the next summit. The post APHR calls on ASEAN Chair and Timor-Leste to renew call for Aung San Suu Kyi ‘Proof of Life’ as ASEAN meeting begins appeared first on ENG.MIZZIMA.COM.