Press Release: MAP Demands the Expulsion of Myanmar’s Military Attache in London as part of its “Junk the Junta” Campaign

Press Release, Myanmar Accountability Project, London, 26 June, 2022:

MAP Director, Chris Gunness, today called on Boris Johnson and his Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, to expel Captain Soe Aung, the military attache in London of the illegal Myanmar junta, which seized power in February last year.

Speaking at a protest outside the residence of Soe Aung in Wimbledon, London, Gunness said “it is inconsistent of the UK to condemn the coup, slap sanctions and visa bans on junta officials and then allow a serving member of that junta to remain in the UK. Germany has expelled the Myanmar military attache and so should the UK.”

Since the coup, the Myanmar army has waged what the UN has called “a brute force terror campaign against its own people”. Over two thousand people have been killed according to conservative estimates. More than 22,000 homes and other buildings including religious buildings have been burned down in a campaign of mass arson attacks and over a million people have been displaced, tens of thousands of them into neighbouring countries.

MAP’s Junk the Junta campaign was launched on the first anniversary of the coup, 1 February 2022 and aims to delegitimise the junta and deny it diplomatic recognition, including at the UN.

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