Here is the latest news from UNRWA and US Consulate San Diego and from below the border with Bangladesh where refugees who fled their homes are sheltering.
Myanmar’s Suu Kyi testifies in court but a gag order prevents her defense from being made public
MYANMAR’S Aung San Suu Kyi testified in a Myanmar court Wednesday under a summons, in a case that has strained her administration’s relations with Western countries for months.
Opening statements were not made available, nor was the reason for her detention. Last week, lawyers told the court that Suu Kyi’s case may be delayed until next year.
Suu Kyi is accused of violating her house arrest when her British husband moved her belongings into the home ahead of a British filmmaker’s visit in 2014. She has not been charged with the murder or attempted murder of the couple’s teenage daughter, who died of swine flu several days after the move.
Suu Kyi denies any wrongdoing.
She has repeatedly intervened with authorities in the case and called for a fair trial.
She met earlier in the day with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
-By Claudia Buck of The Associated Press
READ MORE: Deputy UN envoy condemns ‘violent, unjust’ treatment of Rohingya Muslims as Myanmar urges return of ‘virtually all’ from camps
Thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled to Bangladesh months ago are already registering new arrivals with a government-run monitoring agency, and a man has filed a lawsuit to claim he is among them — defying an order to stop entering Myanmar.
The police’s information officer in the border town of Teknaf said last week that about 300 Rohingya refugees entered the neighboring nation in late September.
Since then, a Bangladeshi lawyer has filed a case in a court in Cox’s Bazar district, the closest area to the refugee camps, seeking to appoint a lawyer to represent Abdullah, whose case the government is seeking to block, said his lawyer.
Authorities last week imposed a 23-day seal on all border crossings in view of a violent military crackdown that forced some 700,000 Rohingya to leave Myanmar, part of the largest refugee exodus in decades.
A senior Bangladeshi official said the arrest of Abdullah would not affect efforts to register the Rohingya, but added that the time limit would make it tougher to register Rohingya still inside Myanmar.
Authorities are rounding up some 100 suspected Rohingya militants in Myanmar, a senior security official said Tuesday, raising worries the lengthy military crackdown in the mainly Buddhist country is coming to an end.
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