Rushanara Ali MP

The Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow, Rushanara Ali has called on the Government to rescind the offer of a State Visit to American President Donald Trump. Following the President’s Executive Order for a travel ban from seven-majority Muslim countries and a litany of misogynistic and racist comments, Rushanara called on the Prime Minster to protect the reputation of the Queen and offer the President a government-to-government visit rather than a State Visit.

On Tuesday 14th February, the Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow and Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Burma, Rushanara Ali met with Burmese State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw, Burma.

A cross-party party group of 70 Parliamentarians is urging the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson to intensify the Government’s pressure on the Myanmar Government and allow full humanitarian access to the Rohingya Muslims in the North Rakhine State of Myanmar.

Rohingya Muslims are being indiscriminately targeted in an increase of human rights abuses in Burma over the last month.

Rushanara Ali MP marks Human Rights Day by supporting Amnesty International’s Write for Rights Campaign.

Rushanara Ali MP has urged the UK Government to show leadership and courage at the UN General Assembly when it votes on a resolution granting ‘non-member observer state’ status to the Palestine Authority.

As President Thein Sein of Burma prepares for his upcoming visit to London, Rushanara Ali MP, Shadow Minister for International Development, has called on the UK Government to exert pressure on the Burmese authorities to address the humanitarian crisis in Burma and put human rights at the heart of their reform process.

According to recent figures, more than 1.6 million Syrian refugees are hosted in foreign countries. The conflict in Syria is placing unprecedented strain on communities, infrastructure and services in these host countries. In Lebanon, the number of refugees has now reached half a million with thousands more Syrians arriving each week, risking destabilising the country. With no official refugee camps for the Syrian refugees, Lebanese host communities are bearing a large share of the burden in the country. Their generosity and the pressures they face have been largely ignored by the media. Rushanara therefore decided to visit Lebanon with World Vision to see for herself the plight of refugees and the impact of the continued outpouring of Syrians on Lebanese host communities.

Following the violence that erupted between Muslim and Buddhist communities in Rakhine State in June and October 2012, Shadow Minister for International Development, Rushanara Ali MP, reported back from a trip to Burma where she visited Rohingya, Kaman and Rakhine camps in Rakhine State and met with NGOs, UN agencies and Rohingya activists.

Last week, a report released by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network estimated that the number of people who died during the 2011 Somalia famine was much higher than initially anticipated at almost 260,000. Shadow Minister for International Development, Rushanara Ali, has urged the need for the UK Government to ensure that warnings for similar humanitarian crises are responded to much earlier and faster in order to avert the huge loss of life witnessed during the recent East Africa famine.