Asean leaders feel heat Down Under

Asean leaders feel heat Down Under

Protesters hold placards critical of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a demonstration outside the venue of the Australia-Asean summit in Sydney on Saturday. (Reuters Photo)
Protesters hold placards critical of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a demonstration outside the venue of the Australia-Asean summit in Sydney on Saturday. (Reuters Photo)

SYDNEY: Images of Aung San Suu Kyi with a Hitler moustache and banners demanding an end to the Hun Sen regime in Cambodia stood out in protests held at the venue of an Australia-Asean summit on Saturday.

Thousands demonstrated in Sydney against a raft of grievances on the sidelines of the event, at which Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull vowed he would raise human rights issues.

The demonstrators came together to urge the release of political prisoners in Vietnam, an end to strongman Hun Sen's regime in Cambodia and a halt to the military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

"We are here to protest issues that are happening in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, the Rohingya -- you name it, we are here to send a clear voice to these governments that you do not mistreat human rights," Vietnamese-Australian protestor Davy Nguyen told AFP.

Hun Sen and Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi are among the Asean leaders in Sydney for the event, along with Thailand's unelected prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. The Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte opted not to attend.

"The summit is here, and the (Australian) government needs to do something -- they need to put human rights before economics, before money," Nguyen added.

Among the banners was one portraying Aung San Suu Kyi with a Adolf Hitler moustache, calling on her to "Return the Nobel Prize".

The Nobel laureate is accused of failing to do enough to halt the persecution of the Muslim-minority Rohingya community who have been brutally forced out of Rakhine state by the Myanmar military.

Others urged Hun Sen, who is accused of overseeing widespread human rights violations, to quit. The protest followed a rally by several hundred Cambodian-Australians against him on Friday. Hun Sen last month threatened to track down and "beat" Cambodian-Australians who staged protests against him.

"We are here today in solidarity among the communities from Southeast Asia who are facing dictatorship and genocide, of course particularly in the Rohingya community," Shawfikul Islam from the Australian Burmese Rohingya Organisation said.

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