Italian Version

6^th February 2021

To the Deputies and Senators of the Italian Parliament

To the Members of the European Union Parliament

Parliamentary Colleagues,

we are receiving dramatic news from Myanmar in these hours. The coup machine that has been set in motion since 1^st February, just a few hours before the inauguration of the new Parliament born from the general elections of 8^th November, is crushing the Burmese people and the rule of law. This is what is happening now: many detentions, mass incarcerations, orders to the armed forces to shoot protesters, internet shutdown, phone services disrupted.

Also the pandemic risks spiraling out of control. 

Civil disobedience is growing in the Country: in services, in ministries, in daily life. We are aware of acts of conscientious objection within the police and the army.      

Confined in the past days, now the MPs are arrested. Some of them are hiding out. Everything is happening live in front of the world. 

I set up the bipartisan Parliamentary Association “Friends of Burma” together with other people in the Italian Parliament from 2008 to 2013. In recent years my relationship with Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese people has become very intense.

Today I ask you to intervene in all possible ways to demand the release of those arrested and the return to democracy as set forth in the UN Security Council press statement at the end of its meeting on 4^th February.                                           

Who is the Tatmadaw – Myanmar’s Army – to impose on the world, on democracies, on Parliaments that represent peoples, to take control over an entire Country?      

Express your condemnation, do not acknowledge the coup, support Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese people, give them voice as they cannot speak. Democratic parliaments defend the democracy when others want to stifle it, counting on indifference.

You will find several pieces of news on the website www.amiciziaitaliabirmania.it of the “Giuseppe Malpeli” Association for Italy-Burma Friendship. I can be reached to the following mobile number +393483384820, and through the following email addresses soliani.albertina@gmail.com and presidente@istitutocervi.it.

I am currently President of the Alcide Cervi Institute and National Vice President of the ANPI.  Honouring the Resistance means this today and everywhere in the world.   

I thank you for what you can do. Myanmar is barehanded, it needs the world. The democratic world is you, it is us.

Let us give Myanmar hope. This is a test for all democracies in these early years of the 21^st century.

The elected parliamentarians in Myanmar gathered courageously and published the declaration that I attach to this email.

I stand by you.

Albertina Soliani

Stampa