Commenting on recent statements by the home ministry on the community and other migrants, the former deputy defence minister said that in 2016, then prime minister Najib Razak and PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang shared a stage in solidarity with the Rohingya.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) Council of Foreign Ministers also met in Kuala Lumpur in January 2017, calling for a halt in military operations and restoration of the Rohingya’s status, he said.
Liew also said that Malaysia, under Najib’s administration and with Hishammuddin Hussein as defence minister, sent a team of doctors and medical personnel from the armed forces medical corps to set up a field hospital in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
He said he was made to understand that the Bangladesh government initially was not warm to the idea of Malaysia’s armed forces personnel being deployed to help refugees.
“By the time I visited Dhaka and Cox’s Bazar as deputy defence minister in May 2019, senior government and military leaders in Bangladesh were all in praise of the excellent work of Malaysia’s field hospital,” he said in a blog post.
He said the Pakatan Harapan government continued the long-standing Malaysian concerns for the Rohingya issue. Then defence minister Mohamad Sabu and foreign minister Saifuddin Abdullah visited Cox’s Bazar in 2018 and 2019, respectively, and Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the prime minister at the time, spoke strongly for the Rohingya in his United Nations speeches.
Liew said PH was looking for ways to give some form of documentation and work permits in designated sectors to the Rohingya without offering them official refugee status, which current Malaysia laws did not yet provide for.
“The hardline and xenophobic sentiments generated by the Perikatan government in April and May 2020 and recently have harmed the nation’s standing in the region. This has set Malaysia backward,” he said.
He echoed the sentiments of critics, including those from Umno, that such a hardline stance will drive the migrant community, including the Rohingya, into hiding and make it difficult for the nation to reach herd immunity.
“In time of Covid-19, we should realise that being kinder to the Rohingya and migrants is actually being smart and practical for everyone,” he said.
A rights group had recently slammed the immigration department over an anti-Rohingya poster it shared on its Twitter account, saying it could foster “hatred, violence and xenophobia”.
Last month, home minister Hamzah Zainudin said the department would be conducting large-scale operations during the lockdown to detain undocumented migrants. He later clarified that his ministry was doing this to vaccinate the migrants.