This episode was recorded as a live broadcast on the 15th September 2021.
Moderated by:
Jonathan Head – BBC South East Asia Correspondent based in Bangkok. He has been reporting for the BBC for 26 years, based in Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore and Turkey. He has covered the 1998 fall of the Suharto regime in Indonesia and the independence of East Timor, the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, the 2004 Asian tsunami, the plight of the Rohingyas, and political turmoil in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Myanmar. He has spent a total of fifteen years reporting from Thailand.
On the panel:
Tom Andrews – UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
H.E. Daw Zin Mar Aung – Minister of Foreign Affairs, National Unity Government of Myanmar. Since her youth, she has been a student activist and community organiser until her arrest after the 1990 election. She was sentenced to 28 years in prison. After spending 11 years at Insein Prison and Mandalay Prison, she was released and able to resume political activities. She founded the Cultural Impact Studies Club (CISC) at American Center Rangoon together with her colleagues. And then, she jointly founded Yangon School of Political Science (YSPS) and Rainfall Gender Studies Organization. She has been awarded multiple accolades including the International Women of Courage award from the United States Secretary of State and a World Global Leader nomination 2014 from the World Economic Forum. In 2014, she also participated as a fellow in the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow of the National Endowment for Democracy program. In 2015, she was elected as a Parliamentary Member of Pyithu Hluttaw from the Yankin Township. She has been the Deputy of the Central Women Committee of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and a Country Representative for ASEAN Women Peace Registry (AWPR). Currently, she is a Member of the Committee Representing Pyidaung Hluttaw (CRPH) and Union Foreign Minister of the National Unity Government (NUG).
Stephen Kinnock MP – Shadow Minister for Asia and the Pacific
Thin Lei Win – Thin Lei Win is the co-founder of the non-profit storytelling project The Kite Tales, which chronicles the lives and histories of ordinary people across Myanmar. Born and raised in Yangon, Myanmar, she was the founder and former chief correspondent of Myanmar Now news agency, and is now a freelance journalist. Thin is also a specialist correspondent covering food security and climate change stories globally, including through her own Thin Ink newsletter, after nearly 13 years reporting these issues for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the non-profit arm of the Reuters news agency.