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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 29 May, (837) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (4) fallen heroes today. These (4) fallen heroes from Insein Township in Yangon Region and Gangaw Township in Magway Region were killed yesterday and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of 29 May, a total of (4370) people are currently under detention; of them (108) are sentenced. 1881 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. On the night of May 28, at Pauk Taw Wa in Insein Township, Yangon Region, a youth was brutally killed when a military vehicle intentionally crashed into him, after he did not stop his motorcycle when Division 77 told him to stop to be checked. The fallen youth worked as a model and an actor. On the evening of May 28, a teacher, who was involved in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), and two villagers, were shot to death when junta troops raided Yehla Village in Gangaw Township, Magway Region. On the evening of May 28, Myint Aung, Minister of Labour, Immigration and Population of Magway Region Government and NLD Chairman of Kanma Township in Magway Region, was arrested at his home. On the night of May 27, a mother was taken as a hostage when the junta could not find her son Pyae Phyo Paing, a political activist, as they searched for him in Taungdwingyi Town in Magway Region. On May 27, lawyer Ayar Linn Htut was arrested representing political prisoners at Hinthada District Court, in Ayeyarwady Region. A lawsuit has been filed against her under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code at the Hinthada Police Station. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses.."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-29
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Title: Detained protest leader Wai Moe Naing meets with his lawyer for the first time, says mother
Sub-title: The prominent activist, who has been accused of treason and murder, among other charges, was arrested more than a month ago
Description: "Prominent anti-coup protest leader Wai Moe Naing met with his lawyers for the first time on Thursday, more than a month after his arrest, according to his mother. The meeting took place during a court hearing in Monywa Prison, where he is currently being held, said his mother, Moe Sandar Kyu. The protest leader from Monywa in Sagaing Region faces a total of 10 criminal charges, including treason, murder, incitement, unlawful association, wrongful confinement, and armed robbery. “It was the first time for him to have his lawyers representing him at a hearing,” said Moe Sandar Kyu. Thursday’s hearing was specifically related to the charges of incitement under Section 505a of the Penal Code, she said, adding that he had already appeared before the same prison court to face other charges. “The lawyers told me he is in good health and that there are no more injuries [on his body],” she said. A day after his arrest, a photo of him in regime custody with a bruised eye and swollen face went viral on social media, raising fears that he had been tortured. Plainclothes regime officials detained him on April 15 after ramming him with a car while he rode a motorbike during a rally in Monywa. Moe Sandar Kyu had expressed concern about her son’s wellbeing and health since he has suffered from high blood pressure for about six years. On Thursday, family members were also allowed to send him personal items, she said. A hearing related to the murder charge against him is scheduled for next Wednesday, while another hearing on the incitement charge will be held the following day. Wai Moe Naing rose to prominence for his role in organising daily anti-coup protests in Monywa, which sits on the eastern bank of the Chindwin River. The cheerful, round-faced leader came to be known affectionately as the “Panda of Monywa”..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-29
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Title: Human Rights in Myanmar: A discussion with U Aung Myo Min (Part 2)
Description: "This is Part Two of a two-part interview with the newly-appointed Minister of Human Rights for the National Unity Government, U Aung Myo Min. Read Part One here. [Editor’s Note: This post is part of a collaboration between Tea Circle and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, to share transcripts and reports from a series of seminars on Myanmar that ISHR is hosting.] Thursday, May 13th at 10:30 EST/20:00 IST/21:00 MMT Kristina Eberbach: Thank you, we have a couple of questions we received in advance or in the chat, some relate to the international community, and some more specifically, with respect to the International Criminal Court. I’ll begin with the international community in the sense that the UN Security Council, ASEAN, as well as individual countries have taken insufficient action in response to the situation in Myanmar. And so, one of the questions is how do you see the NUG working with these mechanisms going forward? There was also a question specifically about China, and the role of China. I know you’ve been working and calling on some sanctions against the junta, but beyond sanctions, what do you see the international community doing? And then a second question related to the role of the international community: What do you see civil society being able to do, including individuals on this call who want to support the human rights and democracy movement––what would you like to see them do? U Aung Myo Min: Ok, on the international front, at least we have strong countries supporting us. They have been the champions of condemnation, they have called for the release of detainees and for an end to the violence. So, these are very friendly countries. And though some countries are not that strong, they support and call for peaceful dialogue and things like that, so we have different degrees of commitment. And then on the other side, China is, you know, always a protector of the military. They have a long history of these things because they have many interests in Myanmar. On the other hand, India is monitoring the relationship between China and Myanmar and measuring the pros and cons, because they are both regional giants and Myanmar is sandwiched between the two countries. So, they are thinking about checks and balances. Also, ASEAN’s role now is much more outspoken than before. In the past, ASEAN never considered the issues in Myanmar to be a regional issue, only internal. But at least there was a session, and some discussion about Myanmar; they made 5 recommendations for the military to follow up on. The military did not follow them, that is a kind of failure, but as long as you are not supporting the Myanmar military, that is fine, that is the bottom line. But for the other strategies, we also should have a carrot and stick approach. The carrot means it is very unlikely the junta will listen to you, say yes or very politely follow (recommendations), because many countries and people have called on them to stop the violence but it is still going on. But there is kind of a ‘carrot way’, with a dialogue between the NUG, the military and other stakeholders to come together and find a solution––this is like, a good ending story, we would like to see a happy ending at the end. This is one strategy. The second strategy is under the ‘stick’ category. Condemnation, and also some actions including selected sanctions, embargos, and ensuring accountability issues are put on the international criminal justice docket. These are the things we can do. What we need is for countries to recognize the NUG as the legitimate government. We have support from the people, I would say, and it also has a mandate [from the CRPH], but in order to get other countries to recognize it as a legitimate government, we really need to work hard. We have sympathy and we have support, but not as a government yet. So, recognizing the NUG as the legitimate government and coordinating and supporting, for example, humanitarian assistance or other support for education help. We can work together on things like that. Besides that, we have other issues where we need to talk with the international community, including sensitive issues from the previous government, like the Rohingya issue. We need to have a clear policy paper. The new government must have a clear policy toward the Rohingya. And we need to clarify how this kind of policy will be accepted, respected, and implemented. This process is also important. Right now, our ministry is preparing draft positions on our policy towards the Rohingya. So there are three areas: one is Rohingya being able to be called Rohingya, unlike under the previous government, where there was a denial of their identity rights. We can promise that the Rohingya will be recognized, as with the name and terminology. Second, no one––including the Rohingya––will be subject to violations of their civil rights. Arrest, torture, forced relocation, sexual violence, no one should be subjected to these. These rights are protected for Rohingya, like all other people. Third, we want to clearly implement the recommendations of the Kofi Annan commission for reconciliation of the Rakhine State issue. We recognize that these are good solutions, and we will set up a process for implementation. But those recommendations were made in 2017, almost four years ago. There should be another situational analysis, considering other things through consultation with the Rohingya people. We are in the process of meeting with different groups and people from Rakhine State, even Rohingya IDPs and refugees from the refugee camps, to get their ideas. I promise that our clear policies on the Rohingya will be released in two weeks. And on this, I will say, I will try my best to meet the international standards and to uphold the dignity and rights of the Rohingya people after consultation with them. Ben Fleming: Myo, may I jump in and ask a question from the audience related to this? We know that the NUG has vowed to rewrite a new constitution, to get rid of the 2008 constitution. We have a question from the audience about the NUG’s position on the 1982 citizenship law. Is that something that the NUG also wishes to reform? Rewrite? And then one quick question is when the members of the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) will be announced. U Aung Myo Min: Thank you. We are conducting a review, consulting with many people, with the stakeholders and one of the recommendations is on the 1982 citizenship law. I studied it, I can recite it by memory almost, truly, because I was a human rights activist, so all my homework from before helps! In my view, the 1982 citizenship law is very discriminatory. It is also based on ethnicity. It was created by U Ne Win based on the 135 nationalities, so in this respect, it is already flawed. The 1982 citizenship law and other laws that are not in line with international standards are now under review and under consideration to repeal, revise or replace with a new law. I can promise that, as the Minister of Human Rights, I will try to propose to repeal or amend the 1982 citizenship law. For the NUCC, they have already established who will be on the council but some of them cannot be made public for security reasons because many are still inside the country. We expect to announce this within 2 weeks, when it is safe to make this information public. Kristina Eberbach: Thank you. Another question we received in advance relates to human rights as a meaningful terminology and meaningful framework within the country. This person is asking how you, as the Minister of Human Rights, would communicate the idea of human rights to people and convey its relevance to their everyday concerns? How will you adapt the international terminology to more localized understandings? And finally, how do you address the role of the state, given the problematic relationship, to say the least, that the state has had with Human Rights, and given the fact that within the framework of human rights, the state is one of the primary duty-bearers for respecting human rights? How do you go about approaching the role of the state in protecting or enforcing Human Rights alongside the role of local community practices in enforcement? U Aung Myo Min: The motto of my ministry is equality, peace, and justice. Those are the basic principles of human rights. Equality means nobody is subject to discrimination. We will stay committed to Articles 1 and 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Article 1 deals with equality and Article 2 is related to non-discrimination. Thees are our principles. Whether you are from, one of the 135 ‘so-called’ nationalities or not, no one should be subject to any kind of violence or abuse, or rights violations from state or non-state actors. This is our commitment: no one should be left behind. If we have a marginalized group or disenfranchised group, like LGBT is one of them, and other minorities or persons with disabilities, these people are considered for temporary special measures, affirmative action, so their status would be upgraded, (to ensure they receive) equal treatment, justice, and peace. So this is my thing. I set up my first organization, Human Rights Education Institute of Burma (HREIB) in 2000. This year is the 20th anniversary. We planned to celebrate our 20 years of service in Human Rights Education, but unfortunately, it will not happen. First, because of COVID, and second, the coup. The 2 C’s make it very difficult for us, but at least we can celebrate amongst ourselves. We have more than 20 years of Human Rights Education materials, including our TV channel, which we broadcast weekly through the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). This kind of groundwork and community-based action is good, and we can use them. We have trained more than 300 experienced trainers across the country. My role was a director to many staff before I joined the cabinet, but now my role is to make sure that these kind of Human Rights Education programs keep running. Not with lectures, but participatory learning based on the everyday situation of the country. We have what we could call a “three H” approach. One is Head, putting in the international standards, teaching what the UDHR, CEDAW, CRC, and CRPD is. The second one is Heart, so people can practice the three values of non-discrimination, equality, and respect for diversity. So people can feel it and they can also think about what social norms and taboos are not in line with everyday life. For example, calling someone Kalar (foreigner) is very discriminatory; calling someone achauk (gay) is horribly discriminatory; taw thar (rural) is also this kind of discriminatory language. We have been working on changing this language. That’s why you can see that in the Spring Revolution many women are actively participating, and LGBT flags, rainbow flags everywhere. This is the significance of the groundwork we’ve done, so we will keep doing that. And finally, putting a Human Rights curriculum in the new system, from the primary level to high school. A faculty of Human Rights, or maybe, the Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR) Myanmar! This is my passion. This is my dream. This was my dream as an activist before. Now that I’m the dreammaker, maybe, to put this into our government’s policy. Ben Fleming: On that note, Myo, do you have any thoughts on the sort of efforts that the NUG and others are taking for a federal university to stand in for the CDM students and faculty. We know that thousands upon thousands of faculty have refused to return to work, and many thousands have been fired. Those who have returned to work have returned to empty classrooms. What role––and we are happy to play whatever part we can––can we play in supporting an effort to keep education alive for those in CDM? U Aung Myo Min: Thank you, Ben. This is my request I was going to make, but you already answered that, Great! We are real Columbia, we know each other! Our Ministry of Education (MoE) has that kind of alternative education and institution already in mind from the liberated areas. When I recall my experience back in ‘88, we were the students that left the classroom; we were eager and hungry for education. We didn’t have any proper institutions from which we could learn, we only had small libraries. That’s where I picked up a copy of the UDHR and started learning myself. And I don’t want that [situation] for the new generation! Our MoE plans are to have alternative education at the institute level, and the university level in some areas. Because, you know that we have totally ethnic-controlled areas along the border. From Kachin State to the border along Thailand, in some areas, the education institutions are well-established. They have their own universities, their own teachers’ college, and system. In some areas, it is not a teachers’ college, but they have their own traditional teachers training that they can multiply in other areas, so based on some of these ideas, our MoE will set up one university in one particular liberated area. So, my work, my years-long work of Human Rights curriculums, Human Rights teaching will be adapted/adopted in that university. Further, with my association with the ethnic education committees, we can work together and my team is happy to contribute and distribute. But this is from the Myanmar context. Ben Fleming: We have lots of people on this call from a number of universities, so it is a call to arms for all of us to play our part in keeping education alive for the people of Myanmar. U Aung Myo Min: Yeah, and welcome…for Human Rights, I’m open to working with any organization. For other non-Human Rights education, I can convey that message in the cabinet meetings, particularly with the MoE. Kristina Eberbach: Thank you. We only have a few more minutes left, and we want to be respectful of your time, we know you are very busy! There were two questions about the ICC and you talked a little bit about it in terms of the hope to engage the ICC in pursuing accountability. And then there was the question of the jurisdiction in terms of the time frame – are you hoping to pursue accountability not only for recent events, but for those in the past? U Aung Myo Min: Oh yes, thank you. We are in consultation with a legal firm to study and analyze how we can be a member of, or ratify to be a member state of the ICC. So, we see the legitimacy issue, the process issue, and the jurisdiction issue, too. Wo have support and advice from this legal group, but we need also to think about it ourselves, and the process is already ongoing at the NUCC stage. To any of you, when I met some Burmese students from Columbia University I also said, please, give me your input and ideas, I’m open to listening and different ideas can help enrich my understanding and thinking about the best and possible ways. I’m open to that sort of thing. On jurisdiction: We’ve thought about it, because usually only criminal acts committed after ratification can be held accountable. But some legal experts have said that you can request special circumstances. For example, this is the criminal, he’s not doing this just after February 1st, but there’s a long history of these things, so there is another special procedure we can request. And identifying the perpetrators, the criminals, and a long history of involvement in these kinds of crimes, these are special requests we are seriously considering, with regard to labeling it as ongoing crimes. The ICC also accepted the case taking place inside Bangladesh against the Rohingya because Bangladesh is a member of the Rome Statute. Myanmar is not, but they have already carried out IIMM and the Independent Fact Finding Mission, set up to collect (and document) all the previous Human Rights violations and abuses. We are collaborating on that, and we can extend its jurisdiction to inside the country. Ben Fleming: We have some questions about the military or future possible military. I know the NUG has said clearly that any future armed forces will be civilian led. Is that going to be reflected in a constitution? Also, have you gotten, or do you know if there is much buy-in from the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) about a civilian-led military and what that should look like from an inclusive standpoint? U Aung Myo Min: Well, the PDF (People’s Defence Force) is founded as an “NUG Armed Forces.” And you might be surprised to learn that the Defence Minister was a former poet and the Deputy Minister is the first woman Deputy Minister of Defence, and with an academic background! So, this is already a civilian leadership, when you know traditionally, “macho” men-in-uniform would take these places, so this is one such change. I think that kind of civilian-led institution is being established and that kind of militarized history has been broken already. This is the first step. But this kind of PDF, it is something like the small, first cell of the federal union, or the federal army that we are looking for. In this case, we are working with the Defence Minister, at least to have a code of conduct for members of the PDF. Because sometimes, when you are carrying arms and you want revenge, anything could happen. But that kind of PDF is meant to defend the people, and also work for the people, not to threaten or even do something bad to the people. This military code of conduct will be finished very soon, [and will] respect the dignity and the rights of the people based on international humanitarian law and also the law of armed conflict. We are in the process of talking with different ethnic armed groups. We don’t want them to come and work under the PDF because they are more senior, they have their own thing, and they have sacrificed their lives for their struggles. But what we need is cooperation and coordination. How can we put all the forces together, with a strong chain of command, military strategies, and mutual understanding? We need to guard against possible conflicts of interests, conflicts of power, and that is the purpose of the discussion with individual ethnic armed groups. Some are ready to go, but some are not ok because of a long history of mistrust between Bamar and other ethnic people. We are solving the problem, showing that the federal union and federal democratic constitution is not only for the Bamar, but for all the peoples of Burma, of Myanmar! We are at different stages of consultation and making sure that everyone is coordinating and complementing each other under the federal union. It’s a long process, because our country is a very complicated country with very complicated issues. (Featured image courtesy of the Institute for the Study of Human Rights)..."
Source/publisher: "Tea Circle" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-29
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Title: Journalism goes local as the junta shackles national media
Sub-title: Amid the near-destruction of Myanmar’s media industry, nimble township-based outlets have sprung up to meet the constant demand for local news about the nationwide uprising.
Description: "First thing each morning, 26-year-old Ko Zaw Oo checks his online messages for recent news or tip-offs about protests and crackdowns in his home township of Hlaing Tharyar, a densely populated factory district on the north-western outskirts of Yangon. “If something interesting is happening, I’ll go and see for myself,” said the 26-year-old. “Otherwise, I’ll roam around [Hlaing Tharyar] and find news to post about.” Zaw Oo, who asked that his real name not be used to protect his safety, was telling Frontier about his daily routine as the editor and chief reporter for HTY (Hlaing Tharyar) Information. He founded the Facebook page and website on March 5 to provide a regular feed of reliable news about developments in the township. Formerly an IT professional, with no previous experience or training in media, he said he had “never imagined [he’d] be doing this kind of work”. He came up with the idea for HTY Information when posts from his personal Facebook account following the February 1 coup went viral, alerting him to the huge appetite for local news amid a nationwide uprising. His news outlet has since proved popular, with more than 167,000 followers and posts that are frequently shared thousands of times. Initially working as a team of one, Zaw Oo tracked the anti-coup demonstrations as they grew in scale and confidence in the township – with the participation of tens of thousands of factory workers from what is the hub of Myanmar’s garment industry – until a brutal crackdown by security forces on March 14 prompted many residents to flee to family homes in the countryside. Although the crackdown all but crushed the local protest movement, it motivated Zaw Oo to keep reporting as resistance to military rule went underground, many of the township’s internal migrant workers eventually returned from rural areas, and the junta struggled to assert its authority over local communities and chase down dissidents. From early April, he was joined by 10 volunteer reporters, enabling more comprehensive coverage. Zaw Oo said the bloodshed of March 14 showed him that many crucial events in Hlaing Tharyar would go unreported without local outlets like his own. “I saw a lot of people die in the crackdown. I was able to broadcast some of the violence live, but a lot of mainstream media couldn’t report what had happened in Hlaing Tharyar,” he said, adding that the roughly 60 deaths reported by national outlets was significantly below the true death toll, which he put at more than 100 based on local civil society sources. “Many reporters were unable to reach Hlaing Tharyar that day,” Zaw Oo said. “That’s when I resolved to [continue to] regularly report what is happening in the township.” He pointed out that the March 14 massacre happened shortly after the junta seriously escalated its assault on the media, with a ban on five major media organisations announced on March 8. Most of these outlets responded with defiance; Myanmar Now, Democratic Voice of Burma, Mizzima and Khit Thit Media have continued to publish and broadcast online. The exception was 7Day News, the country’s highest circulation newspaper, which immediately stopped printing and scrubbed its online presence. In addition to the bans, which have since been extended to Kachin State-based Myitkyina Journal and 74 Media and the eastern Shan State-based Tachileik News Agency, the junta has raided several newsrooms and arrested more than 80 journalists, over 40 of whom are still in custody, including Frontier’s managing editor, Danny Fenster. Meanwhile, other newspapers such as Myanmar Times and The Voice have decided to fold voluntarily, due to a post-coup climate that is hostile to both business survival and press freedom. These attacks on media freedom have decimated a news industry that blossomed after the lifting of print censorship in 2012. In their place have arisen hyper-local, township-based media outlets like HTY Information. Covering the breadth of Myanmar, from Yangon to Chin State to Magway Region and elsewhere, they have met a surge in demand for local news as protests and strikes continue to be met with deadly force – an environment where, for ordinary people, staying informed is crucial to staying alive. Some of these small, nimble outlets are run by experienced journalists and offer miniature versions of conventional news articles on websites and Facebook pages. However, many more have been started by untrained youth, who stick to social media and blur the lines between journalism and activism. As well as documenting events, they tip local residents off to police and army clampdowns, and also help to coordinate protests and fundraising for striking government workers in the Civil Disobedience Movement – a kind of community media tailored to the post-coup times. “This is a new type of information stream for the people; citizen journalism is filling the gap in professional media coverage,” said U Myint Kyaw, a member of the Myanmar Journalist Network and a media trainer who resigned from the national Press Council shortly after the coup. But despite attracting tens of thousands of readers, who they sometimes appeal to for donations, several of the local outlets told Frontier they’re struggling to meet their meagre operating costs in an increasingly cash-strapped economy. Their reach has also been curbed by a ban on mobile internet in place since mid-March. More seriously, several editors and reporters told Frontier they’re being hunted down by the security forces, just like their counterparts in national media organisations. While this proves the impact of these local outlets, some are struggling to operate while in hiding or on the run.....‘The impact was huge’: U Wai Lin, a co-founder of the Thingangyun Post, is one of the few local media pioneers with an extensive background in journalism. The 30-year-old stressed that his outlet, which serves residents of Thingangyun Township as well as neighbouring townships in Yangon, fills a gap vacated by national media by marrying professionalism with a commitment to telling local stories. “Mainstream media is no longer widespread and township-based media outlets like ours have become reliable sources of information for the public,” said U Wai Lin, who launched the Thingangyun Post with a colleague in 2019 after a decade in journalism. “At that time, very few people knew about us, but we have gained more readers since the coup,” he said, alluding to the Facebook page’s more than 112,000 followers. Wai Lin said the Thingangyun Post, which operates as a team of three journalists, was the first media outlet to report a February 15 raid by the security forces on a residential compound in the township that housed Central Bank employees, many of whom had joined the CDM. “We arrived there early that day,” Wai Lin said. “Later, when we broadcast the situation live on Facebook, others came to know what was happening and better-known media arrived. Since then, our page has become very popular in Thingangyun.” He said the Thingangyun Post’s coverage of the raid allowed it to fulfil two functions that are crucial to the mission of most township-based outlets: keeping residents informed, and bringing local incidents to national attention. “The impact was huge,” Wai Lin said. “Many people came to show support for the striking Central Bank staff.” But away from Yangon, where most of the remaining national outlets are based, the need to capture and draw attention to local incidents is even greater. “In our city, there were protests and demonstrations and a lot of people were arrested by the military, but there was no news about it in the mainstream media,” said Ko Min Naung, who lives in the famous ruby mining centre of Mogok, in a mountainous area of northern Mandalay Region. “That’s why we established the Mogok Information Group.” Min Naung, a pseudonym, is one of nine 20-year-olds in the town who founded the outlet, which has a Facebook page with more than 25,000 followers and a Telegram channel. By mid-May, the Mogok Information Group had reported 11 deaths and more than 100 arrests in the area, “but I was unable to find any [other] media reports about this,” Min Naung said. The Facebook page mostly posts real-time updates and warnings about bombings, arrests and army mobilisations, which have become common in Mogok in recent weeks. With most posts being less than 100 words, and with a staunchly activist stance, little of the group’s output meets a conventional definition of journalism. But for the group’s founders, the need to provide the people of Mogok with potentially life-saving information in an environment of widespread dissent easily outweighed any lofty considerations of media professionalism. “The main thing is for the protesters in the town to be able to run when the army and the police are coming,” explained Min Naung. “We had never written a news story, or studied journalism,” he said. “We try to write by ourselves because we want to tell the news in our town.” A similar amateur passion had inspired the young founder and administrator of Myingyan News, a Facebook page with more than 70,000 followers. “It was hard for me to write news but I kept trying and now people know about the military’s abuses in our town,” said 20-year-old Ko Lin Aung, a pseudonym. He reports on Myingyan Township alongside 20 other locals. In a sign of the outlet’s activist bent, they are drawn from night watch groups that patrol neighbourhoods each night after the curfew, to protect community members from the junta’s security forces. The dusty Dry Zone township in Mandalay Region has seen armed resistance in addition to peaceful street protests, and the junta has cracked down brutally as a result. Lin Aung claims his group’s reporting has brought this violence to wider attention, with larger news organisations using Myingyan News as a source. “When mainstream media learned about us, they interviewed us about the situation in Myingyan,” he said. “We achieved our goal.”.....‘We have to be brave’: The founders of these township-based outlets said their work depends on the collaboration of readers. “Almost every day, regular readers are sending messages to the [Facebook] page’s inbox to confirm news,” said Zaw Oo of HTY Information. But even with this support, which also comes in the form of donations via mobile wallets, providing daily news has been a financial challenge for these outlets, who don’t seek revenue from advertising or other commercial sources. “I have no income; every cost is covered from my pocket,” Zaw Oo said, adding that since HTY Information was established in early March, its expenses – which include buying cameras and covering phone bills and taxi fares, as well as occasional reporting fees to staff – have exceeded K3 million (US$1,820). There’s a similar problem at the Thingangyun Post, which Wai Lin said costs up to K20,000 a day to produce, due to similar expenses. “We cover the costs ourselves,” he said. The reach of their online news dispatches has also been curtailed by the junta’s internet restrictions. The block on mobile internet imposed in mid-March has been a particular blow, because the large majority of Myanmar people access the web via smartphones. However, the junta’s gradual white-listing of apps and websites since April has, deliberately or otherwise, made the work of most township media accessible via VPNs. For Yangon-based HTY Information and the Thingangyun Post, the mobile internet ban has been less of a problem. This is thanks to the relatively wide availability in the city of fibre internet, which the junta has left open despite blocking wireless broadband. Wai Lin said readership and engagement with Thingangyun Post content had “decreased a bit” since the ban, but he believed it would remain widely read for as long as fibre connections remain open. “If they cut [fibre], we can’t work,” he said. “We can’t say the junta won’t do this, and I’ve made plans to produce a printed paper in our township if it happens.” In small towns and villages, however, people tend to lack any access to fibre internet. “In urban areas of Mogok, a lot of homes have fibre internet, but rural areas have no access to it,” said Min Naung of the Mogok Information Group. “So, we printed a weekly newspaper and distributed it in some villages.” However, Min Naung and his colleagues only distributed two editions of the paper in the latter half of April before the junta’s gradual whitelisting of websites made the group’s content available via mobile internet again. “If mobile internet is [entirely] cut again, we will go back to producing the print paper,” he said. “We won’t give up.” Besides limited internet and finances, there is a still-greater threat to the survival of township-based media. Wai Lin of the Thingangyun Post put it bluntly. “The main danger is the junta,” he said. In the first and so far only known arrest of a township media practitioner, on April 24, soldiers and police seized the editor-in-chief of the Thanlyin Post, Ma Tu Tu Thar, 49, in a raid on her home in Yangon’s Thanlyin Township during which they also took away her 18-year-old son, brother, and a friend. Before this incident, in early April, Wai Lin realised he was being watched, so he moved from Thingangyun to a secret location in South Okkalapa Township. But even there, the junta seemed to be tracking him. “A neighbour [in South Okkalapa] told me a man in civilian clothes had asked about us three times,” he said of himself and a colleague, adding that they had since moved to another hiding place in Yangon. But even if Wai Lin is safe in hiding, his loved ones might not be. As the junta has grown increasingly desperate to impose order, its troops have taken to detaining the relatives of fugitives, seemingly regardless of whether these relatives had any role in assisting them. “I am worried that my family members will be arrested,” he said of his parents and two brothers, who remain at his original Thingangyun address. Wai Lin added that he was “not alone” among local journalists in feeling that he was putting relatives at risk. Meanwhile, in Hlaing Tharyar, Zaw Oo is confident the junta doesn’t know his identity. However, readers have warned him that police and soldiers are searching the township for whoever is behind HTY Information. He said he came dangerously close to being caught in early April, when his live reporting on the aftermath of a bomb blast at the administration office for the township’s seventh ward brought security forces rushing to the scene. “I was still at the site of the bombing when they came looking for me. I ran away fast; I was very scared,” he said, adding that he had since gone into hiding elsewhere in the township. “My media outlet is successful, which means I’m in greater danger,” he said. The need to constantly evade the security forces and their informers has also compounded the problems created by the internet restrictions. Wai Lin and Zaw Oo say their hiding places lack fibre internet, meaning they have needed to venture outside to post news, putting themselves and others in great danger in the process. “Sometimes teashops are my newsroom. Sometimes my friends’ homes are my office,” said Wai Lin. But despite these difficulties and the daily risks they face, Zaw Oo said that he and other “citizen journalists” owed it to their communities to keep reporting. “We have to be brave now,” he said. “If we cannot fulfill our media roles, no one will know about the military’s atrocities.”..."
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar"
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-29
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Title: Myanmar Hairdresser Trades Scissors for a Rifle in Anti-Junta Militia
Sub-title: The Kachin man left his hair salon in Yangon to undergo tough training in a remote border area.
Description: "Before the Feb. 1 military coup turned life upside in Myanmar’s nascent democracy, Alfie was running his own hair salon and spending his spare time watching TikTok videos in a comfortable urban apartment in Yangon, the country’s main city. Four months later, the 26-year-old ethnic Kachin man has traded his scissors for a rifle, a hut in a mosquito-infested jungle, and pre-dawn training to fight one of Southeast Asia’s largest and most ruthless armies. In between, Alfie joined hundreds of thousands of people who had taken to the streets of Myanmar, a country of 54 million people, in protest at the overthrow of the popular elected government of Aung San Su Kyi, whose landslide election victory in November the military claimed was the result of voting fraud. When those peaceful protests were met with lethal violence, he joined thousands of young people who headed toward Myanmar’s borders with China, Thailand and India to get military training from ethnic armed groups that have been fighting the military for generations. "We joined peaceful protest marches and later on, as brutal arrests and shootings increased, so did our urge to start a resistance movement,” he told RFA’s Myanmar Service, speaking from a location he declined to reveal for security reasons. “Working with scissors is like a work of art, which is civilized and satisfying, but holding a gun is hard work, both mentally and physically. We do this because we have to,” Alfie added. He said he had been in the area with fellow fighters-in-training from across multi-ethnic Myanmar for almost two months now, and his combat skills were improving. "We have different nationalities and different personalities here but we all have the same goal and dreams. Here, we get up at 4:00 in the morning, we have to exercise for stamina, we have military training in the afternoon and we study in the evening,” said Alfie.....A little hut among various pests': When he was cutting hair and playing with TikTok on his smartphone in Yangon, a fast-growing city of 5.4 million people, he had never dreamed of taking up arms. "The dream of a young person is to live in an independent democracy, and to be a successful entrepreneur with the kind of work he enjoys, but now all the goals of that young person are 100 percent gone and there is no opportunity to continue,” said Alfie. “There’s a difference between living in a nice building and living in a little hut among various pests. Food is scarce here. There are no luxuries like in the city." After the training, Alfie and fellow recruits plan to join the People's Defense Force, a fledging nationwide army launched this month by the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), made up of former high officials from the deposed government and prominent ethnic leaders, to take up arms against the junta. NUG defense officials say they plan to stitch together a network of the local militias that have sprung up across Myanmar and then unite them deserters from regime forces and with ethnic armed groups that are battle-hardened from wars against the national army that in some cases stretch back to the late 1940s. "Normally the pro-democracy movements entails peaceful protests by non-violent young people who believe they could succeed without resorting to violence,” said Nickey Diamond, an activist with the Southeast Asian NGO Fortify Rights. “But eventually after facing violence, they’ve come to understand that they must take up arms,” he added. The Thailand-based rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said that as of Thursday, at least 831 people have been killed by the junta, and 4331 are in detention.....Outgunned by junta?: Local militias in the Chin state and Sagaing region, which border India and Bangladesh, as well as in the eastern state of Kayah near Thailand, claim to have killed well over 100 regime troops using mostly home-made hunting rifles since late March. "Young people are attending training today in the belief that they can overthrow the military junta in a revolutionary style and bury the dictatorship completely,” said political analyst Than Soe Naing. “The question is the incomparable strength in arms,” he added. Myanmar’s military, the second largest in Southeast Asia after Vietnam, has used fighter jets, heavy artillery and helicopter gunships in battles against junta opponents -- seldom distinguishing between combatants and unnamed civilians. Many military analysts say even a force that unites the ethnic armies and the local militias would still face long odds against regime forces, but Than Soe Naing predicted that in about six months, as anti-junta groups gain strength and experience, they can challenge the junta. If that sounds overly optimistic, Alfie does not let on. “Someday, we will become patriotic heroes,” he told RFA. “Let’s get rid of military dictatorship once and for all in our generation.”..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-29
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Title: Myanmar’s Youth Lose Their Dreams for the Future Amid Junta Crackdowns
Sub-title: Many have been killed during protests or in custody, with others crippled by torture after their arrest.
Description: "Myanmar’s youth are being forced to give up their dreams of careers and a productive future as they resist an assault by the military on their country’s democracy and crackdowns on protests that have crippled thousands of civilians and killed hundreds, sources say. Among those killed, Nyi Nyi Aung Htet Naing, 23, was shot dead by junta forces in the Hledan suburb of Yangon city on Feb. 28, his twin Koko Aung Htet Naing told RFA’s Myanmar Service, adding that his brother had once dreamed of becoming a network engineer. “I haven’t watched the video of my brother’s death in Hledan yet because I don’t have the strength to do it,” Koko Aung Htet Naing said. “As his twin brother, I don’t want to know or see how he died, or how much he may have suffered. I don’t want to feel the emptiness in my heart.” Nyi Nyi Aung Htet Naing was only one of the many young people killed in the early days of protests calling for Myanmar’s return to democracy after the Feb. 1 military coup that ousted the elected civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party. Like others, he had dreams for his future, his brother said. “He wanted to pursue advanced studies in the field of network engineering at some point, and he wanted to study abroad,” Koko Aung Htet Naing said, adding, “But his dreams were just dreams. Those dreams will never come true now.” “This was a huge loss for me,” he brother said. Other protesters in the anti-dictatorship movement, now commonly called the Spring Revolution, have also seen their futures destroyed following arrest and torture by junta forces, other sources told RFA. Lyan Phyo Aung, a 22-year-old student from Myanmar’s Magway city, suffered gunshot wounds to his right arm, which was later amputated above the wrist, during a protest rally on March 27, and is losing vision in one eye. He has trouble now performing simple tasks, he said. “In my imagination, I still think [my hand] is there. I think that I can curl up my fingers, but they’re not there anymore,” he said, adding, “Sometimes when I go to sleep at night I feel so sad: ‘Oh, my hand is gone?’ But during the operation, I didn’t even cry.” An engineering student who had excelled in architecture, Lyan Phyo Aung has now lost his dream of designing buildings, he said. “I got the highest marks in my school in drawing and my major subjects, but now all I have left is charity work,” he said. “And not all the fingers on my left hand are good now, either. They stepped on my fingers and crushed my middle finger when they took off my ring.” “Also, my eyes need an operation, as I can’t bear the light. It’s not okay to see only with one eye,” he added. Lyan Phyo Aung is currently being treated at a military hospital for rubber-bullet wounds to his arms and legs, and is facing charges of incitement to riot under Article 505(a) of Myanmar’s Penal Code, he said. The Thailand-based rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) says that more than 4,300 people, most of them young, have been arrested in Myanmar since the military coup. Many have gone missing for months following their arrest, and some have been killed in custody with their bodies returned afterward to their families. Others have escaped arrest and fled to areas outside of government control. 'Things like in the past' One, 19 years old, had planned to start a graphic design business when the military launched its coup, the young man said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “As a young person, my work is in social media, and I had planned to start my own company in six months. But now because of all the oppression I won’t be able to do that” he said. “Things are now going to be like they were in the past when you had to fear even the tenth cousin of a senior military officer,” he said. Though his future goals in life are unclear, his plans now are to fight against Myanmar’s military dictatorship to protect the country’s younger generation from suffering under oppression, he said. Many of Myanmar’s most talented youth had big hopes before the coup, but now those hopes are gone, said Moe Thway, chairman of the pro-democracy youth movement Generation Wave. “Youths with all their dreams have turned to taking up arms without ever having wanted to,” he said. “Myanmar has returned to military rule under which the army oppresses, tortures, and kills people,” he said, adding that international sanctions have been imposed to punish Myanmar’s ruling generals, and that some international companies have left the country. “So we have lost a lot of business and educational opportunities,” he said. “In fact, we can say that the future of the country’s youth is uncertain and quickly disappearing.” An activist who had been involved in earlier protest movements—the 1988 Democracy Movement, the 1996 student strike, and the 2007 Saffron Monk Uprising—expressed sorrow that now another generation of the country’s youth has been thrown into the fight in Myanmar for democracy and human rights. “In the past, they only heard about the oppression, threats, brutal arrests, torture, and killings,” he said. “But now Generation Z is seeing all these things for real.” “And while they face the prospect of arrests and of having no future, they are trying to win the Spring Revolution from wherever they are,” he said..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-29
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Title: WIDER IMAGE 'For fallen souls' - A survivor says Myanmar fight must go on
Description: "Each morning, Ko Phyo washes himself and his two-year-old son while seated on a chair, a plastic bag covering what remains of a thigh that he says was shattered by a bullet fired by a Myanmar soldier. Ko Phyo says he was wounded on the front lines of the biggest protests against Myanmar's military in decades. Now, he is adjusting to life as an amputee and single parent in a country in chaos since a Feb. 1 coup. The 24-year-old says he joined the nationwide protest movement in the biggest city Yangon, acting as a guard trying to protect demonstrators from security forces during daily pro-democracy marches and strikes. (Open https://reut.rs/3wTmBlV in an external browser to see a picture story on Ko Phyo.) "We ran away because we didn't want to get arrested and beaten," he said, recalling a day in early March when he was cornered as police and a soldier advanced. "Then they started shooting, I was shot in the leg, and fell on the ground." Security forces have killed more than 800 people since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group. The ruling junta says around 300 have died, most of them "terrorists" and "instigators of violence". Ko Phyo said he carried only a shield. The bullet that hit him severed three arteries. The soldier who fired the shot removed it with a knife, and a local policeman he knew took him to a military hospital, a journey that took more than two hours, he said. "I started feeling the pain and I couldn't bear it. I told them to cut off my leg immediately. They cut it on the seventh day." Ko Phyo has been learning to become mobile in a wheelchair in his three-room home and uses crutches when outdoors to deal with the uneven roads and paths that run between the green fields of his Yangon township. He hopes to return to his job handling vehicle licensing with the road transport authority, when stability eventually returns. Concern about the future of his son drove him to join the anti-junta protests and gave him motivation to recover faster and leave hospital after 12 days, he said. He sees the loss of his leg as a small sacrifice compared to those of the hundreds killed, including one of his fellow guards, a 15-year-old girl. "All protesters out there are fighting for the next generations ... The military is supposed to protect its own people, but they are killing us instead." "We must keep fighting," Ko Phyo said. "We must win this revolution to bring justice for fallen souls." His son is adapting to the new reality too, playing games with his father and bringing him snacks and cushions to make him comfortable on the floor. "I feel terrible when he asked, 'Dad, where's your leg?'," he said. "So, I replied 'a dog's eaten my leg but it will grow later'. And he still believes it."..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-29
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 28 May, (833) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (2) fallen heroes today. These (2) fallen heroes from Loikaw Township in Kayah State and Dawei Township in Tanintharyi Region were killed yesterday and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of 28 May, a total of (4350) people are currently under detention; of them (104) are sentenced. 1881 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. Yesterday afternoon, a 14 year old boy was shot dead in the head as he ran away from junta forces, who had entered Kayan Tharyar Village, in Thabyay Kone, in Loikaw Township, Kayah State. Last night, a man was shot and left injured during unprovoked shooting by the military in Kyet Sar Pyin Ward, Dawei Township in Tanintharyi Region. Junta forces then took him away by car, and he later died. On May 28, Mi Nge a.k.a Nge Lay, a former female political prisoner, was sentenced to three years imprisonment under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code for defamation. On May 2, junta forces searched her home for her son, political activist Tin Htut Paing. When they could not find him, they arrested and beat her. This afternoon, Myo Thiha Kyaw, a photojournalist for the Myanmar Pressphoto Agency, was arrested in Mandalay. Last night, in Thaton Township in Mon State, four youths from Manaw Phyu Charity Association were arrested. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-28
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 27 May, (831) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (3) fallen heroes today. (2) fallen heroes from Demoso Township in Kayah State were killed today. (1) from Taketa Township in Yangon Region was killed on a previous day and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of 27 May, a total of (4331) people are currently under detention; of them (102) are sentenced. 1881 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. This morning, two youths from Demoso Township in Kayah State were shot to death by terrorist junta while they were bringing food for Karenni IDPs. Early in the morning of May 25, a man, who suffered from mental health, was shot to death at Thaketa Township, Yangon Region by the terrorist junta. Soe Linn Htet, second year student majoring in civil engineering at the Technological University Meiktila, was arrested at home at Pyawbwe Township in Mandalay Region this morning. On the night of May 25, Aung Mya Than, a reporter of Ayeyarwaddy Times News Agency based in Ayeyarwady Region, was arrested and beaten while questioning. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-28
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Title: Myanmar Celebrities who Protested Coup Appear in Court
Description: "A celebrity couple and an actress charged with incitement after participating in anti-regime protests appeared at a special court inside Insein Prison in Yangon on Thursday. Couple Eaindra Kyaw Zin and Pyay Ti Oo, reputedly the highest-paid actors in Myanmar, were arrested in early April and charged under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code. They are being held at Insein Prison along with actress May Toe Khaing, who was arrested in the second week of April and charged under the same law. Soon after the junta’s coup in February, the military regime amended the Penal Code to protect the coup leaders. Under the revised provision, any attempt to “hinder, disturb, damage the motivation, discipline, health and conduct” of military personnel and government employees and cause their hatred, disobedience or disloyalty toward the military and the government is punishable by up to three years in prison. The junta has issued arrest warrants for hundreds of artists, including actors, directors and singers, who have publicly supported the anti-coup movement. Actor-director Lu Min was arrested in February, making him one of the first artists to be arrested for supporting the anti-coup movement. Most recently, singer Athen Cho Swe was detained at her house in Yangon after she emerged from hiding to visit her daughter. Zarganar, Myanmar’s most famous comedian, was arrested in April. He was previously arrested in 2008 by the former junta, before being freed in 2011. Singer Po Po was also arrested at her home in April. Another big name to have been detained is Paing Takhon, a 24-year-old internationally renowned model and actor who has spoken out against the coup. He was also arrested in April and his case was brought to court on May 4, with the court saying that their ruling will be delivered within 180 days. “We have had a meeting on case management with the prosecutor and the judge. We view the case as simple and a decision was reached that the case will be heard within 180 days from May,” said lawyer U Khin Maung Myint, who is acting for Paing Takhon. The case will be heard at Yangon’s North Dagon Township court and the hearing is scheduled to begin on June 9, starting with the appearance of the plaintiff, police captain Myo Myint Aung, said the lawyer. Famous actor Ye Tike was also arrested in April and charged with incitement under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code, as well as with drug possession. His cases will be heard separately at courts in Yangon’s Latha and Mayangone townships on June 1 and June 3. The actors are being held in separate cells and are in good health, said their lawyers. “Some people are posting rumors about them on Facebook. We have been able to meet them at the court every week or so. Their condition is the opposite of what is being said on social media. They are all physically well and mentally good,” said U Khin Maung Myint..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-28
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Title: Myanmar coup: street orchestra fights military dictatorship with protest song
Description: "A group of musicians in Myanmar have been on the streets performing in the country’s anti-coup demonstrations. Their new song, ‘Revolution,’ aims to encourage young people to fight the military dictatorship..."
Source/publisher: "South China Morning Post" (Hong Kong)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-28
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 26 May, (828) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (1) fallen heroes today. This (1) fallen hero from Salin Township, Magway Region was killed on previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of 26 May, a total of (4330) people are currently under detention; of them (102) are sentenced. 1881 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. A woman, living in Taw Seint Village in Salin Township, Magway Region, was shot dead in the head last night when the village administrator requested the military come to the village and open fire in response to a “No to Military Slavery Education” sticker campaign at a local school. Last night, Zaw Win Maung, member of the NLD Information Committee in Hpakant Township, was arrested while staging a night protest in Lone Khinn Village, Hpakant Township in Kachin State. Khin Ohn Myint, the retired teacher and a patron of the Red Cross Committee in Mogok Township, was arrested at Kyauk Saung Village in Mogok Town in Mandalay Region yesterday evening. On May 24, Thet Tin Aung, Secretary of Art and Science of All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU), and his companion Paing Soe, were arrested at Yangon-Mandalay Road and Chit Htwe, Myo Nyunt and Win Kyaw Soe, three philanthropists, living in Wakema Township, Ayeyarwady Region, were arrested. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-27
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Title: Violence Against Health Care in Myanmar, Three-month review May 2021 update
Description: "On February 1, 2021, the Myanmar armed forces (known as the Tatmadaw) seized control of the country, following a general election that the National League for Democracy party won by a landslide. The military have since declared a state of emergency to last for at least a year, and numerous countries have condemned the takeover and subsequent violent crackdown on protestors. Over the past three months, from February to May 2021, hundreds of people, including children, have been killed and many injured during the protests. The military-run State Administrative Council has targeted doctors and other health workers for taking a leading role in the nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). Doctors and nurses have been served with warrants and arrests, health workers have been injured while providing care to protestors, ambulances have been destroyed, and health facilities have been raided. This document is the result of collaboration between Insecurity Insight, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), and Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and Human Rights (CPHHR) as part of the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition (SHCC). It highlights reported incidents of violence against health workers, facilities, and transport in Myanmar between 11 February and 11 May 2021. It does not include information on violence against patients. The incidents referred to are based on the dataset 11 February - 11 May 2021 Violence Against Health Care in Myanmar Data, which is available on the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX)..."
Source/publisher: Insecurity Insight via "Reliefweb" (New York)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-27
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Title: Young mother shot dead during junta raid triggered by anti-coup graffiti
Sub-title: Two other women who were shot during the raid by regime forces were among seven people taken into custody
Description: "A 24-year-old woman was shot and killed in Magwe Region’s Salin Township on Tuesday night during a raid carried out in response to anti-coup graffiti. About 70 soldiers and police stormed the village of Tawseint at around 7:30pm on Tuesday after residents painted slogans opposing the education system under the military regime on the gate of a local high school. “They were firing non-stop, at least 90 or 100 rounds. I also had to flee,” said a villager who spoke to Myanmar Now on condition of anonymity. Seven people, including two women who had been shot while trying to escape, were arrested after the raid, he added. Saung Hnin Hmon, the mother a six-year-old girl, was shot in the head and killed instantly. Her body was returned to the village the following day. The whereabouts of her daughter, who went missing after the raid, remains unknown. An elderly woman, a 13-year-old girl, and a disabled woman who tried to flee on one leg were also arrested, but were later released, according to a village resident. Most of Tawseint’s roughly 2,000 residents have gone into hiding since the junta’s forces returned on Wednesday morning, local sources told Myanmar Now. “Many people are still in the forest. Those who remained in the village don’t dare try to leave now, and those in the forest are afraid to return to their homes,” one source said. “We have not had a grain of rice to eat the whole day. We are still hiding in the forest,” he added. Tawseint is located near three military bases. Light infantry brigades 153, 254, and 255 are all stationed in the area. At least 828 people have been killed by the regime since it seized power on February 1, according to a tally by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. As resistance to the coup continues, more than half of the nation’s teachers are on strike and some 90% of students refuse to enroll under the regime’s education system, according to the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-27
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Title: Younger brother of Myanmar’s police chief murdered in regime custody
Sub-title: Police chief Than Hlaing once reportedly threatened to cut off his brother’s head because he took up arms against the Myanmar military
Description: "They were two brothers with radically different ideologies who became bitter enemies during the 1988 democratic uprising–even once meeting on the battlefield. One joined the army and rose through the ranks to become a senior member of the military establishment. The other joined mass protests and later travelled to Myanmar’s jungle-covered borderlands to take up arms against the junta. Now, with the country once again in the grips of a revolution, their rivalry is over. Soe Moe Hlaing, the veteran democracy activist, was murdered in regime custody on Monday evening after soldiers grabbed him from his village in Bago Region. The 53-year-old was the 827th person to be murdered at the hands of the new regime, according to one tally. His death comes almost four months after his older brother, Than Hlaing, was appointed Myanmar’s chief of police, making him one of the key figures overseeing the recent campaign of terror against Myanmar’s defiant population. A lieutenant general, Than Hlaing was also appointed deputy home affairs minister on February 2, the day after military chief Min Aung Hlaing toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government. Both the EU and the US have blacklisted Than Hlaing for his role overseeing the crackdown, during which more than 5,400 people have been arrested. He previously served as the head of Eastern Central Command and North Western Command. Soe Moe Hlaing, also known as Mae Gyi, was arrested in Zaung Tu village on Saturday along with eight others. It is unclear why they were detained. His wife, Myat Muyar Win, told Myanmar Now that soldiers from the local 901st Artillery Operations Command took her husband, and that he was reportedly beaten with the butt of a gun during the arrest. Two days later, she received a phone call from a regime official telling her that he was dead. “They said he died of some disease. But my husband was healthy and did not have any diseases,” she said. The family were not allowed to take Soe Moe Hlaing’s body home and were told it would be cremated by soldiers at a military cemetery in Mingaladon on Tuesday. Than Hlaing reportedly came to the cemetery to look at the body before the cremation, said Myat Muyar Win. If true, it is the closest contact he has had with Soe Moe Hlaing in many years. “The brothers had no communication with each other,” said Myat Muyar Win. In a separate interview with the BBC’s Burmese service, she said: “During our 15 years of marriage, I had never seen them talk. No contact at all.” The brothers came from a family of 11 siblings. After taking part in the 1988 uprising, Soe Moe Hlaing joined the All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF), a revolutionary armed group in which he served as a battalion commander. The move infuriated his army officer brother, said Tun Tun Kyaw Oo, who spent time in Insein Prison with Soe Moe Hlaing. “Than Hlaing sent Mae Gyi letters challenging him to a fight,” he told Myanmar Now. “He said he would kill his brother and cut off his head because he joined the armed group.” Than Hlaing got his fight. He was sent to the region where Soe Moe Hlaing was based to take on the ABSDF. “In 1989 he exchanged shots with his brother on a Karen battlefield,” Tun Tun Kyaw Oo said. The next year, Soe Moe Hlaing left the ABSDF–it’s unclear why–and went to Yangon. Then in December 1991 he was arrested and sentenced to 13 years in prison for supporting the ABSDF’s underground activities, and for taking part in a campaign to demand the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, who was then in the middle of her first stint under house arrest. He was released in 2001, and later threw himself into volunteer community work, helping people in a number of villages along the Bago River. “He did all the local development work such as teaching, digging wells and helping locals get electricity,” Myat Muyar Win said. Unlike in 1988, he was not on the frontlines of the current movement to overthrow the regime, but he offered encouragement and assistance to those who were, she said. Soe Moe Hlaing left behind five children; the youngest is a year and half old..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-27
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Title: American journalist detained in Myanmar while trying to fly out of country
Description: "An American journalist working in Myanmar was detained by local authorities Monday, his family and his news organization told CNN. Danny Fenster, 37, was stopped at the Yangon airport as he tried to board a flight out of the country, his brother Bryan Fenster said. Fenster, a US citizen originally from Detroit, Michigan, works for the news site Frontier Myanmar in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon. "Frontier's managing editor, Danny Fenster, was detained at Yangon International Airport this morning shortly before he was due to board a flight to Kuala Lumpur," the news organization said in a statement. "We do not know why Danny was detained and have not been able to contact him since this morning. We are concerned for his wellbeing and call for his immediate release. Our priorities right now are to make sure he is safe and to provide him with whatever assistance he needs," the statement said. The news organization also said it understands Fenster has been transferred to Insein Prison near Yangon. Insein is one of the country's most notorious prisons, known for its deplorable conditions. Speaking to CNN Monday evening, Bryan Fenster said the family doesn't have much information on his brother's situation. "I can only assume being a journalist in a country that's run by the military who wants to control the narrative, he was flagged being a journalist when he was at the airport. Can't begin to imagine why it happened," he said. "He was on valid work papers, valid visas, passports, everything. He was voluntarily leaving the country to come visit family, so we can't see what the issue is." Bryan Fenster said the family are working with elected officials in Michigan and said the US state department is aware of his brother's case. "We're very hopeful with all the support, we'll be getting him out as soon as possible," he said. Bryan Fenster said earlier that his brother was flying to the United States to surprise his parents, whom he had not seen for over two years. The family had been concerned about the safety of being a journalist in Myanmar following February's military coup, and felt shocked and worried at the news of his detention, Bryan said, calling it a "nightmare." A US Department of State official, who used another name for Myanmar, said the agency was monitoring the situation. "We are aware of reports of a US citizen detained in Burma. We take seriously our responsibility to assist US citizens abroad, and are monitoring the situation. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment." The detention comes almost four months after Myanmar's military seized power in a coup on February 1, overthrowing the democratically-elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and detaining government officials. Junta security forces have brutally suppressed almost daily protests across the country, killing more than 820 people and arresting more than 5,400, according to advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). The junta has also attempted to silence the country's media by revoking independent publishing and broadcast licenses, raiding newspaper offices and targeting journalists for arrest. Among the thousands of people detained since the coup are 85 journalists, including 48 still in detention, according to Reporting Asean. Fenster is among a number of foreign journalists to be detained in Myanmar since the coup. Japanese journalist Yuki Kitazumi was arrested in April and charged with spreading false information. He was held in Insein Prison until the junta released him two weeks ago and returned him to Tokyo. Many detained reporters are charged with crimes under section 505a — a law amended by the military that makes it a crime punishable by up to three years in prison for publishing or circulating comments that "cause fear" or spread "false news." In a statement, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) said it was not clear whether Fenster had been charged with any offense. "The arrests of journalists and the violence used by the security forces on anyone caught trying to report or record their actions, constitute an extraordinary attack on freedom of expression in Myanmar, and should be widely condemned," the FCCT statement said. The detention comes as ousted civilian leader Suu Kyi attended a court hearing Monday and met with her lawyers — her first appearance in person since the coup. In its nightly news bulletin, Myanmar state TV aired the first images of Suu Kyi since the coup. She was detained in the early hours before the military seized power and had not been seen in public since. The images showed Suu Kyi in the dock with her hands in her lap and wearing a surgical mask. Beside her sat ousted President Win Myint and the former mayor of the capital Naypyidaw, Myo Aung. Suu Kyi faces a range of charges, from illegally possessing walkie-talkie radios to violating the official secrets act -- the most serious charge which carries a potential prison sentence of up to 14 years. Last week, Myanmar's junta-appointed election commission said it would dissolve the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) party because of what it claims was election fraud. The military overthrew the NLD government alleging mass voter discrepancies, though the electoral commission at the time rejected the army's complaints. According to her lawyer Khin Maung Zaw, Suu Kyi struck a defiant note, saying of the NLD: "Our party grew out of the people so it will exist as long as people support it."
Source/publisher: "CNN" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-26
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Title: Myanmar Regime Police Chief’s Democracy Activist Brother Dies in Custody
Summary: "A veteran pro-democracy activist, who is a younger brother of the Myanmar regime’s Home Affairs Ministry deputy minister and chief of police, died while in military custody in Bago Region. The 53...
Description: "A veteran pro-democracy activist, who is a younger brother of the Myanmar regime’s Home Affairs Ministry deputy minister and chief of police, died while in military custody in Bago Region. The 53-year-old Ko Soe Moe Hlaing, also known as Ko Mae Gyi, was arrested Saturday in Zaung Tu village in Bago Region along with a few other villagers after a regime informant told troops about their whereabouts. A friend said they were told by witnesses that Ko Mae Gyi was violently beaten over the head with rifle butts at the time of his arrest. On Monday night, his wife was informed by telephone that he was dead. The status of the other detained villagers is still unknown. His friends believed that the activist was tortured to death for his strong political beliefs against the military regime. Unlike with his notorious brother Lt-Gen Than Hlaing, who was promoted to deputy minister and chief of police following the coup and is one of the key people responsible for the brutal crackdowns on civilians, Ko Soe Moe Hlaing, a.k.a Ko Mae Gyi, had devoted his life to the country’s struggle for democracy since 1988. He was also involved in All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF) which was the first students’ army formed to oppose the then-regime in 1988. Due to his political activism during and after 1988, he was jailed for 13 years after being arrested for taking part in a student movement demanding the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under the previous military regime. After his release, Ko Mae Gyi actively worked on philanthropic projects and regional development in Bago. He also established a network in the region to offer free education to children. The family was only allowed to see Ko Mae Gyi’s face after his body was placed inside a coffin at Mingaladon military hospital in Yangon, before a funeral on Tuesday evening. “Despite coming from a family with military background, he did everything he could throughout his life for the country’s democracy, from taking part in protest movements to joining the student army. He was a good leader, much experienced in political activism. I am so grieved to lose our good comrade,” said a former political prisoner who was also one of his inmates in prison. Ko Mae Gyi was married with five children. In Sagaing Region’s Kale Township, a detainee was also killed under detention. Ko Min Min, the father of two, died hours after being detained by junta forces on Monday afternoon. He was taken from his motorcycle workshop for questioning. On Tuesday, his body was returned to his family from a military hospital with knife wounds on his arms and bruises on his back and leg. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) which tracks killings and detentions, at least 20 civilians have been tortured to death in military custody since the coup..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-26
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Title: Survivors of junta brutality remain defiant as they struggle to rebuild their lives
Sub-title: Even after suffering life-changing injuries, many protesters are determined to keep up the fight against military rule
Description: "Thura was trying to recover the body of a friend who had been shot in the head when he, too, came under fire from regime forces during a protest in Yangon’s North Okkalapa Township on March 3. The 23-year-old had been a regular participant in protests at North Okkalapa’s Kanthaya Park, but on the day he was shot, a crackdown dispersed the crowd that had gathered there. Rather than simply give up and go home, however, he and some friends decided to march to another protest site at the township’s Circular Junction. They went because they wanted to support students who had come under attack at the junction. They knew that they were walking into an extremely dangerous situation, but somehow it no longer seemed to matter. When his friend was shot and killed, he became even more reckless, he recalled. “In the past, I didn’t think I would ever dare go into an area where bullets were flying. I was just too scared. But the crackdown made my blood boil, so I wasn’t afraid anymore. I just wanted to get my friend's body and return it to his family,” he told Myanmar Now. On a day that saw a total of 38 civilians killed by the regime around the country, North Okkalapa alone accounted for 10 of them. But a far greater number were injured, many of them seriously. Thura was one of 79 who were wounded in the township on the day that he permanently lost his eyesight. A bullet fired by a soldier from the military’s notorious Light Infantry Division 77 took out his left eye, but blinded him in the right as well. His first thought, he said, was how the news would affect his mother, who suffers from heart disease. “I was afraid that my mom would be very sad,” he said.....‘Ready to do anything’: Thura, who dropped out of school after completing the eighth grade to help support his family, lives in a household of eight people. Their home is in North Dagon Myothit, one of the “new townships” created by the former regime a year after it seized power in 1988. Since he was shot, he has been receiving treatment for his injuries at home. To help him pass the time, family members read the news to him so that he can follow the progress of the movement against the current junta. Despite losing his vision, he said that he would willingly do anything he could to bring down the regime. As a “defence-line protester”, Thura was armed with no more than a makeshift shield that he used to slow down rampaging soldiers so that fellow protesters could escape. Now, however, he is prepared to go to extremes to fight back. “Do I have to strap explosives to my body and blow myself up in a crowd of soldiers? If I can, I will. If there is anything I can do, I’m ready to do it,” he said. Like many others who have fallen victim to the regime’s ruthless efforts to terrorize the public into submission, however, Thura’s immediate concerns are more personal. He is still worried about his bedridden mother, from whom he has managed to hide his own condition. “I don't want to make her heart disease worse,” he said, explaining why he hasn’t let his mother know what happened to him. He also acknowledged that his situation has added to his family’s hardships at a time when the collapse of the economy since the coup has put enormous pressure on the poor. But even the loss of one of the family’s breadwinners has done little to dampen their conviction that no sacrifice is too great to resist the junta’s rule. “Despite this incident, no one in my family has spoken a word of regret,” he said.....Fighting for the future: A week after Thura lost his eyesight in North Okkalapa, 24-year-old San Lin was shot while protesting in South Dagon. Two days later, after being admitted to Mingaladon Military Hospital, he lost half of his left leg. He spent 10 days in the hospital, and was due to return again five days later to have the dressing on his wound changed when the regime’s forces went on a killing spree. His appointment was on March 27—a day marked by the military as Armed Forces Day, but by the rest of the country as Anti-Fascist Resistance Day. It was the worst day of killing since the coup. Over 100 civilians were murdered on that day alone, and countless others were wounded. San Lin said he felt he had to fight for the sake of his three-year-old son’s future. “We received a poor education when the military was in power before. I don’t want my son to have a similar fate,” he said. He said he believed that the Spring Revolution, as the anti-coup uprising has been called, would eventually succeed, but it would take time. “Our movement must win. We will fight until we win,” he said. As for his own role, he said that even if he can no long join his fellow protesters on the front lines, he will still find a way to support their efforts. “I will continue participating in this movement in any way I can. In the beginning, I was a frontline protester. I can’t be on the front line anymore, but I will stay in the movement,” he said. While his son’s future remains his primary motivation for continuing with the struggle, he said he now also feels an obligation to honour those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. “If we fight until we win, our brothers and sisters who gave their lives will be content in the afterlife. All people who are fighting for democracy at this time are brothers and sisters,” he said.....‘We will win!’: The first reaction most people have when they learn that a family member has survived a deadly crackdown is relief, according to doctor in Mandalay who has treated many such patients. But when they learn that their loved ones will never be the same after suffering often grisly injuries at the hands of soldiers armed with high-powered weapons, they realize that their suffering has just begun. “They just have to accept that whatever the patient’s condition, they can still see them alive and live together with them,” said the doctor. “It’s a sad thing,” he continued, noting that many of the victims are low-paid casual workers who struggled to make ends meet even when they were healthy. “In the future, there should be long-term projects established to support people with such disabilities,” he added. This is the grim reality that now faces thousands of people around the country who may never fully recover from injuries inflicted on them by the ruling junta. According to those who work to assist these victims of the regime’s assaults on unarmed civilians, many are unwilling to speak about their injuries to others. Myanmar Now spoke to one young man who was shot in Mandalay, but he said he was not ready to talk about his injuries, which have left him without the use of his limbs. One of the most notorious incidents was the shooting of Hlyan Phyo Aung, a 22-year-old civil-engineering student from Magway. In a particularly sadistic attack, soldiers shot both of his hands at close range, completely severing the right hand and leaving the left severely damaged. He was saved by fellow protesters, but not before the soldiers shot him repeatedly in both legs, leaving him with injuries that could require amputation. That attack took place on March 27, the day that the regime unleashed an orgy of violence on the country that put its utter contempt for human life on full display. The following day, near the Thiri Myaing railway station in Yangon’s Hlaing Township, another young protester also lost his hand after he tried to throw a hand grenade that had been lobbed at a group of protesters away from them. In a scene that was captured on video and widely shared on social media, the man is then seen getting into a cycle-rickshaw as blood dripped from his handless wrist. At that moment, he shouted the words that continue to sustain many others like him: “We will win!”..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-26
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Title: Burma's political prisoners need our support
Description: "The number of political prisoners in Burma is growing every day since the military staged a coup on 1 February. The latest figure is over 4,250 in detention, and more than 5,000 arrested in total, but this does not include some people who have been arrested or simply disappeared in very remote ethnic areas of Burma. The military is not only carrying out the targeted arrest of individuals who they might consider a “risk”, but they are also conducting random mass arrests of civilians as a means of trying to instil fear and crush dissent. You don’t need to be a peaceful protester to face arrest or intimidation. You can be a shopkeeper, bystander, a Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) supporter, a social influencer or just an ordinary citizen. It’s heart-breaking to see the reports of detainees being tortured and killed in custody. There are also reports of family members getting arrested when the military can’t find the family member they want to arrest. Despite ongoing violence and mass arrests, people continue to protest and speak out against the military junta every day. Doctors, teachers, nurses and many others who are involved in the CDM are under increased pressure to go back to work or face arrest. The military issued warrants and revoked licences for many doctors and nurses for taking part in the CDM. After their release, they will have a criminal record, which makes it almost impossible to go back to their jobs or find new jobs. Many university students should be pursuing their dreams, but instead, they are being thrown into jail for protesting. It’s unlikely they will be able to go back to their studies after prison. For many decades, criminal records for political prisoners have been used as a form of repression by the junta to ostracise activists and to discourage people from speaking out. Having a criminal record can impact them and their families for the rest of their lives, often meaning struggling to survive and living in poverty. In February, the military revised Burma’s Penal Code to target and arrest anyone who speaks out against the coup. The Code of Criminal Procedure was also amended so they can arrest people without warrants and deny bail. Every day, groups of people are being charged under the new 505-A law. Its broad language – “cause fear, spread false news, agitate directly or indirectly criminal offence against a government employee” makes it possible for anyone to be arrested. Punishment for violation of 505-A is up to 3 years in prison. Additionally, we still don’t know the location of many political prisoners and many of them still haven’t been charged. My father was arrested in the early hours on 1 February, and we found out that he was charged and detained in Insein prison only two months after his arrest. In the midst of everything, we are “lucky” to know where he is but many families still don’t have that reassurance. The military is also filing politically motivated charges against activists and civilians to make sure that they can keep them in prison. Armed soldiers forcibly arrested U Ko Htwe in Namhsan on 11 February and later charged him with violating “Covid safety regulations”. The irony is that soldiers themselves violated covid regulations by showing up in a group to arrest U Ko Htwe. U Ko Htwe’s crime is being an ordinary citizen who happens to support the National League for Democracy (NLD). Currently, trials are being held inside prison out of public view and families cannot attend. Some are allowed to have lawyers but it’s hard to know how many are on trial without legal counsel. Trials in Burma are just formalities and almost all of them would certainly be sentenced under politically motivated charges. Burma’s prisons are known for being unhygienic and not providing adequate food or healthcare. Now prisons are overcrowded as arrests continue. Some have been arrested with injuries and some need regular healthcare for their underlying health issues such as hypertension, diabetes, or cancer, so it is an increasingly worrying situation for families. Families also have to provide food, medicines and other essentials regularly, which puts a financial toll on them. Not all families can afford to send food regularly so many political prisoners have to survive on watery soup, bad rice and fish paste. There is a lovely tradition among political prisoners of sharing the little amount of food they received from families with each other, but it’s still not enough to provide them with essential nutrition in the long run. Families of political prisoners are unsung heroes who give unrelenting support in the background. They take on numerous roles as self-made counsellors, motivators, cooks, friends and they don’t often get the credit that they deserve. At the moment, family visits are not allowed. Even when families can visit, it would be a 15-30 minute monitored visit every month where you can’t talk openly or even embrace each other. Despite those restrictions, such moments are precious to see our loved ones and be assured that they are in good health. For both activists and families, it is very emotionally taxing to go through years of hardship and struggle. Some families became estranged from each other and most former political prisoners need to readjust to their lives outside prison. They need help financially to restart their lives and mental health support after going through torture and imprisonment. But under dictatorships and successive governments, none of the former political prisoners have received an apology or compensation for being unlawfully arrested. When an individual is unlawfully arrested in Burma, there is a huge socio-economic impact on both a political prisoner and family members. Activists know they will face arrest, lifelong trauma and uncertainty when they stand up for freedom and federal democracy, but Burma has countless heroes. When we rid our country of the military, which we will, political prisoners and their families must not be forgotten as they were for the past ten years. We all have a special obligation for them and their sacrifices. The new democratic government must ensure their criminal records are removed, and provide a special package of support for former prisoners and their families. They will need extra healthcare because of torture and malnutrition. They will need financial support, housing and, as so many students have lost their chance for education, free university education. When we win our freedom, we will owe political prisoners a great debt for their sacrifice, and it’s a debt we must make sure we pay..."
Source/publisher: "Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-25
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 25 May, (827) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (3) fallen heroes today. These (3) fallen heroes from Bago Township in Bago Region, Myo Thit Township in Magway Region and Kale Town in Sagaing Region were killed on previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of 25 May, a total of (4313) people are currently under detention; of them (102) are sentenced. 1861 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. At least 75 civilians have been killed by this terrorist junta in a month since the 24 April ASEAN leaders meeting. ASEAN intervention has not been effective at stopping the killings of civilians by this junta even with international governments, including the UN, observing the ASEAN dialogue. A family was informed this morning to collect their loved ones’ dead body from “Seit Htar Marn Tai Motorcycle Repair Shop” in Kale Town in Sagaing Region, the man had been arrested yesterday afternoon. His body was found with bruises all over the back, and stab wounds to his hands. In addition to this, Mae Gyi (a.k.a Soe Moe Hlaing), a former member of All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF) and former political prisoner, was arrested on May 22 at Zaung Tu in Phayar Gyi Town in Bago Region, he was killed yesterday evening from brutal torture in interrogaiton. On the night of 23 May, a man from South Phayar Ngar Su Kan Gyi Village was shot dead while driving through Taungdwingyi to return home after work. On May 24, Kay Jar Naw, NLD member of Tanai Township in Kachin State, Danny Fenster, Frontier’s managing editor, and a lawyer representing Nay Pyi Taw Council Chairman Myo Aung, called Thein Hlaing Tun, were arrested. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-25
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Title: Relatives of detained Myanmar Now reporter express concern about her condition
Sub-title: Family members say they have not been permitted to meet with Kay Zon Nway since her arrest in late February
Description: "Relatives of a Myanmar Now journalist who has been in detention for nearly three months say they are growing increasingly worried about her well-being. Kay Zon Nway, who was arrested in late February while reporting on an anti-coup protest in Yangon, has been charged with incitement under Section 505a of the Penal Code. She faces a three-year prison sentence if found guilty. Family members say they have been denied permission to meet with her and are concerned that her health may be at risk due to harsh conditions inside Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison, where she is being held. “She has been suffering from nervous-system problems, so I am sure she has not been well,” said a relative who spoke to Myanmar Now on condition of anonymity. “I heard she is angry, distressed, and hurt because she believes she has not committed any crime,” the relative added, citing reports that the family has received from prisoners who met the reporter prior to their own release. “She asked the released prisoners she met in jail to tell us that she could not sleep at night because of the heat and mosquitoes,” the relative said. Kay Zon Nway previously shared a cell with several inmates, but she was separated from them late last month after she was accused of staging a hunger strike. According to her lawyer Nilar Khine, she was actually fasting for Ramadan. She is currently being held in an 8’x12’ cell with one other female inmate. Her family has been sending medication to help her deal with gastric and nervous ailments, the relative said. No one in the family has seen her since March 12, when she appeared online briefly during a court hearing held via video link. Her next hearing, which will be held at a prison court in Insein, is scheduled for June 3. The plaintiff in the case is deputy police major Win Naing from the Sanchaung police station in Yangon. Testimony from witnesses for the prosecution will be presented at the hearing, her lawyer said. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, 48 journalists are still in detention since being arrested in the wake of the military’s February 1 coup..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-25
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 24 May, (824) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (6) fallen heroes today. These (6) fallen heroes from Htantabin Township in Bago Region, Kani Township in Sagaing Region, Myo Thit Township in Magway Region, North Dagon Township in Yangon Region, Pekon Township in Southern Shan State and Kayah State were killed on previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of 24 May, a total of (4301) people are currently under detention; of them (96) are sentenced. 1841 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. On the night of 23 May, a man from Myaung Kone Village in Kani Township, Sagaing Region was shot dead in the head. Last night, a villager from Kone Thar Village in Kayah State was killed, he was shot in the stomach while he was driving a motorbike, the motorbike hit the lamp-post, and broke his leg. Junta forces opened fire yesterday evening when they raided the football ground in North Dagon Township, Yangon Region, a youth was shot when he climbed on the wall to run away and fell on the ground. He was arrested with a forehead and gunshot injury, and later died. Yesterday, a clash between the People’s Defense Force (PDF) and junta troops led to a PDF member shot in the thigh and died due to excessive bleeding. On the night of 22 May, a man, who was shot and arrested with injuries in an ‘unprovoked’ shooting by terrorist troops into wards at Htantabin Township in Bago Region. His family was later informed he had died. A private boarding school principal from Myo Thit Township in Magway Region with preexisting health conditions, died from being forced to sit in a stress position (called “Pon Zan”) after he appeared before the court in Magway Prison on May 21. Freelance reporter Super (a.k.a Kyaw Zin Win) was arrested at gunpoint this afternoon in Mandalay City. Last night, both parents and a younger brother were detained as hostages when the junta did not find a CDM striking worker from the fire department in Thegon Town in Bago Region. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-24
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 23 May, (818) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (3) fallen heroes today. These (3) fallen heroes from Monywa Township in Sagaing Region and Demoso Township in Kayah State were killed on previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of 23 May, a total of (4296) people are currently under detention; of them (95) are sentenced. 1822 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. Yesterday morning, Two youths were shot dead by junta forces in Demoso Township, Kayah State while bringing food for people who fled from the town. The bodies of the two were reportedly taken away by the military regime. Last night, a youth was beaten and arrested at his home in relation to the bomb blast which occurred in front of the Inn Ma Town Hospital at Thegon Township in Bago Region. In the morning of 22 May at Mingaladon Township in Yangon Region, a 16-year old girl was arrested while she was sticking anti-school attendance leaflets. Even though this girl is only 16 years, the junta’s propaganda newspapers stated action will be taken against as she is 18 years old. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-24
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Title: More than 100 people including children shot dead in Myanmar
Description: "More than 100 people are reported to have been killed by security forces in Myanmar, on the deadliest day since last month's military takeover of the country. A five-year-old was reported to be among the dead along with other children. Protesters against the military coup had defied warnings from the government that security forces would shoot people in “the head and back”. There’s been international condemnation of the violence. Kate Silverton presents BBC News reporting by Laura Bicker..."
Source/publisher: "BBC News" (London)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-23
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Title: CPJ calls on Myanmar to release Kamayut Media editor Nathan Maung, news producer Hanthar Nyein
Description: "Myanmar’s military authorities must drop all charges against Nathan Maung, a U.S. citizen, and Hanthar Nyein, co-founders of the privately held local news website Kamayut Media, and immediately release them from detention, where their families report they have been physically abused, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Authorities first arrested Maung, the outlet’s editor-in-chief, and Hanthar, a news producer, on March 9, according to news reports at the time. They are currently being detained at Yangon’s Insein prison on charges under Article 505(a) of the penal code, which punishes the dissemination of information or “fake news” that could agitate or cause security forces or officials to mutiny with a maximum three-year prison term, according to the journalists’ families, who communicated with CPJ via an intermediary who requested anonymity to avoid reprisals. Authorities physically abused them during their initial two weeks of detention at the Yay Kyi Ai interrogation center in Insein Township, the intermediary told CPJ by email. According to the intermediary, the journalists’ families said they were severely beaten around their heads, burnt on their belly, thighs, and buttocks with lit cigarettes, and made to kneel on ice while their hands were cuffed behind them during interrogations. “Myanmar authorities must drop their charade of a criminal trial against Kamayut Media journalists Nathan Maung and Hanthar Nyein, and set them free,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “The abuse their families report in detention is unconscionable and the authorities involved must be identified and prosecuted.” CPJ initially reported that Maung was arrested covering a protest, but local news reports said that he and Hanthar were arrested in a raid of the Kamayut Media office in Yangon. Kamayut Media stopped its bureau operations after the raid but its remaining staffstill publish online from undisclosed locations, the intermediary told CPJ. Maung and Hanthar appeared in a Yangon court on May 17, and at least four more weekly hearings are scheduled for police to present evidence, according to the intermediary. They are currently being held in individual cells in the same wing of Insein prison, the families said via the intermediary. Myanmar’s military regime currently holds dozens of journalists behind bars, according to preliminary investigations by CPJ based on reporting, news reports, and research by the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, a local rights group. The majority have been detained during newsroom raids or while covering anti-coup street protests, and over half face charges under Article 505(a), that reporting shows. On April 6, CPJ addressed a public letter to junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing calling on his regime to release all journalists detained in the wake of the February 1 coup. CPJ emailed the Ministry of Information for comment on Maung and Hanthar’s legal status and allegations they have been abused in detention, but did not immediately receive any reply..."
Source/publisher: Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-22
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 22 May, (815) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (3) fallen heroes today. These (3) fallen heroes from Mindat Township in Chin State and Lanmadaw Township in Yangon Region were killed the previous days and have been documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of May 22, a total of (4271) people are currently under detention; of them (95) are sentenced. 1802 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. Yesterday afternoon, a clash occurred between the military and Chinland Defense Force (CDF-Mindat) at Bue Kunn Village in Mindat Township Chin State. It is reported that a member of the CDF-Mindat died during this clash. A civil servant, who was involved in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) was shot to death on May 20, in Mindat Town, Chin State. A man, who was arrested whilst he was voluntarily guarding his ward for security, and who was facing trial inside prison, also died on May 19, from insufficient medical care for his diabetes. In the early morning of May 22, Soe Myint Htein, NLD Secretary of Yangon Region, was arrested at home in Hlegu Township, Yangon Region where he was evading arrest. His wife and another man were also arrested along with him. His wife and the man were released, however Soe Myint Htein remains under detention. Last night, in South Dagon Township in Yangon Region, a final year medical student and a final year college student from the Myanmar Mercantile Marine College were arrested by an excessive number of junta troops. Early yesterday morning, two children, a 15 year old and a 17 years old, living in Myeik, Tanintharyi Region, were arrested and charged under Section 505(a)(c) of the Penal Code. On the night of May 20, a third year university student majoring in Botany at Dagon University was arrested at a house in Mayangone Township in Yangon by junta forces in military vehicles. Neighbours reported that this student was severely beaten. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-22
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Title: Opinion: The generals in Myanmar are waging war on doctors and nurses
Description: "Leonard Rubenstein is a professor of practice at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and author of the forthcoming book “Perilous Medicine: The Struggle to Protect Health Care from the Violence of War.” Sandra Mon, a Myanmar national, is a senior epidemiology researcher at the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The Feb. 1 military coup in Myanmar triggered a wave of popular protest that has yet to abate. Since then, security forces have reportedly killed more than 800 demonstrators. Yet even amid the slaughter, one particular cruelty of the junta stands out: its deliberate targeting of health-care workers. On Feb. 27, the military launched its first violent attack against health care, dispersing peacefully protesting nurses and doctors with live rounds and smoke grenades. By early April it had committed more than 100 attacks on health-care transport, facilities, and personnel, killing at least 10. Soon thereafter, the military began charging medical staff with “attempts to deteriorate peace and stability of the State.” According to our research, the authorities have so far issued arrest warrants for more than 500 health-care workers. The junta’s attacks on health care have a perverse logic. Mere days into the coup, Myanmar’s health professionals, still in the throes of the country’s covid-19 response, launched a nationwide strike to protest the coup, galvanizing the pro-democracy civil disobedience movement. For that, the authorities have designated them enemies of the state. In April, a junta spokesperson absurdly accused protesting medics of committing genocide. Regime violence has extended beyond doctors and nurses who are pro-democracy activists. Since March, the military has occupied at least 36 hospitals across the country. Security forces have attacked and hijacked ambulances, directed private facilities not to treat wounded demonstrators, obstructed medics from reaching protest areas and looted medical equipment from organizations offering emergency care. In one harrowing account, a doctor in Mandalay told one of us that on May 1, security forces raided a local clandestine clinic, then severely beat and detained rescue workers nearby. The brutal assaults on health care in Myanmar have parallels elsewhere. The regime of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad has assaulted health care as a strategy of war. In Turkey, doctors have been harassed and punished for reporting the torture of prisoners. In many countries, new laws criminalize providing health care to alleged terrorists. In Myanmar, the recent assaults continue a long-established military strategy of denying health care to communities that challenge the junta and punishing the doctors and nurses who seek to offer it. Ten years ago, one of us conducted research on access to health care during a lengthy war waged by the regime against ethnic groups seeking autonomy. The military junta at the time deemed these communities to be enemies and forbade international humanitarian organizations from operating among them. Soldiers burned clinics, stole supplies and medicines, and arrested, kidnapped and murdered medical staff. One medic recalled, “Because we are health workers for our people, if [the soldiers] know this, they will kill us.” To offer basic services such as delivering babies and teaching malaria prevention, doctors had to travel furtively through the jungle to avoid encounters with security forces. The military’s cruelty against people with medical needs and their caregivers, then as now, breached fundamental protections of health care under international law that date back to the 1860s. The rules are straightforward: Wounded and sick people and their caregivers may not be attacked or denied care based on their affiliations, and no health provider may be punished for providing it. Five years ago this month, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution condemning the alarming violence against health care in conflict and calling on governments to take concrete actions to stop it and hold perpetrators to account. The violations in Myanmar are taking place in a country that, according to the World Bank, spends $60 a year per capita on health care, near the bottom of global rankings. The violence in recent months has interrupted essential services for HIV, tuberculosis, emergency obstetric care and chronic illnesses, in addition to protest-related injuries. Myanmar’s covid-19 vaccination program, the third to be launched in Southeast Asia, has stalled thanks to widespread distrust of the military-commandeered health ministry. Coupled with a quickly diminishing health workforce and the rapid emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 strains in the region, a surge in cases in Myanmar could destabilize health security even beyond its borders. The international community must act firmly to restore democratic governance in Myanmar. It must also end the military’s lack of accountability for crimes against health and humanity by prosecuting perpetrators. It should support aid to restore Myanmar civilians’ right to health care. The civilian National Unity Government (NUG), standing in opposition to the junta, is poised to respond to people’s most critical needs in health and beyond. Toward that end, international health mechanisms, such as the World Health Organization’s Covax program, should partner with the NUG to address the country’s most urgent medical needs. Those responsible for the assaults on health-care workers in Myanmar, as elsewhere, have long enjoyed impunity. This cannot be allowed to continue. The world must take a stand.
Source/publisher: "The Washington Post" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-22
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 20 May, (810) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (3) fallen heroes today. These (3) fallen heroes from Tedim Township in Chin State, Pandaung Township in Bago Region and Taungdwingyi Township in Magway Region were killed the previous days and have been documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of May 20, a total of (4212) people are currently under detention; of them (94) are sentenced. 1762 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. The junta is shooting and killing civilians every day. Yesterday, in Lay village, Okshitpin Town, Pantaung Township in Bago Region, a motorcycle mechanic was killed, and another man was shot and left wounded. The junta terrorists are now mainly targeting and murdering civilians in remote areas and in the ethnic regions. Demonstrations in urban areas were also cracked down on in inhumane ways and junta forces continued a series of arrests upon civilians. This violence came alongside their heavily repressive military operations in rural areas. The junta have been committing acts of vandalism and violence. These push the country further into a state of instability. Bombing in Tedim Township, Chin State yesterday evening resulted in the death of a 10-year-old child. The 10-year old child was critically injured in the explosion, then prevented from accessing medical assistance fast enough. The bombing also caused injury to two other children, aged 6 and 10. This junta regime violates the rights of all civilians, even those who are most vulnerable, such as children and the elderly. They oppress people without any regard for the sanctity of life, using any means, in order to maintain their power. Since the coup, Bumrese civilians have faced constant insecurity and have lost assurance of their basic rights. Yesterday, in Taungdwingyi Township, Magway Region, a former village administrator, who worked under the NLD government of Sithar Gyi, and five other villagers were arrested, beaten and interrogated by junta forces. The village administrator was left dead, and the other five civilians sustained serious injuries. Previous dictatorships in Burma systematically and methodologically used torture against civilians to punish resistance and enforce confessions. Since the coup, the junta’s violence against civilians has worsened, they now treat everyone as their enemy. Amongst the regions that are fighting back against the junta, Chin State is the one which is most targeted by these terrorists. Chin state has faced heavy attacks and severe repression by the junta. In Kanpetlet town, junta troops camped out at school and police station, forcing almost the entire town to flee. Junta troops raided Loklung village, close to Hakha Town, again forcing the entire village to flee. These civilians remain on the run. Cases of the junta taking family members of wanted individuals as hostages are becoming more frequent. Their widespread method of taking hostages has reached an extremely concerning stage. Last night, a wanted activist from Seikkan village in Paungde Township, Bago Region could not be found by junta forces, so they instead arrested his wife, child and stepmother. A similar case occurred in Phang Fa Village, Chaungzon Township, in Mon State on the night of May 16. A wanted man could not be found, so the junta instead arrested his father. Such arrests are clearly unlawful. This is yet another example of Burmese civilians being left unprotected, the junta use laws however they want please. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-21
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Type: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar activists say more than 800 killed by security forces since coup
Description: "More than 800 people have been killed by Myanmar’s security forces since a wave of protests broke out across the country after the military seized power in a coup in February, an activist group said. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army ousted Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government and detained her and officials of her National League for Democracy party. The military has responded to protests by pro-democracy supporters in cities and towns with lethal force, while there has been an upsurge in fighting between the army and ethnic rebels in border areas and newly formed militia forces. As of Monday, 802 people had been killed in the junta's crackdown on its opponents, according to the activist group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. "This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher," the group said in its daily briefing. It detailed six additional fatalities including in towns in Chin state and in districts of the main cities of Mandalay and Yangon. Reuters could not independently verify the casualties and a military spokesman did not answer a phone call seeking comment. The junta has previously disputed the number of civilians that have died and said dozens of members of the security forces had also been killed during the protests. The activist group said 4,120 people were currently being detained, including 20 who had been sentenced to death. RESIDENTS FLEE Some of the most intense fighting since the Feb. 1 coup has emerged in recent days in Mindat, about 100 km (60 miles) from the Indian border in Chin state as the army battles local militias. Thousands of residents in the hill town in northwest Myanmar were hiding in jungles, villages and valleys on Monday after fleeing an assault by the military, witnesses said. Martial law was declared in Mindat last week before the army launched its assault, using artillery and helicopters against a newly formed Chinland Defence Force. The militia, armed mainly with hunting rifles, said it had pulled back to spare civilians from being caught in the crossfire. Several residents reached by Reuters said food was in short supply and estimated as many as 5,000 to 8,000 people had fled the town. Roads were blocked and the presence of troops in the streets was preventing their return. "Almost everyone left the city," said a volunteer fighter who said she was in a jungle. "Most of them are in hiding." The United States and Britain have called on the army to avoid civilian casualties and a shadow National Unity Government formed by loyalists of Suu Kyi appealed for international help. A U.N. General Assembly vote on Tuesday on a draft resolution calling "for an immediate suspension of the direct and indirect supply, sale or transfer of all weapons and munitions" to Myanmar has been postponed, diplomats said. It was not immediately known when a vote would be rescheduled. Some diplomats said it had been delayed in a bid to win more support. The draft resolution calls on the Myanmar military to end a state of emergency, stop all violence against peaceful protesters and respect the will of the people as expressed in the results of November's election..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-21
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Title: Myanmar’s Educators Resist Pressure From Junta to Reopen Universities, Schools
Summary: "Myanmar’s striking educators and administrative staff are continuing their anti-regime action despite pressure from the regime to return to work and reopen universities and schools. The junta has...
Description: "Myanmar’s striking educators and administrative staff are continuing their anti-regime action despite pressure from the regime to return to work and reopen universities and schools. The junta has recently targeted striking educators and administrative staff who refused to serve under military rule with arrests, warrants and suspensions from their jobs. Since the last week of April, the regime has been issuing arrest warrants against teachers and education staff who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) on charges of incitement. As of Tuesday, 220 teachers, including professors, headmasters and headmistresses, education officers and officials, have been put on the list. A number of teachers who went on the strike were recently arrested, charged or sentenced. Announcements of suspensions from their jobs were also issued. Regardless of the growing threats, many striking educators and staff carry on their resistance against the junta. Myanmar Teachers’ Federations said about 60 percent of the academics at universities and colleges resisted the junta’s reopening of campuses. The junta announced the reopening on May 5 of universities and colleges that had been closed for more than a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those striking academics, more than 19,000 out of a total of 35,000 teachers in universities, colleges, have been suspended from their jobs for carrying on their strike against the regime. And in public schools for basic education, more than 100,000 teachers and education staff out of a total of 450,000 [that is around 27 percent] joined the CDM, according to an initial announcement by the Ministry of Education on April 23. Starting on May 7, the junta has issued suspension orders to striking teachers and education staff at public schools nationwide. Among those who have been suspended are custodial staff, security officers at schools, lab technicians, teachers, principals and officials under the basic education department of Ministry of Education. “The reopening of the schools is just to show the country is well under the control of the military rather than concern for disrupted education,” an official from the teachers’ federation, who asked to be anonymous, told The Irrawaddy. He said that though some CDM teachers relented and returned to work in fear of being arrested after the junta ramped up detention, many of them would carry on the strike until the military regime collapses. “We are determined to continue the fight until the fall of the dictatorship and return of a civilian government elected by the people,” said the official, who himself was recently suspended from one of Yangon universities. A teacher from Yangon Region who was recently suspended from her job said she is proud to stand against injustice even though it meant she had to give up of a job she adored. “I will only return to work under our elected civilian government,” she added. Facing a shortage of educators, the military regime is recruiting lecturers and is planning to give promotions to non-CDM professors to replace striking academics. In public schools, the regime is calling for daily wage teachers to substitute for teachers on strike. Meanwhile, the regime continues to pressure striking educators to give in. In some cases, the junta has arrested the relatives of teachers, holding them as hostages to force teachers to return to work. Students boycott against ‘military’s slave education’ It is not only teachers, but also students who are boycotting the “military’s slave education.” Student protesters said they won’t attend or enroll the classes under the regime whose forces have killed hundreds of youths including high school students and children. The teachers’ federation predicted about 80 to 90 percent of university students boycotted classes by refusing to attend or enroll. The junta also plans to open public schools on June 1, but many students have expressed that they don’t want education under the dictatorship. Parents have also expressed concern for the safety of their children due to the likelihood of violence amid the regime forces’ continuing brutal actions against civilians. Making matters worse, a number of schools across the country were set on fire or bombed with homemade grenades by unknown attackers. The regime claimed that school attacks were carried out by “rioters,” using its label for anti-regime protesters. The Irrawaddy can’t independently verify the junta’s claims. Despite the attacks on schools, the regime still insists it will open schools as scheduled on June 1. During a press conference last week, a regime spokesperson said the regime would provide enough security for schools but refused to reveal any details, citing security matters. Meanwhile risk of contracting COVID-19 is also another cause of concern as Myanmar still detects a dozen cases daily. The regime has said it would deliver facial masks and shields to students free of charge. A high school student said he and his friends wouldn’t return to school until the revolution prevails. “We will go to school only when Grandma Suu [State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi who was put under detention at the time of the Feb. 1 coup] is released.”..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-20
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Title: ‘Pray for Myanmar’: Miss Universe pageant gets political
Summary: "In the months leading up to the Miss Universe pageant, most contestants were busy making promotional films and rehearsing for their moment in the limelight. Thuzar Wint Lwin of Myanmar was on the...
Sub-title: Thuzar Wint Lwin, in dress of besieged Chin minority, highlights brutal repression since coup in Myanmar
Description: "In the months leading up to the Miss Universe pageant, most contestants were busy making promotional films and rehearsing for their moment in the limelight. Thuzar Wint Lwin of Myanmar was on the streets of Yangon, protesting against the country’s brutal army. As the military used increasingly deadly force to crush rallies opposing its February coup, she visited the relatives of those who had been killed, donating her savings. Online, she raised awareness of military violence, despite the risk of retaliation. On Thursday, Thuzar Wint Lwin appeared on stage in Florida, where she sent a powerful message to viewers around the world. Striding out in the traditional dress of the Chin ethnic minority, she unfurled a banner that read: “Pray for Myanmar.” “Our people are dying and being shot by the military every day,” she said in a video message filmed for the pageant. Thuzar Wint Lwin, 22, had been determined to take part in the competition, she said on Facebook, because she wanted to use her platform to “let the world know of our country and how our freedom, human rights and right to live are threatened”. She managed to pass safely through Yangon airport earlier this month. She won the prize for best national costume, for a traditional dress worn by Chin women in north-west Myanmar. The dress, which features intricate weaving, and is worn with a crown of feathers adorned with beads, is associated with the Khwang Cawi festival, when tributes are paid to courageous and admirable women. Dr Sasa, a spokesperson for Myanmar’s national unity government, which was set up by pro-democracy politicians, including some who have been detained, praised Thuzar Wint Lwin “for her bravery in the face of so many obstacles”. Her actions had helped raise awareness of “the plight of Myanmar’s brave citizens under the hand of these cruel terrorist murderers,” he said in a statement. Over recent days, thousands of people in Myanmar’s Chin state have been forced to flee their homes, following escalating fighting between the military and activists opposed to the coup, who have formed the Chinland Defence Force. The group used traditional hunting guns to fight the army in the town of Mindat, while the military fired artillery shells into the town and used helicopters to bring in extra troops. Chinland Defence Force told Reuters earlier this week that it had pulled back to spare civilians from being caught in the crossfire. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said providing humanitarian assistance to people fleeing the violence, or those still in the town, was challenging due to the insecurity. The US condemned the military’s use of violence against civilians, describing it as “a further demonstration of the depths the regime will sink to to hold on to power”. It has tightened sanctions against the ruling generals, placing more members of the junta on a financial blacklist. More than 800 people have been killed by the junta, according to the advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Thousands more have been detained, including elected politicians, pro-democracy activists and protesters. The military has also cracked down on cultural figures who have criticised the coup, announcing wanted lists on military TV in the evenings. Celebrities – from poets to beauty bloggers and influencers – are among those sought or held by security forces. Many are taken during night raids, when security forces stalk the streets and search the homes of anyone they suspect of supporting protesters. There have been repeated reports of torture inside detention facilities. It is not clear where Thuzar Wint Lwin will stay after the pageant. There were unconfirmed reports on social media that the Myanmar regime had issued an arrest warrant since her Miss Universe protest. In an online video message, she said: “Myanmar deserves democracy, and we will keep fighting and I also hope that the international community will give us the help that we desperately need.” Thuzar Wint Lwin was not the only contestant to make a political point at the Miss Universe pageant. Bernadette Belle Ong, who represented Singapore, walked on to the stage wearing a cape in the colours of her country’s flag then turned to reveal the message painted on the back, “Stop Asian Hate”, in a reference to rising numbers of racist attacks on Asian Americans. Lola de los Santos, the Miss Universe contestant for Uruguay, showed support for LGBTQ+ people with a rainbow outfit and a skirt that read: “No more hate, violence, rejection, discrimination.”..."
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-20
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Title: The Coup in Myanmar/Burma: Collective Trauma and Resilience
Description: "I wrote the following piece after 3 March 2021, on which 38 people died from the crackdown. Now the protest is over 100 days, and 782 people (as of 10 May), including children, have been killed. Over 3,740 people are in detention. Ordinary people all over Burma are living on edge due to the random acts of violence by “security forces.” When I got up on 1 February, I heard about the coup in Burma, my country. I tried to identify an assortment of feelings: anger, despair, distress, sadness, hopelessness. None of them seemed to fit precisely what I felt. Since I am not in Burma, I rely on Facebook, the communication channel most Burmese use for information, to stay informed. With those unnamable feelings in my chest, I started checking Facebook almost hourly to catch up with the ongoing situation. When a 19-year-old girl died, the first death of the protest, I could finally name the assortment of emotions I was feeling – trauma. A few years ago, a former political prisoner told me the whole country was experiencing trauma because of the violent suppression of resistance over five decades. Her words now came back to me as I tried to understand the emotions running through me. We are re-experiencing the collective trauma of living under the grip of the military. Every day the violence against protesters escalates and reminds those of us who lived and grew up under the military regime and who witnessed many violent crackdowns since 1962, of “the dark times.” I was born two years after the coup in 1962. I remember talking with my friends about politics and rumours we heard from adults, when we were about ten years old. Had Ne Win died? How much we children and the adults around us wanted him to be gone, the former dictator. My overriding memories of growing up in Burma under the military dictatorship involve a sense of lacking – of lacking necessities, and above all lacking rights and freedom. Economic struggles, censorship, martial laws, fear of the military and people associated with them; these were a big part of our everyday life. In the backdrop, there were ongoing wars with various ethnic groups. I can still recall watching tanks drive through our township to suppress the student demonstrations in 1974. The next day, we heard many young people had been killed or arrested. The atmosphere was full of fear and suppression, and it was suffocating. Then in 1988, the military killed thousands of people during a massive popular uprising for democracy. My mother went into depression in 1988 at the loss of life she witnessed. This is etched deeply in my memory. History has shown us again and again that it is always the young people who fight back, and now like before, they can be killed, beaten, tortured, raped. Still, these young people go on and take the front line. Now in 2021, Burma is a different country, but it is still beset by endless political, social and economic problems. Despite these problems, people have some freedom and hope, and communication with the outside world. There is also the widespread use of social media, which we didn’t have access to in 1988. Hence today’s young people, Generation Z, live in a very different political, social, and economic context. However, like many generations before them, they are the ones who dare to start the fight back and sacrifice their lives. The pain, sadness, anger, and anxiety of the families of those young people killed and arrested are unfathomable. Many people are saying that the revolution is close to victory. I want to believe that the people will win in the end, but at this point, it is not easy to see how the whole debacle is going to unfold. How do you fight an institution that does not hesitate or express remorse about using any weapon available to kill their own people—who are simply asking for their rights to be respected? People, especially Generation Z, persist despite the violence. On 3 March, Burma mourned the death of Kyal Sin, a 19-year-old girl who got shot in the back of her head. The words on her T-shirt said “Everything will be OK.” She left a note asking for her organs to be donated if it were not possible to resuscitate her. I felt devastated at the death of Kyal Sin and other youths on 3 March. However, it was seeing an emotional video posted on Facebook by a young woman, and recognising her own trauma, that led me to write this piece. In the video, the young woman films herself narrating her experiences of helping protesters on the frontline. This first-hand account is a plea for others to understand the violence that protesters face every day. This young woman has been helping protestors to flee from police violence. She repeatedly saw young people being brutally beaten up by the police. She had been using her car to block the road to delay the police vehicles so that she could assist the protesters to safety. It had been getting more and more difficult for her to do this because fewer people were turning up for the protests. The increasing use of tear gas, stun grenades, and live bullets emptied some of the main streets, and it was easier for the police vehicles to get through quickly to attack the protesters. Sometimes the makeshift roadblocks put up to deter police forces or police cars from passing through accidentally blocked her from reaching protesters. Other times people taking videos of the protests ignored her request to let her car pass through. Not being able to get through to the people she intended to help, and seeing police beat up her colleagues brought her to breaking point that day. She repeatedly said, “They asked the kids (protestors) to put up their hands on the heads and then they relentlessly beat them on their backs.” This broke her heart more than anything else. This woman knows she might die helping them, but she puts herself at risk to rescue the core young protestors. She wants more people to participate in protests to fight against the military and shield the front-line protestors. Since 1 February, she has hardly slept and has only eaten one meal a day because she is too tired. For her, the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) is not helping unless everybody participates in the protests. Like most young people, her fear of losing out to the military is far greater than her fear of dying. Her emotional response on Facebook to those criticizing young protestors for confronting the police instead of having small protests near their places of residence, and her plea to people, gave me a glimpse of what young protestors are going through. There are good days and terrible days in the over-a-month-long ongoing protests. On good days, most protestors get away unscathed, inspired, hopeful, and with renewed aspirations. On terrible days, some get killed, wounded, arrested, but the people do not give up. Every day, they come out to protest the coup. They are determined to make sure the military goes down. That’s when you can see the best of Burmese people, their resilience. The younger generation fights with creativity, resilience, and humour that keeps them going even though they are putting their lives on the line. You can see messages or posts on Facebook that encourage unity, such as “we can have different opinions but we are not divided.” People set aside religious and ethnic tensions to fight the common enemy – the military, and, by doing so, they have more compassion and understanding of years of atrocity and violence directed at ethnic groups, including the Rohingya. I have learned from a good friend of mine, a survivor of violence, that post-traumatic growth and resilience emerge in the aftermath of violence. Dealing with trauma is not a walk in the park. There are good days and bad days. Bad days can take you to the edge, but resilience can bring you back to embracing life. Sometimes it comes from inside. And sometimes the help from outside is necessary to keep on going. More than ever, people in Burma need every possible form of assistance from the international community to continue their long struggle. The UN, ASEAN, China, Russia, India, Japan, and other countries need to take action. Every country can take action if they take their mind off trade, regional competition, and geopolitical influence. The Burmese people have shown their spirit and resilience in the face of the violent suppression by the military. Day by day, people in Burma realize they cannot depend on outside help, not even the UN. Regardless, they are determined to continue their revolt against the military. The protests have grown so large and spread across the country that they have become transformed into revolution. Even if the international community fails to help Burma, the “Early Summer Revolution” (named by the protestors) will go on. People of Burma have experienced collective trauma, but they have tremendous resilience, and the world needs to stand by them. The following is an English translation of a post by a poet that was shared on Facebook:[1] I am afraid of mornings. When he wakes up, he goes straight to the bathroom, has a shower, changes his clothes, picks up his bag, and gets ready to go out of the door. He doesn’t even notice the breakfast I prepared for him. I ask, Where are you going today? He used to tell me whether he was going to Hledan, Sule, Sanchaung, or Bargyar. Now he only says where the protest is. I warn him they are going to shoot today. He said they are shooting every day. Don’t spread that kind of talk. Instead of 100 people, only 50 will come to protest. Don’t make me afraid. It’s not the time for fear. Looking thin and sunburned, no gun, no bullet, just a backpack and the three fingers salute. He: Don’t keep calling me. He goes, and I go. I can exhale when everybody comes back home in the evening. Exhausting days since the coup. I have absolute empathy for the fallen heroes and their families. Salute to them!..."
Source/publisher: Tea Circle (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-19
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 19 May, (807) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (2) fallen heroes today. These (2) fallen heroes from Bago City and Pyay Town in Bago Region were killed in previous days and have been documented today. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) has not yet confirmed any fallen heroes today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of May 19, a total of (4174) people are currently under detention; of them (94) are sentenced. 1742 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. Despite the junta’s relentless oppression, people across Burma continue to protest in various ways, to oppose this military dictatorship. This morning in Thaketa township, Yangon Region, the so-called police used motorbikes to crack down on civilians as they gathered for a university student protest. Three civilians were arrested. The indiscriminate shooting of civilians by these terrorists are worsening every day. Last night, in Pyay Township, Bago Region, a man was shot and taken away by junta forces with his injuries. This morning, his family were told to collect the dead body. In a similar case, on May 17, a young man was shot and detained with his wounds as junta forces raided a restaurant. His family were notified five hours later that he was dead. Families of those injured are often not notified of the victim’s arrest, or of any injuries and are often only contacted after the victim’s death. This shows this junta’s dishonesty. It also remains unknown whether victims are given access to medical treatment. Junta forces treat detainees in cruel ways which violate human rights and human dignity. Many other detainees have faced various atrocities whilst under detention. Junta forces use fraud, bribery and extortion to deceive and opress civilians. Parents of detained children have been made to pay more than 5 million kyats (USD$3037) to the junta for the release of their child, yet after paying, these children have still not been released. There have also been reports that artists and other wealthy civilians have been requested to pay 20 million kyats in order to have their names removed from the warrant list. Specific confirmation of this is yet to be verified. Only releasing detainees after receiving payment is extortion and a form of abduction. These actions clearly show the criminal nature of this junta regime. Junta terrorists have been attempting to divert civilian’s interest away from participation in politics. In states, regions and villages across Bago, Magway, Mandalay, Saging and Irrawaddy Regions, the junta has officially allowed gambling. This terrorist group is leading Burma down a path of destruction in order to maintain power. This illegitimate group is committing illegal acts, pushing the country further into instability day by day. Under junta control, children have also been severely oppressed. Last night in Bago City, Bago Region, two 14-year-old children and an 18-year-old young man were beaten and arrested. According to AAPP’s documentation, as of today, a total of 73 children have been detained and a total of 53 children have been killed. This is an extremely concerning situation for all of Burma’s children. Since the coup, children have not been granted access to protection in any way. Even though Burma is one of the countries which has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, as the junta is an illegal terrorist group, it is unsurprising that these rights are not respected. LGBTIQ communities have also faced oppression, without any protection, throughout the coup. An activist from the LGBTIQ community was arrested at gunpoint yesterday evening in Mingalardon Township, Yangon Region. This terrorist group uses acts of violence that severely violate human dignity against civilians during their interrogations. This stresses concern for the safety of this LGBTIQ detainee, who inevitably can be deprived of their basic rights. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-19
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Type: Individual Documents
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Title: ANFREL Releases 2020 Myanmar General Elections Final Observation Mission Report
Description: "The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) released the final comprehensive report of its international election observation mission to the 2020 Myanmar General Elections on 17 May 2021. The 2020 Myanmar polls encountered several challenges including restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the observed shortcomings, the outcome of the elections were deemed to reflect the true will of the electorate. The members of the Pyithu Hluttaw (lower house of Myanmar's national Parliament) were scheduled to convene for their swearing-in ceremony on 1 February 2021, but, the Myanmar military staged a coup and seized power from the civilian government alleging electoral fraud. Several key political figures and activists including President U Win Myint, State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and the chair of the Union Election Commission (UEC) U Hla Thein, were arrested. The country was placed under state of emergency. The people of Myanmar continue to resist military rule through peaceful protests across the country but such efforts have been met with violent crackdowns by the military arresting thousands and killing hundreds of people. ANFREL recognizes the voice of the people of Myanmar and hopes this report illustrates the progress achieved by Myanmar as a democracy prior to the coup. ANFREL wishes that the country may soon return on the rightful path to an elected civilian government. ANFREL deployed 13 long-term observers for 24 days, eight short-term observers for eight days, three Election Day observers, a core team based in Yangon, and four electoral analysts, one in Yangon and the rest working remotely. The observers were deployed in 13 out of 14 states and regions in Myanmar. ANFREL's international election observation efforts follow a methodology based on international principles contained in documents such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Bangkok Declaration for Free and Fair Elections, and the Dili Indicators of Democratic Elections. ANFREL is a signatory of the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation..."
Source/publisher: Asian Network for Free Elections (Bangkok)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-18
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Type: Individual Documents
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Size: 6.91 MB 6.76 MB
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Title: At Miss Universe pageant, Myanmar’s contestant pleads “our people are dying”
Description: "Myanmar’s Miss Universe contestant, Thuzar Wint Lwin, used the pageant on Sunday to urge the world to speak out against the military junta, whose security forces have killed hundreds of opponents since it seized power in a Feb. 1 coup. "Our people are dying and being shot by the military every day," she said in a video message for the competition, where she was appearing in the finals at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. "I would like to urge everyone to speak about Myanmar. As Miss Universe Myanmar since the coup, I have been speaking out as much as I can," she said. Myanmar's junta spokesman did not answer calls seeking comment. Thuzar Wint Lwin is among dozens of Myanmar celebrities, actors, social media influencers and sports people who have voiced opposition to the coup, in which elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi was overthrown and detained. At least 790 people have been killed by security forces since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group. It says over 5,000 people have been arrested, with some 4,000 still detained - including several celebrities. Thuzar Wint Lwin did not make it to the last round of the Miss Universe competition, but she won the award for Best National Costume, which was based on the ethnic costume of her Chin people from northwestern Myanmar, where fighting has raged in recent days between the army and anti-junta militia fighters. As she paraded with her national costume, she held up a placard that said “Pray for Myanmar”..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-18
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 17 May, (802) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (6) fallen heroes today. These (6) fallen heroes from Mindat, Hakha, Tedim and Tamu Townships in Chin State, Myingyan Township in Mandalay Region and South Dagon Township in Yangon Region were killed in previous days and have been documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) has not yet confirmed any fallen heroes today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of May 17, a total of (4120) people are currently under detention; of them (92) are sentenced. 1699 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. Today, people across Burma continued to protest against the oppressive military dictatorship. In Tanintharyi Region today, a protest in Dawei was violently cracked down on by junta forces using civilian vehicles to crash into protesters, leaving many injured. In this crackdown, seven civilians were arrested and one was shot with a rubber bullet. Junta forces are now using this brutal method of suppressing protests by crashing into civilians with cars on a daily basis. This is a clear expression of hostility towards civilians, and shows the junta will use any means to inflict harm on the people. The junta terrorists used heavy artillery and live ammunition last night across Mindat Town, Chin State, following massive raids on Mindat Town yesterday. Similar shooting occured today, destroying houses. A 10 year-old girl who was hiding inside a house was shot and remains in a critical condition. Junta troops have been violently damaging houses and shops, and looting goods. In addition to this, displaced civilians who have been hiding in the jungles are in desperate need of food, shelter, and medical supplies. The use of such violent force against a small town warns any other town that resists against the junta, that they will face the same brutality. The people of Burma however, have shown they are not afraid of junta threats, and will continue to fight to defeat the military dictatorship. The people will not accept any negotiations, and will only accept solutions which hold the junta fully accountable for the deaths of over 800 civilians. Last night, junta forces opened fire in Tedim Town, Chin State. Two youths from Tedim Town were killed. The death of one of the two victims is still under investigation; if it is confirmed, the death will be added to the AAPP fatality list. Yesterday evening in Hakha township, Chin state there was a clash between the Chin State Defense Force (Hakha) (CDF-Hakha), and the junta terrorists, which resulted in the death of a young man from the CDF-Hakha. This terrorist group continues its daily shooting and the number of civilian deaths are rising, yet no effective action has been taken to bring down the Junta. The country is unstable and the rule of law has ceased. In South Dagon Township, Yangon Region, the junta returned the rotting body of a man who was arrested on May 14. In order to get permission to cremate his body, medical papers had to be signed which stated he died from pre-existing health conditions. His body was returned displaying many wounds consistent with torture. His face was badly bruised, with his entire mouth swollen, and his teeth appeared to be broken. The junta closely followed the funeral, ensuring no photos were taken. Torture is extremely cruel and inhumane, yet the terrorists continue to use such brutal methods to intimidate the people of Burma, and prevent them from opposing. They also continue to force victims’ family members to sign false medical records, in an attempt to cover up deaths caused by their torutre, and destroy evidence of their brutality. If this military dictatorship ends and democracy is restored, the junta will be held accountable for each and every one of their actions, regardless of their attempts to hide them. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-18
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Type: Individual Documents
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Size: 1.04 MB 3.7 MB 928.45 KB
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 16 May, (796) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (6) fallen heroes today. These (6) fallen heroes from Mindat Township in Chin State were killed the previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of May 16, a total of (3998) people are currently under detention; of them (92) are sentenced. 1679 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. Today, anti-military protests continued across Burma, in Innwa town, Mandalay Region the Mandalay Sanga Union protest was suppressed, though no-one was injured or arrested. In Myitkyina Township, Kachin State, four people were arrested as the protest was scattered. Police used civilian cars to chase the protesters. Last night in Waingmaw town, Kachin State, a young man was arrested and four others injured in an intentional car crash. Such barbaric atrocities are now becoming a predominant tactic of the junta. Yesterday in Mindat town, Chin State, the junta used excessive force against the entire city. This morning, civilians who fled were ambushed on their way. The terrorist group has been using violence to oppress rural areas. Nyaw Pyin Village, Launglon Township, Tanintharyi Region and Monpin Village, Sintgaing Township, Mandalay Region were raided by large numbers of junta troops this morning. During the raid, at least four villagers from Nyaw Pyin village were arrested, every single door in Monpin village was smashed, and their belongings and money looted. Aside from this, three houses, including the house of the NLD village chairman, were destroyed yesterday evening in Kan Thar Yar village, Khin-U Township, Sagaing Region, bags of rice and 700,000 kyats were looted. The terrorist crimes of armed robbery, wrecking and raiding continue unabated due to impunity. The terrorist group allows police and soldiers to do whatever they want to maintain power. As long as the terrorist group is in power, such acts will continue to be committed on a daily basis. On 15 May, in Kho Yaung Village, Tangyan Township, Shan State, the Hsipaw Township NLD parliamentary candidate Sai Kan Nyunt was beaten to death, he was found dead with stab wounds. NLD members are being persecuted on a daily basis, the deaths are beyond doubt the junta’s doing. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-17
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Type: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf pdf pdf
Size: 1.03 MB 3.88 MB 925.35 KB
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 15 May, (790) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (2) fallen heroes today. These (2) fallen heroes from Mandalay City in Mandalay Region and Mindat Town in Chin State were killed the previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) has not yet confirmed any fallen heroes today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of May 15, a total of (3989) people are currently under detention; of them (92) are sentenced. 1659 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. Civilian’s security is deteriorating day after day, the junta’s violence has reached utter ruthlessness, they are shooting, killing, arbitrarily charging, robbing , looting , destroying and vandalism, there has been no reduction by the junta. This morning in Taunggyi Town, Shan State, the junta crackdown on protests and 4 youths were arrested. In Yangon the junta crackdown in Yankin Township after a protest had finished, the police chased them with the motorbikes, and 7 youths were arrested. In Mindat Town , Chin State, the situation is getting worse due to resistance against the terrorist group, there is intense fighting and clashes every day. The junta group brought in nearly a thousand further troops and repeatedly fired heavy artillery shells. The junta troops entered the town and opened fire on civilians. Civilians were injured including children, they have not been able to get medical treatment. More than 15 youths were taken hostage and used as human shields when the junta came into the city. They are arresting all the men who are living in Mindat town. Their doors are being broken into, they are being beaten in the houses and arrested. This disproportionate use of brutal force is believed to be the terrorist aim for eradicating the People’s Defense Forces (PDF). The use of human shields is a “war crime” and impunity for these attacks are a failure to humanity. The terrorist group is carrying out unprovoked and intentional shootings, acts such as torture are perpetrated on a daily basis. In Monywa , Sagaing Region, Sein Win, a poet, philanthropist and veteran politician was collecting donations for IDP’s and he was at a friend’s house talking. Then an unidentified man arrived and poured gasoline on him and set him on fire. Such atrocities are being repeatedly perpetrated by the terrorist group who has become even more hostile to people against the coup. In Aungmyethazan Township, Mandalay, a Burmese teacher who was shot in the leg during a protest rally on May 2 died at Pyin Oo Lwin Military Hospital, his family was not allowed to bury his body and they did not say how he died. The lack of cause of their death indicates what truly happened, since the coup the terrorists have tortured many people to death. They are the only group which commits these crimes. The junta is also vandalizing and looting on a daily basis. Last night in Sagaing Region, Shwe Bo Market was set on fire during curfew time, locals say it was linked to the junta’s action. In Myitkyina, Kachin State, the junta threatened whoever passed by on the road with their guns, demanding money and saying they would shoot the people if they did not give money. A similar crime was reported in Mogaung Township, clearly showing the junta is a criminal robber. Last night, the junta raided Zivita Dana Sangha Hospital and arrested a patient who was seriously injured, a doctor, intern, two volunteers, and a paramedic. A total of six people were arrested. They even abuse people’s rights in places that should be most protected, clear violations of the Geneva Convention. Despite all these atrocities, no effective action is being taken against the terrorist group. Burma gets general agreement statements from the five ASEAN statements, but no action – just silence. This is encouraging the military dictatorship and delaying democracy. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-17
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Type: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf pdf pdf
Size: 1.04 MB 3.8 MB 921.52 KB
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 14 May, (788) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) has not yet confirmed any fallen heroes today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of May 14, a total of (3971) people are currently under detention; of them (92) are sentenced. 1639 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. Today people across Burma continue to protest against the dictatorship, and from some Townships in Chin State, Magway Region, and Sagaing Region people remain resistant to the intensified terrorist attacks. In Kyaukme, Shan State, the protest was crackdown by the junta but the protesters continued to gather. The junta cracks down on protests daily, they are searching and arresting, for not only protest leaders but also ordinary demonstrators. On 13 May Nabule Area, Dawei Township, Tanintharyi Region, a dawn protest was crackdown by the junta group. The junta searched and followed the protest, more than 30 protestors including CDM teachers were forced to flee their homes and now are experiencing a shortage of water and food. The junta group has made a series of arrests and crackdown on protesters to bring the demonstrations to an end and prevent them from gathering. Civilians are persecuted daily, on 13 May, in Mel Thel Kyo Kwin village tract, Chaung Oo Township in Sagaing Division, the junta raided a Gen Z’ Camp, two youths who tried to flee got shot in the leg and beaten in the head. They were kicked in the abdomen and ribs with boots, they were brutally beaten and their faces were swollen, the junta tortured the two youths so much they could not even identify their faces. As a result of this inhumanity, two young men are in a critical condition and reportedly dead. During the raid, weapons were confiscated, and several motorcycles from that camp set on fire. Torture is a serious crime, in Burma the perpetrators are granted impunity. This is why persecution is becoming more brutal, and they are free to commit crimes against humanity against civilians. Only when dictatorship is over will we have the right to live with dignity and security, but the crimes must be held accountable. Since the coup, journalists have been detained for providing timely updates and information on the terrorist group’s repression. Journalists are increasingly being arrested, sentenced, and forced to evade warrants. On 12 May, a reporter from Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) was sentenced to three years in prison. On 13 May in Yenangyaung Town, Magway Region, A journalist formerly with the Tomorrow Journal was arrested. The terrorist group is cutting off the freedom of the press because the people seeing this information frightens the junta. The only way is to promote local media and help fight back against the terrorist group and restore democracy in Burma. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-17
[field_licence]
Type: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf pdf
Size: 1.01 MB 3.71 MB 922.86 KB
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Title: Miss Universe Myanmar Arrives in Florida With a Message for the Junta
Sub-title: Ma Thuzar Wint Lwin hopes to use her international platform as a pageant contestant to criticize the country’s military coup and support the pro-democracy movement.
Description: "As a girl, Ma Thuzar Wint Lwin would watch the Miss Universe pageant and wish that she could be the one onstage representing her country, Myanmar. She entered her first two contests last year, nervous and excited about what to expect. But she ultimately walked away crowned Miss Universe Myanmar, and this week is competing at the global pageant in Florida. But now representing her country has new meaning. With the military seizing power in a Feb. 1 coup and killing hundreds of protesters, she hopes to use her platform to call attention to Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement and to appeal for international help in freeing elected leaders who have been detained. “They are killing our people like animals,” she said in an interview before leaving Myanmar for the competition. “Where is the humanity? Please help us. We are helpless here.” In a dramatic moment on Thursday during the pageant’s national costume show, she walked to the front of the stage and held up a sign saying, “Pray for Myanmar.” The final competition will be held on Sunday. The military takeover in Myanmar sparked widespread protests with millions of people taking to the streets and a civil disobedience movement and general strike that have largely shut down the economy. The Tatmadaw, as the military is known, has responded with a brutal crackdown, killing more than 780 people and detaining more than 3,900, according to a rights group that tracks political prisoners. In the early weeks of the protest movement, Ms. Thuzar Wint Lwin, 22, joined the demonstrations, where she held signs with slogans such as “We do not want military government,” and called for the release of the country’s civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since the coup. She handed out water bottles to protesters in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, and donated her savings to families whose loved ones were killed. She also expressed her opposition to the junta on Facebook, posting black-and-white photos of herself blindfolded, with tape over her mouth and her hands bound. The military’s onslaught has left the country living in fear, she said. “The soldiers patrol the city every day and sometimes they set up roadblocks to harass the people coming through,” said Ms. Thuzar Wint Lwin, who also goes by the name Candy. “In some cases, they fire without hesitation. We are scared of our own soldiers. Whenever we see one, all we feel is anger and fear.” Every evening on television, the military announces new arrest warrants for celebrities and others who have been critical of the regime. Some of those named have been people Ms. Thuzar Wint Lwin knows. Before leaving for the United States, she watched anxiously to see if her name had ended up on the military’s wanted list. She saw reports of well-known people being detained as they tried to leave the country, so she decided to wear a hoodie and glasses to keep from being recognized at the Yangon airport. “I had to pass through immigration and I was so scared,” she said in an interview from Florida. In criticizing the junta from outside her country, Miss Universe Myanmar is not alone. U Win Htet Oo, one of the country’s best swimmers, said from Australia that he was giving up his dream of going to the Olympics and would not compete under the Myanmar flag until the regime’s leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, was removed from power. And the mixed martial arts fighter U Aung La Nsang, an American citizen and one of Myanmar’s most famous athletes, has urged President Biden to help end the suffering of Myanmar’s people. Ms. Thuzar Wint Lwin says she believes that it will not be safe for her to return to Myanmar after speaking out against the regime; she does not know where she will go after the pageant ends. An English major at East Yangon University, her path to the pro-democracy movement can perhaps be traced back to her childhood. She grew up in a middle-class household. Like many parents, her father, a businessman, and her mother, a housewife, dared not discuss the military government that was then in power. One of her early memories was walking with her mother near Sule Pagoda in downtown Yangon in 2007, when monks led nationwide protests against military rule. She was 7. As they neared the pagoda, soldiers broke up the protest by shooting their guns in the air. People started running. She and her mother ran, too. “We were very scared,” she recalled. “We went to a stranger’s house and we were hiding.” Soon after, the military crushed that protest movement by shooting dozens of people. But by 2011, the military began sharing power with civilian leaders and opening the country, allowing cellphones and affordable internet access to flood in. Ms. Thuzar Wint Lwin is part of the first generation in Myanmar to grow up fully connected to the outside world, and for whom a free society seemed normal. In 2015, the country seated democratically elected officials for the first time in more than half a century. “We have been living in freedom for five years,” she said. “Do not take us back. We know all about the world. We have the internet.” November was the first time she was old enough to vote, and she cast her ballot for the National League for Democracy, the party of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, which won in a landslide only to have the military overturn the results by seizing power. Before the coup, Ms. Thuzar Wint Lwin’s biggest ordeal came when she was 19 and had surgery to remove precancerous tumors from each breast, leaving permanent scars. She decided against having laser treatment to improve their appearance as a reminder of her success in preventing cancer. “It’s just a scar and I’m still me,” she wrote in a recent post with photographs of the scars. “I met self-acceptance realizing nothing changed who I am and the values I set for myself. Now, when I see those scars, I feel empowered.” She began modeling when she was in high school and, after her father’s retirement, helped support the family. She is one of fewer than a dozen contestants from Myanmar ever to compete in the Miss Universe pageant, which was founded in 1952. During the period from 1962 to 2011, when the Tatmadaw first ruled, Myanmar sent no contestants at all. When Ms. Thuzar Wint Lwin arrived in Florida on May 7, she was told the suitcase with her outfits for the competition had been lost by the airline. Most contestants had already arrived and were busy rehearsing, making videos and having photo shoots. As the week wore on, the bag still hadn’t arrived, but the pageant organizers were helping her with her gown, and other contestants were lending her outfits. Her national costume was among the missing items. People from Myanmar who live in the United States provided her with a stunning replacement of ethnic Chin origin. She wore it on Thursday to the applause of many in the crowd. Soon after landing in Florida, she posted an autobiographical video on Facebook that would be unusual for any beauty pageant contestant: It shows her wearing formal gowns mixed with scenes of people fleeing tear gas and a soldier shooting a man who rode by on a motorbike. “Myanmar deserves democracy,” she says in the video. “We will keep fighting and I also hope that international communities will give us help that we desperately need.”..."
Source/publisher: "The New York Times" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-17
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Title: The Union Minister of the MoIC and NUG Spokesperson H.E. Dr. Sasa’s Address to the Parliamentarians of the United Kingdom - UK
Description: "The brave people of Myanmar and the National Unity Government of Myanmar greatly appreciate the People, Parliament and Government of the United Kingdom for standing with us at this critical moment in our history. While the fate of our country is in the hands of our people, strong and continued support from the UK Government and the international community is absolutely crucial to our success. Now, more than ever, the people of Myanmar need your continued friendship and support. First of all, I would like to reiterate my sincere thanks to the People, Parliament and Government of the United Kingdom for standing in solidarity and being a strong voice for the people of Myanmar. I also want to express my gratitude for the efforts of the UK on coordinating targeted sanctions against key tatmadaw personnel, tatmadaw linked companies and enterprises such as MEC and MEHL, and for providing extra funding to the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar. Additionally, I would like to further thank the UK government for taking a strong leadership role in the UN and G7 summits on behalf of the people of Myanmar, and for the recognition of CRPH and NUG as important voices of many in this nation. Truly we are the voice of over 54 million brave people who stand in solidarity against the cruel and ruthless junta. Thank you also for lending protection and support to Ambassador Kyaw Zraw Minn since he was illegally removed from office by the junta. I previously had the wonderful privilege of meeting with Minister H.E. Nigel Adams and other British Parliamentarians who reassured me that the People and Government of the UK are strongly committed and supportive of the brave people of Myanmar in our peaceful movement for freedom and democracy against the junta reign of terror. I am also looking forward very much to appearing before the British Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee on the Myanmar military coup hearing. I am proud to serve as the Minister of International Cooperation and Spokesperson for the National Unity Government. It is my job to provide you with the information and assistance that you need to support the people of Myanmar. I am always at your service. The duty of a nation’s military is to defend and protect its people. However, under the command of Min Aung Hlaing, the supposed guardians of our nation are doing precisely the opposite of their duty and continue arbitrarily murdering and detaining without cause the brave and innocent civilians of Myanmar on a daily and hourly basis. The people of Myanmar unanimously consider Min Aung Hlaing and those who report to him as terrorists. It has been 104 days since Min Aung Hlaing and his gunmen instigated this illegal coup d’etat and took the nation hostage. Since that day: • Nearly 800 civilians have been murdered, including at least 52 children; • Approximately 5,000 civilians have been detained with roughly 4,000 still remaining in detention; • Over 1,500 are being hunted by junta forces, evading arrest warrants. • Continually bombing villages in ethnic States; • The junta continues using the ASEAN Summit as a propaganda tool; • I myself am personally wanted for high treason, as are my colleagues; • Daily raids on private homes continue unabated. In a raid last week of the home of an opposition leader, for example, authorities abducted his wife and 20 day old infant when they could not find him. • There is significant evidence of the torture of those captured, including the poet Khat Thi who was detained last week and murdered within 24 hours. • They continue to try and stop the truth from getting out: o They have shutdown Internet access for weeks now, o Abolished all free media outlets, o illegitimately made free association illegal, and o they have harassed and imprisoned journalists. More than 40 journalists remain in detention in Myanmar including an international Journalist from Japan. • The violence we are seeing by the junta is both systematic and widespread. It is clear that they are engaging in crimes against humanity against the people of Myanmar. • Myanmar is quickly becoming a failed state: o Nearly a quarter million people have become displaced. o Food insecurity is rising sharply..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of International Cooperation Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-17
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Title: ‘Revolution dwells in the heart’: Myanmar’s poets cut down by the military
Sub-title: Khet Thi, who captured the unflinching determination of the Myanmar public, was the third poet to be killed by the military since the coup
Description: "His words captured the unflinching determination of the Myanmar public in the face of military brutality: “They shoot in the head, but they don’t know revolution dwells in the heart.” The poet Khet Thi was taken from his home in Shwebo, in the Sagaing region, last Saturday. The next day, his wife collected his body from a hospital. His organs had been removed, she told BBC Burmese. The military has tried to crush any form of dissent over recent months, including writers or celebrities whose words have the power to inspire hope and rebellion. “Poetry, charisma and courage are a deadly blend against any tyranny,” said Ko Ko Thett, a poet, translator and anthologist of contemporary Burmese poetry, who is based in the UK. At least 32 writers and poets are in detention, according to PEN International, a global association of writers which has been tracking arrests. Others have fallen victim to military violence on the frontlines of rallies. Two poets – K Za Win and Myint Myint Zin – were shot dead when the military opened fire on protesters in March On Friday, U Sein Win, a poet, politician and philanthropist, was doused in petrol and burned to death in an attack by an unknown perpetrator. He is the fourth poet to be killed in recent months. Myanmar’s rich poetic heritage is deeply intertwined with politics. Poets used verse to resist British colonial rule, as well as the previous military regime, which censored and imprisoned writers. Poets would meet in tea shops to discuss their works, and use coded language to bypass censorship. When Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy was elected to power in 2015’s historic election – a breakthrough for democracy after decades of direct military rule – 11 poets were among the candidates who won seats. Though there were still limitations on expression under Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, poets were able to write and publish far more freely. Khet Thi quit his job as an engineer in 2012 to pursue poetry, selling cakes and ice-creams on the side to support himself. He grew up in Pale township in Monywa, where his parents operated a peanut oil press, and first began writing poetry while at school. “His poems have always been special and unique because they came from his heart,” said a close friend. They had not been able to meet since the coup, and had avoided discussing the political situation on the phone, in case they were being monitored. Many poets were in hiding, fearing arrest, he said. “Khet Thi’s virtue was that he only wanted to be friends with people who see people as people [who do not discriminate]. He was a revolutionary with strong beliefs and someone who never steps back,” the friend added. Khet Thi was possibly the only prominent poet from Myanmar’s Bamar majority who wrote about the 2017 Gu Dar Pyin massacre, said Ko Ko Thett. Discussion of such attacks, where hundreds of Rohingya were killed by security forces and buried in mass graves, was highly sensitive. Before the coup, he would sell printed copies of his books, but over recent months his words were shared mainly on Facebook. He addressed rallies, telling crowds at a march on 27 March that every protester in Myanmar was a Nobel peace prize winner. “Who does the power belong to?” he shouted into a microphone. “The people!” protesters replied. Though critical of the NLD, K Za Win also appeared at the front line of protests that swept the country in the wake of the coup, defending the party’s election victory and right to govern. He grew up in Letpadaung near Monywa, and spoke out about land rights after his family lost their land to a mining project pursued jointly by a Chinese and Myanmar military-backed company. K Za Win was a Buddhist monk but left the sangha, said Ko Ko Thett, because he believed there was little point in being recognised as a learned monk by the military state. He spent more than one year in prison after he was arrested for taking part in a rally for education reform in 2015. After his release, he published his most famous work, a collection called My Reply to Ramon. Prior to his death, K Za Win had written on Facebook: “Though I have different views than you, I’ll lay down my life for you all.” Myint Myint Zin and K Za Wi were among 38 people killed during crackdowns on protesters on 3 March. The poets expressed the emotions that were felt by the people, said May, a professor in Japan. “This revolution is led by all of our sheer will power and we need literary people who speak for us.” The Burmese language already has a poetic quality, said Ko Ko Thett. “It features euphonies and rhymes frequently. Most Burmese slogans, by the regime or anti-regime groups, are couplets.” But the verses written by Khet Thi and others are far more than a literary exercise. Security forces have killed 790 people since the coup, according to an advocacy group, including protesters, bystanders and dozens of children. Thousands have been arrested, and are often held in unknown locations. Reports of torture of widespread. “For many people on the ground in Myanmar, lines such as ‘with what grief I will grieve for you, my martyred son’ by [the poet] A Phaw Khaing have become daily reality. People who are at a loss for words tend to find answers in poetry,” he said. Many will remember Khet Thi by one of his famous lines, written in response to military violence: “You try so hard to bury us underground, because you don’t know that we are the seeds.”..."
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-17
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Title: 100 days on from the coup in Myanmar - BBC News
Description: "Since the military coup on 1 February, more than 700 people have been killed by security forces and thousands have been imprisoned. Elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party have also been detained. There have since been multiple reports of detainees being tortured while in custody, with some dying from their injuries. Myanmar's military has justified the February takeover by alleging there had been widespread fraud during a general election late last year. Please subscribe HERE http://bit.ly/1rbfUog..."
Source/publisher: "BBC News" (London)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-16
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Title: Activist in Monywa dies after being set on fire in horrific attack
Sub-title: The victim was a longstanding supporter of the National League for Democracy who had taken part in anti-coup protests
Description: "A pro-democracy activist in the Sagaing Region town of Monywa was murdered on Friday after being set on fire in an unprovoked attack, according to a witness to the incident. Factory manager Taing Aung said that he was talking to the victim, 60-year-old Sein Win, on Friday morning when a factory worker poured gasoline over his head and set him alight. “I saw him pour the gasoline and then immediately set him on fire. I shouted and tried to put out the fire on Ko Sein Win,” said Taing Aung, who was a friend of the victim. “He poured the gasoline on him just like we do with water during the Thingyan water festival,” he told Myanmar Now. Sein Win was immediately admitted to the Monywa General Hospital, but died at around 11pm on Friday, he added. “He had severe burns on his legs, hands, and head—almost his entire body. His face was burned black. The skin on his legs and hands peeled off,” said Taing Aung. The assailant was identified as Aung Ko, a resident of Monywa’s Myawaddy ward. At the time of reporting, he was still at large. Officials at the Monywa police station could not be reached for comment when contacted by Myanmar Now on Saturday. Sein Win’s family will hold a funeral for him on Sunday afternoon. A longtime supporter of the National League for Democracy (NLD), Sein Win had been active in politics since the 1988 pro-democracy uprising and campaigned for the party in the 1990 election. According to his daughter Thin Thin Nwe, his political activism often made life difficult for him and his family, including his three adult children. “None of us ever applied for jobs that required documents or references from ward administrators or the police,” she said, explaining that the regime actively discriminated against those known to oppose its rule. She added, however, that she understood her father’s position because he shared his political beliefs with his children and educated them about the nature of the dictatorship. As a veteran pro-democracy activist, Sein Win joined anti-regime protests in Monywa soon after the military seized power on February 1. He was also close to youth activists and supported the anti-coup activities of Generation Z protesters in the town. “He believed this revolution would win. He saw rays of hope, and so do we. I am very sad that my father will no longer be able to see our victory,” Thin Thin Nwe said. Sein Win was also a charity worker and a lover of poetry whose poems have been published in a number of magazines. A fellow poet in Monywa who spoke to Myanmar Now on condition of anonymity said that it was unlikely that the motive for the attack was personal. “He was an honest and active charity worker and political activist,” he said. At least nine civilians, including poet Kay Za Win and writer Kyi Lin Aye, have been murdered in brutal crackdowns on anti-coup protesters in Monywa. Monywa-based poet Khet Thi died last week in the regime's custody a day after he was arrested in Shwebo, another town in Sagaing about 100km from Monywa..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-16
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Title: Myanmar's Revolution through the eyes of a musician - BBC News
Description: "More than 750 people have been killed since the Myanmar military seized power three months ago. Thousands of people have been detained, including elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The borders are closed and the internet effectively blocked, but people are documenting their ongoing resistance to the coup. In Yangon, a musician and his sister have, for the last two months, been filming for the BBC..."
Source/publisher: "BBC News" (London)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-16
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Title: Myanmar’s Long History of Revolutionary Poets
Summary: "Poet Khet Thi was arrested by some 100 junta troops on the evening of May 8. The following day, he was dead. His wife reportedly had to ask the authorities for permission to collect his body, whose...
Description: "Poet Khet Thi was arrested by some 100 junta troops on the evening of May 8. The following day, he was dead. His wife reportedly had to ask the authorities for permission to collect his body, whose internal organs had been removed for autopsy, from Monywa Hospital. The 45-year-old poet was arrested for alleged possession of explosives, but no evidence was found at his home. He was the third poet to be killed by junta forces in Sagaing Region’s Monywa in just two months. Poets K Za Win, 39, and Kyi Lin Aye, 36, were shot dead in crackdowns in March. Poet U Yee Mon, the poet-turned-defense-minister in the National Unity Government (NUG) formed to rival the military regime, wrote on his Facebook page: “Khet Thi and K Za Win, two Monywa poets have fallen. I am sad. I am committed to fight until we win.” More than a dozen poets who have shown solidarity with the people against the military regime have also been detained in Yangon, Ayeyawady’s Pathein and Taninthayi’s Myeik. In Myanmar’s long history of revolution, poets have fought injustice with the power of art. After Myanmar’s last monarch King Thibaw was dethroned and sent into exile, renowned poets from the royal capital Mandalay, including Saya Pe, Sebunni Sayadaw, U Kyawt and Maunghtaung U Kyaw Hla, wrote poems intended to promote nationalism and patriotism. Saya Pe was not content fighting with the pen and went to Shan State to take up the sword. He died there. Maunghtaung U Kyaw Hla was also the first poet to be arrested under colonial rule for his anti-colonialist poems. The most famous poet laureate in the colonial period was Thakhin Kodaw Hmaing, also known as Maung Lun, who said he would fight with poems for the independence of the country. His pen proved to be mighty in instilling nationalism and patriotism in Myanmar’s people. In 1941, his reputation as an anti-colonial nationalist and patron of Doh Bamar Asiayon (the We Burmans Association) earned him a place on the British authorities’ “Burma List,” making him an “enemy of the state.” The association played an important part in Myanmar’s independence struggle, bringing together nationalist elements and fresh political ideals while raising political consciousness. In the time of the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League government after independence, poets Daung Nwe Swe, Ne Thway Ni, Maung Yin Mon and others were known for their works supporting the movements of students, workers and farmers as well as anti-war poems and satirical works critical of bureaucrats. However, draconian censorship was imposed after General Ne Win seized power in 1962. Poet Min Yu Wai was sacked as the chief editor of military-run Myawady Magazine after he wrote a poem deemed to be critical of the dictator. Poet Win Latt and editor Win Khet of ‘Perspective’ Journal were sentenced to two years in prison for publishing a satirical poem about Ne Win and his wife Khin May Than. Many poets were put behind bars under the rule of Burma Socialist Program Party (BSPP) as they took part in every movement against the repressive regime. In 1970s, poet Lay Maung from Mandalay, who was serving his time as a political prisoner in Coco Islands, staged a hunger strike together with other prisoners. They called for abolishing the island prison, which was dubbed as a Burmese “Devil’s Island.” He died in prison after staging a hunger strike for more than 50 days. Thanks to the sacrifices of the poet and seven others, BSPP transferred all the prisoners to Yangon’s Insein Prison, marking a significant event in the history of Myanmar’s correctional system. Poets were united with the people in the pro-democracy uprising in 1988 that toppled the single-party dictatorship of Ne Win. U Min Ko Naing, one of the prominent student leaders in 1988, is also a poet. Student leader Shwe Phone Lu, who would later become a best-selling author-cum-poet under the pen name Taryar Min Wai, wrote a poem asking the students to boycott education as the military regime re-opened universities and schools after the uprising. He was jailed for five years for that poem. Famous writer-cum-poet Min Lu was also arrested in 1989 for his satirical poem “What has happened?” criticizing coup leader General Saw Maung and Myanmar’s military. Both he and the publisher were given five years in prison as the poem became a phenomenon. Poet Min Thu Wun, father of the 9th president of Myanmar and the first president of the National League for Democracy (NLD) government, U Htin Kyaw, had also had his poems banned by the military regime after the NLD won the 1990 general elections because he took an active part in the party’s campaigns. Poet Tin Moe, a prominent figure of the NLD, was also jailed for five years because he wrote poems and gave talks across the country for the cause of democracy. He was forced into exile after his release and died abroad in 2007. In 2008, poet Saw Wai was arrested for his Valentine’s Day poem with a coded message, ridiculing the then-dictator Senior General Than Shwe. The first words of each line of the poem read, “power-crazed Snr-Gen Than Shwe.” Over past 136 years since King Thibaw was dethroned in 1885 to military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s seizure of power on Feb. 1, 2021, poets have shown solidarity with the ordinary people and have been at the frontline in every revolution in Myanmar. Khet Thi’s following poem is a testimony to that. “In heads, they shoot Never do they know Revolution lies in hearts.”..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-16
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Title: Myingan resistance fighter turns up dead after one day in regime custody, with signs of torture
Sub-title: ‘I believe he died during his interrogation,’ a relative of 21-year-old Zin Ko Tun said, noting that the young man’s body had wounds and burn marks
Description: "A 21-year-old resistance fighter from Mandalay Region’s Myingyan Township is believed to have been tortured to death in regime custody earlier this week after fighting to defend a village under junta attack. Family members who retrieved the body of Zin Ko Tun from Myingan Hospital on Thursday afternoon said there were clear signs of torture to the young man, including several blisters on his left arm and a wound on his chest. He had been arrested in Talokemyo village one day earlier, a resistance stronghold around 15km from Myingan town on the east side of the Irrawaddy River. Preceding his arrest were clashes between local resistance forces and the junta’s armed forces, Zin Ko Tun’s friends and relatives told Myanmar Now. During this outbreak of fighting, he had suffered a bullet wound near his left elbow. “I believe he died during his interrogation after getting arrested with an injury. We were unable to find out anything about his situation after his arrest,” one of Zin Ko Tun’s relatives said, requesting not to be identified. The 21-year-old was a member of the local resistance group known as the Myingyan People’s Defence Force (PDF). He had volunteered to help locals in Talokemyo hold back junta soldiers who were trying to crush anti-regime resistance in the village on Tuesday and Wednesday. The 20-hour siege on Talokemyo ended on Wednesday with most resistance fighters forced to retreat. Six men, including Zin Ko Tun, were arrested after the military surrounded the village. On Wednesday night, a military-run TV program announced that the regime forces had arrested six individuals in Talokemyo, but showed a photo of only five young men in captivity—all except Zin Ko Tun. After the photo went viral on social media, Zin Ko Tun’s family members feared it was an indication that he had already been killed in regime custody. At around 9am on Thursday, a police officer from Myingyan informed Zin Ko Tun’s family members through an intermediary that they needed to collect his body from Myingan Hospital, the relative told Myanmar Now. “The man told us that there was a body at the Myingyan Hospital and no one was claiming it. When I arrived at the hospital, I saw a mark on that body which confirmed it was him. So we claimed the body,” the relative said. The mark in question was a tattoo of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) flag that Zin Ko Tun had inked on his right arm. It appeared to have been burnt off with a hot iron, the relative added. Zin Ko Tun was a member of the ABFSU as well as the Myingyan Technological College’s the student union, where he was a first-year IT student. He was the eighth of nine children and a native of Nyaungto village, on the Irrawaddy’s eastern bank in Myingyan Township. His body was transported to Nyaungto on Thursday and family members held a funeral for him on Friday morning. Since the February 1 military coup, many civilians in Myanmar have been killed during interrogation shortly after being taken into regime custody. Two of the most high-profile cases occurred in March, when two officials from the National League for Democracy (NLD) died soon after their arrest. Khin Maung Latt, a ward chair for the NLD in Yangon’s Pabedan Township, died on March 7 after soldiers and police took him from his home during a night raid the day before. The following day, Zaw Myat Lin, an NLD member who ran the Suu Vocational Institute in Yangon’s Shwepyithar Township, was also arrested by soldiers during a night raid. One day later, township police informed his family of his death and told his wife to go to the Mingaladon military hospital to identify his body. His body, which showed signs of torture, was returned to his family. Another victim was Marlar Win, a mother of three who was arrested after being shot while taking part in an anti-coup protest in Pakokku, in Magwe Region. Her family was told to retrieve her body one day after her arrest. More than 780 people have been killed by the junta’s armed forces since the coup. The regime has dismissed this death toll as inaccurate and made false claims about the murders of some protesters by its police and soldiers, instead attributing their deaths to pre-existing health problems or violence within the resistance movement..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-16
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Title: Roads blocked in Yangon as thousands protest Myanmar coup - BBC News
Description: "Dozens of vehicles are blocking key roads across Myanmar's main city Yangon, in what appears to be a new tactic employed by protesters. It comes as tens of thousands of people gather downtown, in what organisers hope will be the biggest protest yet. The UN special rapporteur for Myanmar, also known as Burma, has warned of potential violence. Demonstrators are demanding the release of their elected leaders following a 1 Feb military coup - Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders have been detained by the military..."
Source/publisher: "BBC News" (London)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-16
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Title: Mindat Chin State of Myanmar under intensive terrorist attacks by the junta 'SAC' forces
Description: "Mindat Chin State of Myanmar under intensive terrorist attacks by the junta 'SAC' forces: 15 May 2021 - In the last 72 hours, murderer-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing and his terrorist henchmen have been directing their cruel reign o f terror specifically against fifty thousand Chin civilians o f the town of Mindat in Southern Chin State. These terrorists have been constantly attacking the civilians in Mindat by shelling, heavy battlefield weapons, and by using 7 Helicopter gunships with 1000 plus terrorist reinforcement forces from the central terrorist regime command. Five civilians have been killed in Mindat in the last 48 hours by these terrorists, and 14 civilians injured. Civilian homes are being destroyed by helicopter gunships and bombing. These Junta terrorist forces are using Mindat civilians as human-shields to protect themselves and arresting local medical personnel who are saving their fellow wounded Mindat civilians. The terrorist 'SAC' forces under the command of murderer-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing's reign of terror in Mindat must be stopped immediately! A no-fly-zone must be imposed above Myanmar urgently! These terrorists must their siege against the citizens o f Mindat, end their occupation, and leave Chin State at once! Those responsible for and participating in these cruel atrocities and war crimes against the brave and innocent civilians o f Chin State who are trying to protect themselves, will surely be held accountable and brought to justice to pay for their crimes. All the Nations and International Communities must stand, support, and fight together with the brave and courageous people of Myanmar to end this reign of terror and nightmare once and for all. There is no room in today's world for this brutal and murderous criminal regime. Together, we will win! - Dr. Sasa Union Minister o f Ministry of International Cooperation and Spokesperson National Unity Government Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of International Cooperation Myanmar
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-15
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Title: Student Tortured to Death After Myanmar Junta Forces Raid Mandalay Village-Tract
Summary: "A university student was tortured to death in military custody after being detained during a raid by junta forces on Talokmyo Village-tract in Myingyan Township, Mandalay Region on Wednesday,...
Description: "A university student was tortured to death in military custody after being detained during a raid by junta forces on Talokmyo Village-tract in Myingyan Township, Mandalay Region on Wednesday, according to sources close to him. Family members were told on Thursday morning to collect the body of Ko Zin Ko Tun, who was arrested with five other students during the raid on Talokmyo on Wednesday afternoon. “He was struck by a bullet in Talokmyo and arrested. And he died in military custody,” a source said. Ko Zin Ko Tun, a first-year IT student from Myingyan, had only an arm wound when he was taken away by the junta forces. “He was still alive when he was arrested. All six were beaten with rifle butts as junta forces arrested them. He died during interrogation. Another one who was hit in the leg also reportedly had his leg amputated,” said a source close to Ko Zin Ko Tun. Junta forces planted weapons on the six when photographing them immediately after their arrest to make the crime look more serious. When the military’s mouthpiece, Myawaddy TV, reported the news, Ko Zin Ko Tun was not shown, and more arms and ammunition were displayed instead. “In the first photo, they [junta forces] intentionally added their weapons. And more weapons were added in the photo published by Myawaddy. They are attempting to make it appear as if a more serious crime occurred,” a source close to Ko Zin Ko Tun said. “The pictures published by Myawaddy intend to make the crime look more serious. It was unnecessarily cruel of the junta forces to use more than 400 troops to launch a violent crackdown on unarmed civilians,” a Talokmyo resident said. Of the six, five including a woman are university students from Myingyan. The identity of the sixth is still unknown. They were in Talokmyo to help villagers with their resistance movement against the military regime. Junta troops detained between 50 and 100 civilians in the raid Wednesday morning in Talokmyo. The clash began on Tuesday afternoon when more than 100 regime troops attempted to enter Talokmyo. Faced with unexpected resistance from the villagers, some 400 more soldiers were brought in on Wednesday morning to attack the village-tract. Two junta troops were killed and three injured in the shootout. Three civilians were injured. Locals have fled their villages following the raid, but junta forces are searching for them in nearby forests.
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-15
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 13 May, (788) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (3) fallen heroes today. (1) from Mindat Town in Chin State died on 13 May. (2) from Talote Town, in Myingyan Township, Mandalay Region and Hakha Town in Chin State were killed on previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of May 13, a total of (3936) people are currently under detention; of them (90) are sentenced. 1619 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. Today, people across Burma continued to fight to defeat the military dictatorship. Early this morning in Nabule Region, Dawei Township in Tanintharyi Region, junta forces cracked down on protests, arresting four civilians who were not participating in the protests. Yesterday evening, the junta suppressed a protest taking place in Nanat Taw Ward, Loikaw Township in Kayah State using unmarked cars and military vehicles and fired real bullets into houses. During this crackdown 10 civilians, and three children were arrested, including a 12-year-old child. In recent days, junta forces have carried out a series of arrests upon children during crackdowns. The people of Burma continue to defend themselves, using any weapon they can find, particularly in areas which junta forces have used excessive force against locals – using artillery on civilians. Early this morning, Mel Thel Kyo Kwin Village in Chaung U Township, Sagaing Region was attacked by junta forces. Villagers tried to defend themselves, but were later surrounded by the military, who opened fire on them, forcing them to flee from their village. At this time, junta forces were also shooting in Chaung U Town. Since last night, fighting between the military and the Mindat People’s Defence Force has resumed in Mindat Town, Chin State, where the junta has been shelling the town with heavy artillery. This violence resulted in the death of a member of the Mindat People’s Defense Force, and injury to four other civilians. This extremist terrorist group despises and oppresses civilians, people are given no protection, and these villagers and other civilians have been left to fight for themselves. This morning, junta forces raided Myay Taw Village in Yezakyo Township, Magway Region, searching for civilians who had fled from other areas. They searched houses, destroying property and beat any civilians they found. The junta has been torturing and killing people on a daily basis. After they murder civilians, they threaten their families and force them to sign false death certificates, so they can release fake news about the death. Some families have been told that if these certificates are not signed, the body will not be returned to them. This occurs daily, allowing the junta to attempt to cover up their atrocities and make deaths seem unrelated to junta activities. Yesterday in Talote Town, Myingyan Township in Mandalay Region, a Technology College student, who was shot and detained whilst defending against the military, died at the interrogation center. Interrogation under this terrorist regime is known to be severe, so it is assumed this student died after being tortured, and from a lack of medical attention after his gunshot wound. In addition, on May 9, in Hakha in Chin State, two locals were detained. The junta later announced they both died due to health conditions. Both men were severely beaten, and could not walk properly before their death. The junta did not return their bodies to their families, and the bodies were instead burned. These kinds of atrocities are frequently committed by this terrorist group, whose crimes worsen as they continue to treat civilians as their enemies. The junta have been oppressing detainees, especially young people, and have been making false allegations about them. On May 10, the terrorist group cracked down on protesters in Bom Mar Ward, Tanintharyi Region in Dawei Town, arresting some civilians. The junta claimed they were seized with weapons. On May 11, two youths arrested in Muse Town in Shan State were alleged to have been carrying weapons. Junta forces make these accusations under sections of the law which hold long prison sentences to ensure protesters are kept in jail for a long time. They do this to intimidate civilians, and threaten that this could happen to anyone who protests against them. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-13
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Title: Thailand: Prevent Pushbacks, Establish Protection Mechanisms for Refugees Fleeing Myanmar
Sub-title: Thai government instructed authorities to block refugees from Myanmar
Description: "The Government of Thailand should protect refugees from Myanmar from being forcibly returned and establish protection mechanisms in line with international human rights law, Fortify Rights said today. On March 19, Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha instructed government agencies to prevent “illegal immigration” from Myanmar, according to government meeting minutes. In line with this order, a Thai provincial official confirmed to Fortify Rights that Thai authorities this week returned to Myanmar at least 2,000 refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar’s Karen State. “The Thai government should be preparing to protect refugees rather than prevent border crossings,” said Amy Smith, Executive Director at Fortify Rights. “Thailand has made positive commitments and taken steps to establish procedures to recognize and protect refugees during the past several years. Now is the time for Thailand to put those commitments into action to protect refugees fleeing the ongoing crisis in Myanmar.” According to meeting minutes of the Thai Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), dated March 19, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha instructed the Ministry of Interior, CCSA, and other concerned agencies to “monitor and prevent illegal immigration” along the Thailand-Myanmar border and instructed the Immigration Bureau to “enforce strict inspection of border crossings.” The government has also deployed Royal Thai Army troops and patrol boats to “monitor illegal entry along the western borders both by land and sea,” according to the meeting minutes. The Thai Government does not recognize refugees and considers undocumented or unauthorized entry or stay in Thailand as “illegal immigration.” A Thai government official speaking on the condition of anonymity told Fortify Rights that the Ministry of Defense is responsible for coordinating the government’s response to refugees from Myanmar. Among those responsible for this coordination is the Naresuan Force of the Royal Thai Army. The Naresuan Force is a special unit designated to protect the borders of Tak and Mae Hong Son provinces by “interception, retaliation and pushing back foreign forces deemed to violate Thai sovereignty.” The Naresuan Force held more than 2,100 refugees in makeshift shelters in Mae Sariang District of Mae Hong Son Province after they crossed into Thailand last week to flee attacks in Myanmar. Less than 100 remain in Thailand as of May 11, according to a Thai provincial official. Civil society actors in Karen State told Fortify Rights that Thai authorities also forced back to Myanmar most of the 5,000 refugees who crossed into Thailand in March and April. The official also confirmed that the army continues to restrict humanitarian organizations and U.N. agencies, including the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), from accessing groups of newly arriving refugees from Myanmar, citing security and COVID-19 health concerns. “Ensuring protections for refugees is first and foremost a humanitarian issue that demands an appropriate response from the Thai authorities to prevent the loss of life,” said Amy Smith. “Public health concerns due to the COVID-19 pandemic and national security can be addressed and managed through proper screening mechanisms. Rather than restrict and sideline U.N. and humanitarian organizations who are ready to assist, Thai authorities should draw on their technical expertise and resources to facilitate a coordinated response.” According to the Thai government’s meeting minutes, the prime minister called for “effort” to be made to “prepare an area to host the influx of migrants into Thailand, quarantine facilities and field hospitals.” However, the Thai authorities have yet to announce the construction of facilities for refugees or that refugees will be provided access to quarantine or medical facilities. On May 6, Thai officials, including Mae Hong Son Governor Sithichai Jindaluang, the Commander of the Special Unit 7thInfantry Regiment, Colonel Sujin Subsin, and Permanent Secretary of Mae Hong Son Province Chanathip Semyam met with UNHCR-Thailand to discuss potential refugee influxes into Thailand and responses. At the time of writing, Thai authorities have yet to approve UNHCR operations to assist new refugees from Myanmar. UNHCR’s Key Legal Considerations on Access to Territory for Persons in Need of International Protection in the Context of the COVID-19 Response provides that “[d]enial of access to territory without safeguards to protect against refoulement cannot be justified on the grounds of any health risk.” Myanmar military attacks on civilian areas and clashes between the Myanmar military and ethnic armed groups have displaced more than 55,000 people in Kachin, Karen, and Shan states in Myanmar since February 1 , according to the latest figures from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Myanmar. A majority of the displaced, approximately 40,000, were forcibly displaced following renewed clashes between the Myanmar military and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), as well as airstrikes, “indiscriminate attacks,” and “shelling of civilian areas” by the Myanmar military, according to OCHA Myanmar. Since taking power in a military coup d’état on February 1, the Myanmar junta has continued to kill, arbitrarily arrest, and commit other crimes against political leaders, human rights defenders, peaceful protesters, and others in Myanmar. In a document seen by Fortify Rights and provided by the Myanmar junta to members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ahead of a controversial summit to discuss Myanmar last month, the junta claimed that it detained 9,848 persons, released 4,511, and charged 5,070 between February 1 and April 15. Forcing refugees back to Myanmar violates the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits the “rejection at the frontier, interception and indirect refoulement” of individuals at risk of persecution. While Thailand has not ratified the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention nor its 1967 Protocol, the principle of non-refoulement is part of customary international law and is therefore binding on all states. Under this principle, all countries are obligated to protect people from being returned to where they face danger or persecution, including through informal returns. The Thai government has repeatedly expressed a commitment to protect refugees, including by adopting the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration and endorsing the Global Compact on Refugees during the U.N. General Assembly in December 2018. The Thai government also affirmed a commitment to “humanitarianism and to take care of various groups of irregular migrants” during the U.N. Human Rights Committee review of Thailand’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in March 2017. On December 24, 2019, the Thai Cabinet endorsed regulations to establish a national screening mechanism to identify and potentially protect refugees. However, the mechanism has yet to be implemented and has come under criticism from human rights groups for failing to meet international standards. Thailand currently hosts more than 100,000 refugees, most of whom are protracted refugees from Myanmar living in temporary shelters along the Thailand-Myanmar border, as well as refugees from various countries living in Bangkok and surrounding provinces. All refugees in Thailand lack formal legal status and are at risk of arbitrary detention and being forcibly returned to countries where they may face persecution. “Thailand still views refugees primarily through a national security lens, but the only real threat to regional peace and security is the Myanmar junta,” said Amy Smith. “If Thailand wants to protect its own security, it should protect the people of Myanmar and work with the international community to deprive the junta of its weapons and financial resources..."
Source/publisher: "Fortify Rights"
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-13
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 12 May, (785) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (2) fallen heroes today. These (2) fallen heroes from Kani Township in Sagaing Region and Hakha Town in Chin State were killed the previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of May 12, a total of (3885) people are currently under detention; of them (86) are sentenced. 1600 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. Today, people from all over Burma continued to protest against the military dictatorship. Junta forces use various forms of bullying and violence to intimidate civilians, yet the people continue to fight back, using anything they can find as a weapon. Today in Pyigyidagun Township, in Mandalay City the junta violently suppressed the Mandalay Coalition Strike. Many of the protesters were arrested and beaten. At least three teachers were arrested and 30 motorbikes were stolen. After more than three months since the coup, the junta has shown their lack of administrative power and inability to govern. Because of this, they use numerous forms of violence instead to suppress the people. They are now cracking down on protests before they even start. This terrorist group continues to torture and murder civilians. On 9 May, a local farmer from Hakha Town in Chin State was detained and tortured by the junta. He later died on 11 May. Brutal oppression and torture have been systematically used by the junta in all previous military dictatorships, and they are continuing this practise in the current coup in order to intimidate and coerce civilians into obedience. This junta treats civilians as their enemies. The only way to free the people from these persecutions is to end the dictatorship. On the night of May 10 in Kale Town in Sagaing Region, a woman died after junta shootings in the community caused her to have a heart attack soon after giving birth. As well as this, last night in Thamin Chan Villang, Kani Township in Sagaing Region junta forces shot dead a mentlly ill man in his own home because he insulted military forces who were camped in that village. The junta’s hostile behaviour and unprovoked shootings are worsening, and they are now even targeting those with mental illnesses. Remote areas in Burma have been severely targeted in recent days. Today, in Zee Pin Dwin Village, Kanai Township in Sagaing Region, locals were forced to flee their homes as junta forces entered the village and were arresting anyone they could find. In Magway Region, Taungdwingyi Township, junta forces who were camped in many local villages destroyed people’s homes and other properties. In addition, these terrorists have staged severe crackdowns on civilians who resist them. In Talot town, Myingyan Township in Mandalay Region, there were clashes between the People’s Defense Forces and the junta. Early this morning, the junta fired heavy artillery and raided the town, arresting more than 100 locals, including women, children and the elderly. Young people were beaten, arrested and interrogated. Only by overthrowing this dictatorship will these violent attacks, which turn villages and towns into war zones end. The junta, which seized power by force is now suppressing, arresting and suing children. They openly violate domestic law, international law and international human rights treaties. In South Okkalapa Township in Yangon Region, nine young people have been arrested since 30 April. Among these are four young people under the age of 17 who have not yet been released. This case not only shows a direct violation of domestic children’s rights, but also shows a violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), ratified by Myanmar. It is clear this terrorist group will not obey or respect any law because they illegitimately seized power. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-12
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Title: Myanmar marks 100 days of junta rule with protests, strikes
Description: "Protesters rallied in towns and cities around Myanmar on Tuesday to denounce its military rulers, 100 days after the generals' overthrow of an elected government pitched the country into its biggest crisis in decades. Demonstrators took part in marches, motorcycle convoys and flash protests to evade security forces, some making three-finger gestures of defiance as anti-coup groups renewed calls for the toppling of a junta that has been condemned around the world for killing hundreds of civilians. The junta has struggled to govern Myanmar since seizing power on Feb. 1. Protests, strikes and a civil disobedience campaign have crippled businesses and the bureaucracy in an overwhelming public rejection of the return of military rule. Protesters in the biggest city Yangon carried a banner saying "Yangon strikes for complete removal of the enemy", while demonstrators in Hpakant in Kachin State marched chanting "the revolution must prevail". Demonstrators in Hpakant, the Saigang region and elsewhere held signs in support of a National Unity Government (NUG), an anti-junta coalition that has declared itself Myanmar's legitimate authority. Last week the NUG announced the formation of a "People's Defence Force". The NUG's spokesman Dr. Sasa, said in a tweet he and other ministers of the parallel government would meet with a U.S. assistant secretary of state on Tuesday to discuss how the United States and its allies "can work together to end this reign of terror". He did not elaborate on the meeting. The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation of the meeting. The military arrested elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi hours before the coup. It said its takeover was to protect Myanmar's fledgling democracy after a November election that it said was marred by fraud. Suu Kyi's party says its landslide win was legitimate.....INTERNATIONAL CRIMES: In a statement on Tuesday, the NUG said rank-and-file members of the military should recognise that they were responsible for committing international crimes. "It is time to answer the question clearly whether you will stand on the side of human rights and fairness, or you will continue to violate human rights by committing violence and then face the international court," it said. Despite the imposition of limited economic sanctions by the United States, the European Union and others, the junta has shown no sign of compromise. It has the tacit support of neighbouring China, a major investor and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Tuesday's protests took place amid sporadic violence in the country that has included deadly attacks on military-appointed administrators and weeks of small explosions involving homemade bombs, which the junta says is the work of the ousted government. The NUG has said the military has orchestrated such attacks as a pretext for its crackdown. In its nightly news bulletin, state-run MRTV said two members of the security forces were killed and three others wounded on Monday evening in an attack by "terrorists" in the Sagaing region. A group calling itself the Sagaing People Defence Force, in a statement earlier on Tuesday, claimed responsibility for an attack on security personnel around the same time in the same area, which it said killed three people. News reporting and information flow inside Myanmar has been severely impacted since the coup, with restrictions on internet access, a ban on foreign broadcasts and some news organisations ordered to close, accused by authorities of inciting rebellion. Security forces have killed 781 people since the coup, including 52 children, and 3,843 people are in detention, according to the Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group, whose figures are being used by the United Nations. The U.N. human rights body said on Tuesday the military was showing no let-up in its efforts to consolidate power and its human rights violations went far beyond killings. "It is clear that there needs to be greater international involvement to prevent the human rights situation in Myanmar from deteriorating further," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-12
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Title: Thailand: Authorities must not deport Myanmar journalists at grave risk
Description: "Responding to news of the arrest of five individuals from Myanmar, including three journalists from the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) news outlet, by the Thai authorities in Chiang Mai on 9 May, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns, Ming Yu Hah, said: “It is imperative that the Thai authorities do not forcibly return these individuals to Myanmar. To do so would place them at real risk of arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and other ill-treatment, and death. “It would also put Thailand in breach of its obligations under the principle of non-refoulement under international law. “There have long been credible reports of torture and other ill-treatment in detention in Myanmar. These have intensified since the coup. Several people detained in recent weeks have died in detention in unexplained circumstances. “For years DVB has been a leading, outspoken outlet holding the authorities to account. If returned to Myanmar, these journalists will be at exceptionally grave risk. “Thailand has long played host to displaced and exiled communities from Myanmar. Whether they are targeted for their brave journalism work, escaping air strikes or evading other forms of attacks by the military, people in Myanmar are fleeing again today. We urge the Thai authorities to give sanctuary to those seeking safety, in line with international law.”.....Background: According to a statement from DVB’s Editor-in-Chief, Aye Chan Naing, three senior DVB journalist and two activists were arrested by Thai police on Sunday 9 May in Chiang Mai (Thailand). They were reporting the anti-coup protests in Myanmar until 8 March, the day the military authorities revoked DVB’s TV license. Amnesty International has confirmed that the five are currently in police custody. Since the military coup on 1 February, the Myanmar military has also revoked media licenses of several other media outlets and dozens of journalists are currently in arbitrary detention, facing charges or fearing arrest. Many more have gone into hiding. Amnesty International opposes refoulement, which is prohibited under international law, in all cases without exception. Non-refoulement is an international legal principle that prohibits the transfer of individuals to another country or jurisdiction where they would face a real risk of serious human rights violations or abuses. It is part of customary international law, making it binding upon all states regardless of whether they ratified the relevant treaties..."
Source/publisher: Amnesty International (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-12
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Title: Torture Suspected in Death of Myanmar Poet Called a Voice of Resistance
Sub-title: Myanmar poet Khet Thi, who wrote that the revolution against Myanmar's military junta 'is in the heart,' dies under torture at the hands of his interrogators.
Description: "A Myanmar poet known for writing verse supporting the resistance movement against the ruling military junta died less than 24 hours after his arrest, and his body was returned with organs including his heart removed, his wife and supporters said Tuesday. Khet Thi, also known as Zaw Tun, was taken into custody on Saturday for questioning at a detention center in Sagaing, a region in northwestern Myanmar that has been the scene of heavy protests against military rule. When Khet Thi’s body was retrieved by family members Sunday at a hospital in the Sagaing capital Monywa, it was badly discolored and stitching indicated that at least some internal organs had been removed, said his family. His family was told by the army that the 45-year-old poet had died of a heart attack, they said. Speaking on Monday in a panel discussion held by the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand, Richard Horsey—a Myanmar adviser for the International Crisis Group—noted that Khet Thi had penned a line, now widely quoted, saying “They shoot us in the head, but they don’t know that the revolution is in the heart.” When Khet Thi’s body was returned, his heart was gone, and authorities said that he had died of a heart attack, Horsey said. “I think the message was pretty clear. He wrote that line, and he lost his heart.” His death makes three poets from Sagaing to be killed for working to oppose the junta, sources say. The first was Chan Win, a poet from Monywa whose real name was Chan Thar Swe. The second was Kyi Lin Aye. Both were shot dead on March 3 in Monywa. Khet Thi’s wife Chaw Su, a worker for the Telecommunications Department who was active in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) of work stoppages in opposition to military rule, had also been interrogated, but was released on Saturday and allowed to return home, sources said.....Simple, transparent poems: “When [Khet Thi] wrote poems, they were not just literary. They were about ideas,” another poet and protest veteran in Monywa told RFA’s Myanmar Service on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. “And his ideas were motivated by politics.” “The difference between his poems and the work of others was that his poems were not subtle. They were simple and transparent,” he said. Another poet, Yoe Khat, called Khet Thi’s death a loss to the world of poetry, and said he would continue to be honored by those resisting military rule in Myanmar, where a democratically elected civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi was ousted by the military on Feb. 1. “From time immemorial, poets have fought back with their hearts and with their minds,” Yoe Khan said, adding that Khet Thi had been doing this “since the beginning of the revolution.” “He inspired the people to revolution by imparting knowledge. This is a great loss to the world of poetry, and we will continue to honor him,” he said. Khet Thi’s funeral Monday evening in his hometown Pale was closely watched by plainclothes police and singing was banned, though many in the crowd could be seen raising the three-finger salute, a symbol of resistance to junta rule, family members told RFA. “He was a good man. He was loved by all his friends, and at home he would always cook for his family,” one family member said. “Now, when I wake up in the morning, I feel so empty and yet I cannot cry.” “There is no turning back time, though. He will never be forgotten.” Khet Thi, who had been married only two years, had made a living in Pale by making and selling cakes and ice cream. His brother is now under arrest in Monywa Prison for taking part in anti-junta protests, with family members keeping the news a secret from his mother. Attempts by RFA to reach Myanmar’s Deputy Information Minister Major General Zaw Min Tun for comment this week were unsuccessful..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-12
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Title: Arrest of journalists a litmus test for how Thailand treats those fleeing persecution in Myanmar
Description: "Three senior reporters who fled Myanmar for Thailand after the brutal military coup "face certain arrest and persecution" if they are deported following their arrest in Chiang Mai on Sunday, journalist groups say. The three are prominent journalists with the independent Burmese news agency Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and were detained in the northern Thai city after a random police search, their editor said in a statement Monday. They, along with two unnamed activists, have been charged with illegally entering the country. The case could be the biggest test yet for how Thailand decides to treat those fleeing persecution from Myanmar in the wake of the coup. "DVB strongly urges the Thai authorities to not deport them back to Burma, as their life will be in serious danger if they were to return," said Aye Chan Naing, executive director and chief editor of DVB, who used another name for Myanmar. "They have been covering the demonstrations in Burma until March 8 — the day the military authority revoked DVB's TV license and banned DVB from doing any kind of media work." Thailand Police Captain Duangrit Wannarit, who filed the charges, told CNN Business the five arrested were Burmese passport holders and had not gone through the immigration system. On Tuesday, a Chiang Mai court adjourned the case until May 17 so the five could seek legal representation, Duangrit said. They will be held at the San Sai district police station until the hearing. As well as being charged for allegedly entering the country illegally, Duangrit said the "prosecutor will consider if they have also breached the communicable disease act." Duangrit declined to give more details, saying it was a "highly sensitive" case. However, he told CNN Business the five would not be sent back to Myanmar immediately after the court proceedings, and would remain in the custody of immigration police. Thailand's foreign ministry spokesman Tanee Sangrat said in a tweet Tuesday "Thai authorities concerned are coordinating to find humanitarian solution(s) to the recent case of journalists from Myanmar." In this photo released by the San Sai District Administrative Office, a Thai officer checks the temperature of journalists working for Democratic Voice of Burma, at San Sai District in Chiang Mai province north of Thailand Sunday, May 9, 2021.....100 days since coup: Tuesday marks 100 days since Myanmar's military seized power in a coup on February 1, ousting the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party. Since then, the military junta has brutally cracked down on any perceived opposition to its rule. Mass street protests have been suppressed with deadly force, with more than 780 people killed by security forces and almost 5,000 arrested, according to advocacy group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The junta, led by Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, has attempted to silence independent media. Journalists across the country have been attacked and detained merely for doing their jobs. More than 80 reporters have been arrested since the coup, with more than half of those still in detention as of May 3, according to a statement from Western embassies in Myanmar. The military has also revoked the licenses of prominent independent broadcasters, online news outlets and newspapers, including DVB, so working for them is considered illegal. On May 4, the junta banned the use of satellite dishes — an order aimed at DVB and banned independent news agency Mizzima, which continued to broadcast by satellite into the country. Offices of newspapers and online media have been raided, and a nightly news bulletin on state TV broadcasts the names and images of those sought by the junta, including journalists. Many are being held on charges under section 505a of Myanmar's Penal Code — a law amended by the military that makes it a crime punishable by up to three years in prison for publishing or circulating comments that "cause fear" or spread "false news." There are fears if the five are deported to Myanmar, they will face certain arrest and the possibility of torture. Media and rights groups are calling on Thailand to ensure they remain in the country on humanitarian grounds. "Thai authorities should uphold the country's proud history as a sanctuary for journalists fleeing military repression in Myanmar, and on humanitarian grounds should not deport three Democratic Voice of Burma journalists recently arrested for alleged illegal entry," said Shawn Crispin, senior Southeast Asia representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists. "Myanmar's military regime has repeatedly abused and detained journalists, and Thai authorities should not force these members of the press to face potentially severe retaliation for their work.".....Big test for Thailand's position on coup: The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT) said in a statement it was "seriously concerned" about the arrests. "These five individuals would face certain arrest and persecution, if not worse, for their work and association with the DVB, and under no circumstances should they be deported back to Myanmar," the statement read. "Rather, the DVB journalists and their associates should be released from detention, urgently offered protection, and granted the right to remain temporarily in Thailand." DVB's Aye Chan Naing also urged the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Bangkok "to intervene to help guard their safety." "We request the international community to help call the Thai authorities to waive their deportation," he said. For years, Thai authorities allowed exiled Burmese media organizations like DVB to operate within its borders. Thailand has also hosted tens of thousands of refugees in nine main camps along its border with Myanmar for three decades, following armed conflicts, human rights abuses and persecution of ethnic minorities by the Myanmar military. Thailand, however, has not ratified the UN refugee convention. Thailand Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha also seized power in a coup in 2014, and held onto his leadership following 2019 elections that opponents said were not free or fair. His government has arrested dozens of pro-democracy protesters who turned out on masse demanding his resignation and accusing him of engineering the election. Prayut has denied the election was flawed and allegations of interference. Prayut has previously declined to make a strong statement on the situation in Myanmar. Last month, the international community had hoped Southeast Asian leaders would be able to reach a breakthrough on stopping the violence in Myanmar at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting, but Prayut had skipped the summit, sending his deputy prime minister in his place. "Regarding the situation in Myanmar, it is a highly complex issue," he had said at that time. "The government is currently working at various channels in order to find peaceful solution, as a duty of being member state to AESAN." Thailand has agreed to support the plan that emerged from the ASEAN meeting, which includes ending violence in Myanmar and a constructive dialogue among all parties. The FCCT warned "the world is watching" how Thailand proceeds, adding it was an "important case for press freedom in Myanmar and the region, and for the protection of those fleeing the junta's brutal crackdown on independent media and civil society."..."
Source/publisher: "CNN" (USA)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-11
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 11 May, (783) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (2) fallen heroes today. These (2) fallen heroes from Nanmati and Hopin Towns in Kachin State were killed the previous days and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of May 11, a total of (3859) people are currently under detention; of them (86) are sentenced. 1581 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are continuing to verify the recently released detainees. Today marks the 100th day under military rule. This terrorist group unlawfully seized power and since then has used varied forms of violence and torture upon civilians. Their constant acts of brutality and persecution have allowed them to clearly stand out as a terrorist organisation. The junta’s non-compliance with internationally agreed military rules and regulations is damaging the reputation of armies globally. Currently in Burma, political, social, business and health sectors are all on the verge of collapse. Health services which were already overburdened due to covid, have been particularly affected. Civilians have been unable to access healthcare and covid tracing has ceased, putting the population at risk of facing a third wave of covid. During these 100 days, civilians have been exposed to various forms of persecution and have had their properties looted, robbed and destroyed on a daily basis. As well as this, there has been intense conflict in the ethnic states, resulting in the displacement of thousands of people, as they are forced to flee to jungles. Despite these dire circumstances, civilians have affirmed that neither pressure from this terrorist group, nor inadequate ASEAN soft resolutions will be effective. It appears that these civilians have been left to defend themselves and end this dictatorship on their own. On 11 May, across Burma civilians continued to protest against the military dictatorship. This morning in Phone Maw ward, Dawei city in Tanintharyi Region as civilians were preparing to protest, junta forces in unmarked vehicles opened fire on the protesters, injuring one civilian. After this crackdown, junta forces followed civilians into their houses, shooting and arresting them. More than 10 civilians, including one woman have been arrested. The terror of the junta is highlighted through their use of unmarked cars and motorbikes. Junta force’s unprovoked shooting is worsening day by day, killing a rising number of civilians. Last night in Namti town, Kachin State junta shooting left one young man dead, and a further three wounded. One of the men injured sustained a serious injury after being shot in the arm. The other two injured are on the run, evading arrest. On the night of May 8, veterinarian Dr. Sai Aik Kwan, living in Hopin town, Mohnyin Township in Kachin State was arrested by soldiers as he passed by Infantry Battalion 389 based in Hopin. The soldiers tied him up, shot him in the head and left his body next to a drain. His family recovered the dead body, but on the day of the funeral the junta took the body back, looted it and returned it with the head dismembered. On the death certificate, they claimed he died of a drug overdose. It is clear that Dr. Sai Aik Kwan was unjustly murdered. The same situation occurred with the death of poet Khat Thi, where his wife was forced to sign a false death certificate to cover up their crimes and destroy evidence. This terrorist group is responsible for each and every crime they have committed. There must be accountability. Junta forces continue to severely oppress public servants involved in the CDM. It is because of the civil disobedience movement that the juntas operating mechanisms have been completely cut off. Yesterday, in Letpan village, Waw Township in Bago Region four CDM education officers were arrested by the junta, and released on bail by their appointed village administrator. This was done to create the impression that junta forces saved them by releasing them. It is possible that in the future they will be made to pay for their freedom. We can see that this terrorist group is now using tactics to gain political advantage and create a widespread system of bribes. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-11
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Title: Myanmar reporters, activists arrested in Thailand
Description: "Three reporters and two activists from Myanmar have been arrested in Thailand for illegal entry and face possible deportation, the reporters' news organisation and local police said on Tuesday. Broadcaster DVB (Democratic Voice of Burma) said the five were arrested on Sunday in the northern city of Chiang Mai and it appealed to Thai authorities not to deport them to Myanmar, where the news organisation has been banned by the junta. "Their life will be in serious danger if they were to return," said Aye Chan Naing, DVB's executive director, in a statement, which also appealed to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for help. The statement said they had fled the army crackdown in Myanmar since the Feb. 1 coup, during which dozens of journalists have been among thousands of people arrested. DVB and several other independent media organisations had their licences revoked. Thapanapong Chairangsri, the head of police in the San Sai district outside Chiang Mai, told Reuters that five Myanmar citizens had been arrested for entering the country illegally and would be brought to court on Tuesday. He said they would be deported in accordance with the law, but added that because of the coronavirus outbreak they would be held in detention for 14 days before being handed to immigration authorities..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-11
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Title: Myanmar's Suu Kyi expected to appear in court soon - lawyer
Description: "Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to attend her next court hearing in person, her chief lawyer said on Monday, after weeks of stalled virtual proceedings over charges her supporters say are fabricated. Since her arrest hours before a Feb. 1 military coup, Suu Kyi has been held at her residence in Naypyitaw and faces numerous, mostly minor charges filed in two courts, the most serious under a colonial-era official secrets act, punishable by 14 years in prison. "The presiding judge declared that by the instruction of the Union Supreme Court, the cases were to be heard in person, not virtually by video conferencing," her legal team head, Khin Maung Zaw, said in a text message, referring to Monday's hearing. He said the judge "told us that the problem will eventually be solved", and that Suu Kyi asked what the judge meant by "eventually". Suu Kyi, 75, has been permitted to speak with lawyers only via a video link in the presence of security personnel. Her co-defendant is Win Myint, the ousted president. Her lawyers have said they have discussed with Suu Kyi only her legal case and do not know the extent to which she is aware of the crisis in her country. Khin Maung Zaw said his team was seeking access to Suu Kyi before the next hearing on May 24, without interference of others. He said he reminded the judge "that it is the undeniable right of the defendants to meet and give instructions to the defence counsel in a private meeting"...."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-11
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Title: Press briefing notes on Myanmar
Sub-title: Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: Rupert Colville
Description: "More than 100 days after the coup in Myanmar, the military authorities are showing no sign of letting up in their brutal crackdown on opponents in a bid to consolidate their hold on power. At the same time, there is no weakening of the resolve of the civil disobedience movement and other facets of opposition to the coup leaders. As of 10 May, credible sources indicate that the security forces, using unnecessary, disproportionate and lethal force to suppress demonstrations and other forms of public participation, have killed at least 782 individuals since the coup on 1 February. While much of the world's attention has been on the number of peaceful protesters and bystanders killed by the security forces, the authorities continue to commit other gross human rights violations against the people of Myanmar. There are daily raids on private homes and offices, and more than 3,740 people are currently in detention. We are deeply alarmed that the whereabouts and fate of hundreds of these individuals are unknown. These are situations that may amount to enforced disappearances. Of those in custody, the vast majority have not been brought before a judge, while most of the 86 people prosecuted thus far have been tried in secret, with limited or no access to any form of legal counsel. Military tribunals and courts martial have been established in several townships in which martial law was declared. At least 25 individuals have received the death sentence to date – some 20 of whom were tried in absentia. Over the past month, the military leadership has issued over 1,561 arrest warrants targeting civil society activists, trade unionists, journalists, academics, public personalities and online voices, so driving the vast majority of them underground. To intensify pressure, the military authorities have resorted to taking relatives of wanted people into custody to force them to turn themselves in to the police. The military authorities are also stepping up their efforts to pressure civil servants back to work. In recent weeks, the coup leadership has dismissed, removed, or suspended more than 3,000 civil servants – nearly 70 per cent of those targeted have been women. Those suspended include 990 university professors, researchers and assistants who in the last few days have been suspended for failing to report to work. There are reports that up to 11,000 more educational workers were suspended on Monday. We are also deeply concerned about the situation of people fleeing persecution, especially human rights defenders and journalists. As the armed conflicts between the Tatmadaw and some of the ethnic armed organizations, particularly in Kachin and Kayin states, have intensified, people seeking protection are being forced to consider seeking safety outside the country. When they do so, they should receive such protection and support from Myanmar's neighbours. It is clear that there needs to be greater international involvement to prevent the human rights situation in Myanmar from deteriorating further. Despite the five-point plan agreed at the ASEAN leaders' meeting on 24 April, the Myanmar military leadership has shown no sign of abiding by it. We call on ASEAN to react quickly and to intensify its actions to ensure the military keeps to these commitments and to hold them accountable for failing to do so..."
Source/publisher: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Geneva)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-11
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Title: Beyond the Coup in Myanmar: Echoes of the Past, Crises of the Moment, Visions of the Future
Description: "On Feb. 1, 2021, the Myanmar military – the Tatmadaw – shattered the all too brief effort to transition to democracy in Myanmar. Over the past two and a half months, the Tatmadaw has continued its illegitimate effort to undermine the democratic elections from last year and prevent the elected government from taking power. In the face of mass popular opposition and international condemnation, the military has only escalated its use of violence against its own population – systematically stripping away rights and violently attacking protestors and dissidents, reportedly killing over 700 civilians as of Apr. 20, 2021, and detaining more than 3,000. Despite the continued threats and extreme violence, the people of Myanmar have stood their ground and refused to be silenced. On Apr. 16, opponents of the coup from across the political spectrum announced the formation of a National Unity Government (NUG) to resist the military. Just as importantly, the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), a grassroots movement aimed at disrupting state functions and crippling the economy in order to undermine the military’s attempt to rule, has been hugely successful in galvanizing collective action since early February. In addition to the tens of thousands of CDM participants walking out of their private and public sector positions, protests across the country have seen massive youth engagement on a scale not seen in a generation. The organizing power has been impressive. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok have been used to spread awareness and coordinate protests, strikes, and other forms of peaceful resistance. The military has taken notice of the CDM’s power, issuing threats against young people protesting and shooting indiscriminately at protestors of all ages, including children. Parallel movements have arisen in areas like neighboring Thailand, with Thai youth protesting their own authoritarian government in solidarity with activists from Myanmar. Today we launch a Just Security series that will take a deep dive into the situation in Myanmar. The series will provide insights that put the coup and civilian response into historical and modern context, deepen unexplored angles on the current crises, and survey possibilities and ways forward over the next six months to a year. This series also aims to elevate policy discussions on a number of issues, ranging from peace and accountability to religion and democracy, asking: What is happening now and why? Within the series, contributions from authors from Myanmar and others working closely on the situation will explore topics such as youth leadership in the CDM and protests, domestic and international solidarity, environmental concerns, the dissolution of rule of law in Myanmar, and what the coup means for ongoing international accountability efforts. Below, we offer an overview of the major themes of the series, along with a timeline of the struggle for democracy in Myanmar. The current uprising against military rule must be understood in the context of these decades-long struggles for peace, democracy, accountability, and justice..."
Source/publisher: Just Security (New York)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-10
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Type: Individual Documents
Category: Anti-coup protesters, Spring Revolution, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association, violations of, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Human Rights Defenders, Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups, Discrimination against the Rohingya, International Criminal Court, Several Groups, Rohingya (cultural, political etc.), International Court of Justice (ICJ) - General, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, National Unity Government (NUG), Various groups, Political History, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory
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Title: Briefing on UNSC Arria meeting by H.E Daw Zin Mar Aung
Description: "Madam Chairperson, Your Excellencies, Thank you all so much for giving me floor to share the message from inside Burma/Myanmar to the world. • On February 1, the Myanmar Military led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing unleashed an attack of systematic and targeted violence against the citizens of Myanmar. This orchestrated program of armed violence has brought suffering and devastation to civilians across my entire country. From north to south, from east to west, this choreographed dance of death planned by the Myanmar Military has also caused human, political, economic, and social chaos. The military has murdered at least 600 individuals just for peacefully protesting against the military’s misconduct. It is important to highlight the excessive use of force and violence by the security forces against the non-violence pro-democracy movement (also known as/ Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM)). Thousands of my fellow countrymen and women are still unlawfully detained, incommunicado and without any due process rights. This includes civilian political leaders. • Today, before this session starts, the military forces used lethal force, live munitions and even RPGs to attack the civilian population in Bago Township. The ambulances are not allowed to enter to the area even though there have been dozens of civilian fatalities. • In the last two weeks, the Tatmadaw has also escalated its armed violence, in different ethnic states including Karen, Shan, and Kachin. The military also used airstrike in such ethnic area. Additionally, the Tatmadaw also redeployed forces to Rakhine state after the Brotherhood Alliance including Arakan Army (AA) issued a statement criticizing the killing of peaceful civilian protesters. • Aside from the systematic violent attacks by the military that target ordinary people, the military high command overseeing this carnage - now trying to whitewash itself by using the name Tatmadaw’s State Administration Council (SAC) - has been implementing aggressive tactics such as cutting off internet connection, arbitrary arrests and unlawful detention..."
Source/publisher: Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-10
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Title: Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup
Description: "As of 10 May, (781) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (1) fallen hero today. This (1) fallen hero from Thanlyin Township in Yangon Region was killed yesterday and documented today. This is the number verified by AAPP, the actual number of fatalities is likely much higher. We will continue adding as and when. As of May 10, a total of (3843) people are currently under detention; of them (86) are sentenced. 1561 have been issued arrest warrants; of them 20 were sentenced to death and 14 to three years imprisonment with hard labour, who are evading arrest. We are verifying the recently released detainees and continuing to document. Today civilians continued to protest against the junta in different ways, such as participating in the White Shirt Campaign. Early this morning, in Meiktila town, Mandalay Region, a protest was cracked down on and 15 people were arrested. In recent days, the terrorists have made a series of arrests, particularly targeting individuals leading forms of opposition against junta forces. Yesterday afternoon so-called police raided the Star City Home in Building B5, Thanlyin Township, Yangon where they arrested and blindfolded 14 people. During this brutal crackdown, it was reported that a medical university graduate died after falling from a building. Although initial reports state he fell, some media have since reported that he was pushed by so-called police and soldiers. This inhumane act again shows that junta forces do not value the lives of civilians. Since the coup, civilians have faced various forms of torture during their arrest. This junta group displayed its inhumanity when they forced the family member of a clearly tortured victim to sign a death certificate stating they had simply died of a disease. Poet Khet Thi who died yesterday was found with wounds consistent with torture, yet his wife had to sign a confession stating he died due to his pre-existing health conditions in order to recover his dead body. Forcing civilians to sign these confessions allows the junta forces to cover up their atrocities and destroys the evidence of their crimes. They use this to claim their actions are lawful. Action must be taken to ensure those who commit these crimes take full responsibility. The junta has attempted in various ways to deprive the people of “democratic” freedom. Since the coup, the freedom of the people has been stripped and the essence of democracy has faded. Last night in Bago City, Bago Region, terrorist groups destroyed the Democracy Monument, which celebrated the martyrs of the 8888 Uprising and its successors. Yesterday in the early morning, two youths were arrested on the road in Mingaladon Township while they were painting the slogan “We Want Democracy”. Their families have not yet been able to contact them. The people of Burma are fighting against junta forces that have ruled Burma for almost half of a century, to restore democracy and peace. To reinstate Burma’s democracy, the international community and ASEAN must address the current situation with urgency and importance. This junta group was already detaining women and children, now they are even targeting people with disabilities. Yesterday afternoon in Chanmyathazi Township in Mandalay City, Sai Hla Min, a disabled man who had regularly attended the Mandalay Monk Union Strike was arrested and not released on bail. Although Burma has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), it is clear that in an illegal coup, these kinds of human rights are not respected. AAPP will continue to keep you informed of verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update our lists to the details of these alleged offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent. Please submit to the following addresses..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-10
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Title: Myanmar Alert: National Union Government: People’s Defence Force, 05 May 2021
Summary: "Move by the National Union Government towards a Federal Union Army will see a more formal conflict develop. OVERVIEW Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), established by opponents of army...
Description: "Move by the National Union Government towards a Federal Union Army will see a more formal conflict develop. OVERVIEW Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), established by opponents of army rule, declared on 05 May that it would establish a “People’s Defence Force” as protection against government violent attacks towards its members. The statement noted that this was a prelude to establishing a Federal Union Army “in order to terminate the 70-year-long civil war.” The Tatmadaw also responded with heavy weapons after reports that the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) shot down a military helicopter in the vicinity of Konelaw village, Moemauk Township, Kachin State on 4 May. The risk of deterioration within Myanmar was highlighted by Zhang Jun, the Chinese Ambassador to the UN, in one of China’s strongest statements yet, when he warned that further violence in Myanmar could lead to “civil war”. ANALYSIS We predicted in our previous alert (27 Apr: Myanmar Border Area Clashes) that any further violence either along the Thai border area or between the Tatmadaw and the militia units (in this instance the Karen National Union - KNU) would likely escalate. Violent episodes are intensifying: on 4 May bomb blasts were reported in Myaing Township on 4 May, as were further clashes in Chin state, near the border with India, between the Chinland Defence Force (CDF) and Myanmar troops. The move by the NUG towards a Federal Union Army is highly likely in response to these clashes and would build a coordinated force against the Tatmadaw. Indeed, local sources have reported that units have been training “in the jungle” for several months and that militias have been using illegal arms traders to build up supplies of weapons. PREDICTION The move by the NGU to establish a Federal Union Army, along with the intensifying number of incidents, and the UN Chinese Ambassador’s comments points to the high probability that a more formal civil war phase is imminent. Cross border illicit arms trading will see a major increase, whilst the Tatmadaw will likely receive more military support from China, and possibly India; both have geopolitical interests in supporting the Myanmar government. Both militia units and the “People’s Defence Force/Federal Union Army” are likely to receive illicit aid from countries opposed to either India or China. The numbers of IDPs within the country, and refugees seeking shelter on the Thai/Indian border is likely to increase, leading to the possibility of further spread of COVID-19 within the country and region – as Myanmar appears to heading into a third wave of the virus, with no effective vaccine deployment in place. MITIGATION Organisations should carefully consider whether to deploy staff within 10 miles of the border areas – especially the China/Myanmar border region. Vary routes into and out of projects as often as possible. All staff should remove themselves from social media (if internet still available), remove satellite dishes from homes (if outside of main cities), and where possible, organisations should ensure that staff have a removable hard drive, and emphasize strict IT safeguarding protocols. Reinforce use of PPE and checking in protocols..."
Source/publisher: Insecurity Insight via "Reliefweb" (New York)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-10
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Title: Myanmar poet dies after being detained, his family says
Description: "Myanmar poet Khet Thi, whose works declare resistance to the ruling junta, died in detention overnight and his body was returned with the organs removed, his family said on Sunday. A spokesman for the junta did not answer calls to request comment on the death of Khet Thi, who had penned the line "They shoot in the head, but they don't know the revolution is in the heart." His Facebook page said he was 45. Khet Thi's wife said both of them were taken for interrogation on Saturday by armed soldiers and police in the central town of Shwebo, in the Sagaing region - a centre of resistance to the coup in which elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi was ousted. "I was interrogated. So was he. They said he was at the interrogation centre. But he didn't come back, only his body," his wife Chaw Su told BBC Burmese language news in tears from Monywa, around 100 km (60 miles) away by road. "They called me in the morning and told me to meet him at the hospital in Monywa. I thought it was just for a broken arm or something ... But when I arrived here, he was at the morgue and his internal organs were taken out," she said. She had been told at the hospital he had a heart problem, but had not bothered to read the death certificate because she was sure it would not be true, Chaw Su said. Reuters was unable to reach the hospital for comment. Chaw Su said the army had planned to bury him but that she pleaded with them for the body. She did not say how she knew her husband's organs had been removed. "He died at the hospital after being tortured in the interrogation centre," the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group said in a bulletin that put the toll of civilians killed since the coup at 780. The group, which monitors details of killings, did not identify the source of its information. OTHER POETS DIED Khet Thi was at least the third poet to die during protests since the Feb. 1 coup. Khet Thi had been a friend of K Za Win, 39, a poet who was shot dead during a protest in Monywa in early March. Cultural figures and celebrities have been prominent supporters of opposition to the coup with protests daily in different parts of the Southeast Asian country in spite of the killings and thousands of arrests. Khet Thi had been an engineer before quitting his job in 2012 to focus on his poetry and to support himself by making and selling ice cream and cakes. "I don't want to be a hero, I don't want to be a martyr, I don't want to be a weakling, I don't want to be a fool," he wrote two weeks after the coup. "I don't want to support injustice. If I have only a minute to live, I want my conscience to be clean for that minute." More recently, he wrote that he was a guitar player, a cake baker and a poet - not someone who could fire a gun. But he implied his attitude was changing. "My people are being shot and I can only throw back poems," he wrote. "But when you are sure your voice is not enough, then you need to choose a gun carefully. I will shoot..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-10
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Title: Thousands suspended at Myanmar universities as junta targets education
Description: "More than 11,000 academics and other university staff opposed to Myanmar's ruling junta have been suspended after going on strike in protest against military rule, a teachers' group told Reuters. The suspensions come as the resumption of universities after a year closed due to the coronavirus epidemic prompts a new confrontation between the army and the staff and students who are calling for boycotts over the Feb. 1 coup. "I feel upset to give up a job that I adored so much, but I feel proud to stand against injustice," said one 37-year-old university rector, who gave her name only as Thandar for fear of reprisals. "My department summoned me today. I'm not going. We shouldn't follow the orders of the military council." A professor on a fellowship in the United States said she was told she would have to declare opposition to the strikes or lose her job. Her university authorities had told her every scholar would be tracked down and forced to choose, she told Reuters. As of Monday, more than 11,100 academic and other staff had been suspended from colleges and universities offering degrees, an official of the Myanmar Teachers' Federation told Reuters, declining to be identified for fear of reprisals. Reuters was not immediately able to ascertain exactly what proportion of total staff that figure represents. Myanmar had more than 26,000 teachers in universities and other tertiary education institutions in 2018, according to the most recent World Bank data. Students and teachers were at the forefront of opposition during nearly half a century of military rule and have been prominent in the protests since the army detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and halted a decade of tentative democratic reforms. Many teachers, like medics and other government workers, have stopped work as part of a civil disobedience movement that has paralysed Myanmar. As protests flared after the coup, security forces occupied campuses in the biggest city, Yangon, and elsewhere. A spokesman for the junta did not respond to phone calls seeking comment on the suspensions. The junta-controlled Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said teachers and students should cooperate to get the education system started again. "Political opportunists do not wish to see such development by committing sabotage acts," it said. BOYCOTTS It was not clear to what extent the 11,000 staff suspensions would hamper efforts to reopen colleges but many students are also boycotting classes. At the public West Yangon Technological University, the student's union published a list of 180 staff who had been suspended to hail them as heroes. "I don't feel sad to miss school," said 22-year-old Hnin, a student of the Yangon University of Education. "There's nothing to lose from missing the junta's education." Zaw Wai Soe, education minister in a rival National Unity Government set up underground by opponents of the junta, said he was touched that students had told him they would only return "when the revolution prevails". Doubts have also been raised over the return to school of younger students, with institutions now taking registrations for the start of a new year. There are nearly 10 million school students in the country of 53 million. Protesters daubed "We don't want to be educated in military slavery" at the entrance of a school in the southern town of Mawlamyine last week, a phrase that has been echoed at demonstrations across Myanmar by students. "We'll go to school only when Grandmother Suu is released," read a banner of students in the northern town of Hpakant at the weekend, referring to detained leader Suu Kyi. "Free all students at once," said another sign. Many students are among at least 780 people killed by security forces and the 3,800 in detention, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group. At least 47 teachers are also among the detainees while arrest warrants have been issued for some 150 teachers on charges of incitement. Myanmar's education system was already one of the poorest in the region - and ranked 92 of 93 countries in a global survey last year. Even under the leadership of Suu Kyi, who had championed education, spending was below 2% of gross domestic product. That was one of the lowest rates in the world, according to World Bank figures. Students could have little expectation of progress in Myanmar this year, said Saw Kapi, a founding director of the Salween Institute for Public Policy think tank. "When it comes to education, I would suggest that instead of thinking about getting a bachelor's degree, you must go to the University of Life with a major in revolution," he wrote on social media. "You can go for a Masters or PhD later..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-10
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Type: Individual Documents
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Title: How to Defend the Defenders? A Report on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders in Burma and Appropriate Protection Mechanism
Description: Executive Summary: "Section 1 of the Report ? the Introduction ? explains the background to the issue of HRDs in Burma, and outlines the current political situation in the country. In brief, since early 2011, when President Thein Sein?s quasi-civilian government came to power, Burma has undergone a series of reforms that gave many hope that the situation of HRDs would improve ? in terms of their freedom to pursue their valuable and legitimate human rights work. However, testimony and reports from inside the country paint a very different picture and, as the 2015 national elections draw ever closer, the democratic and civil society space within which HRDs can operate has started to contract alarmingly once again. Those who try to defend human rights now seem to be operating in as dangerous environment as ever..... Section 2 outlines the objective, scope and methodology of the Report. In particular, the research involved organizing 75 interviews and two focus group discussions (?FGDs”), conducted with a spectrum of HRDs, and across diverse areas within Burma. This broad scope of research allowed AAPP and BP to identify inter- and intra-sectoral trends across a range of human rights work. The objectives of the Report are to outline the specific risks and challenges that HRDs in Burma face in 2015, and to set out some practical protection mechanisms and policy recommendations that might improve the situation of HRDs. The long term aim is an improvement not only in the lives of the HRDs themselves, but also in the human rights situation in Burma as a whole ? to the benefit of all those living in Burma..... Section 3 first highlights the international legal framework intended to protect HRDs and their legitimate work. It then goes on to set out the domestic legislation that poses a threat to the work or lives of HRDs in Burma ? or indeed is actively used to target them ? while in the process highlighting high profile cases, reported in the media, which demonstrate how the legislation in question is being used. It finishes by analyzing the role of various important Burma institutions, in the context of the current repression of HRDs and the stifling of their work..... Section 4 sets out and analyzes the findings of the interviews and FGDs, and groups them into thematic areas. Each sub-section focuses initially upon the nature of the various challenges and risks that different types of HRDs face in Burma, identifying trends and patterns of abuse, dangers and threats ? whether real or perceived ? before going on to highlight existing and potential protection mechanisms..... Section 5 then captures all of the practical solutions and policy recommendations, addressed to a variety of key actors and stakeholders, which directly draw upon the experiences and perspectives of the HRDs interviewed. It is hoped that these recommendations will in turn improve the situation of HRDs in Burma, and allow them to better conduct their valuable and legitimate human rights work..... Section 6 ? the Conclusion ? states that even in 2015, HRDs in Burma are subjected to a whole range of attacks and abuses, and are therefore in dire and urgent need of protection. If the Burma Government were to start protecting HRDs, and respecting their rights and their valuable and legitimate work, the overall human rights situation in Burma would improve ? to the benefit of all people in Burma."
Source/publisher: Burma Partnership, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of publication: 2015-06-30
Date of entry/update: 2015-07-31
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Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.22 MB
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