Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
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Individual Documents
Source/publisher:
National Unity Consultative Council
Date of entry/update:
2022-08-07
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"Bangkok, August 1, 2022 – Myanmar authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalist Maung Maung Myo and stop imprisoning members of the press on spurious charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.
On Friday, July 29, a court in the city of Hpa-an, in Kayin state, sentenced Maung Myo, a reporter for the independent Mekong News Agency, to six years in prison on charges of violating Section 52(a) of the Counter-Terrorism Law, according to news reports and the news agency’s editor Nyan Linn Htet, who communicated with CPJ via messaging app.
Maung Myo was convicted for possessing pictures and interviews with members of People’s Defense Forces, an array of insurgent groups that are fighting Myanmar’s military government, according to those sources. Authorities banned the Mekong News Agency after the military seized power in a February 1, 2021, coup, according to Nyan Linn Htet.
Nyan Linn Htet said Maung Myo is being held at Hpa-an’s Taung Kalay Prison, is in good health, and intends to appeal his conviction.
“Journalist Maung Maung Myo’s sentencing and imprisonment is cruel and unusual, and is unjust retaliation for his work as an independent news reporter,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar’s junta must stop equating journalism with terrorism and allow journalists to report the news without fear of imprisonment.”
Maung Myo, who is also known as Myo Myint Oo, was first arrested on May 10 at the Salween River bridge checkpoint near Hpa-an after officials discovered he had shared Mekong News Agency reports on his personal Facebook page, according to those news reports.
Maung Myo has reported for Mekong News Agency since June 2020 and has covered various political topics, including COVID-19 in Myanmar, anti-coup protests, and clashes between the military government and armed resistance groups, including the People’s Defense Forces.
At least two other Myanmar journalists were convicted and sentenced in July for their news reporting.
On July 7, a Wetlet Township court in the northwestern region of Sagaing convicted and sentenced Democratic Voice of Burma journalist Aung San Lin to six years in prison with hard labor, with four years under Section 52(b) of the Counter-Terrorism Law and two years under the penal code’s Section 505(a), which criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of “false news,” according to DVB and other news reports.
Aung San Lin was first arrested on December 11, 2021, by about 20 soldiers who raided his home around midnight in the Sagaing Region’s village of Pin Zin, shortly after he published a report alleging that military forces committed arson attacks on the homes of three supporters of the coup-toppled National League for Democracy in Wetlet Township.
The DVB report said he was being held at Shwebo Prison near the central city of Mandalay. CPJ could not immediately determine whether he intended to appeal his conviction, and DVB editor-in-chief Aye Chan Naing did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.
Separately, on July 14, an Insein Township Court in Yangon sentenced Nying Nying Aye, a freelance reporter who contributes regularly to the local news website Mizzima, to three years in prison with hard labor under Section 505(a) of the penal code, according to multiple news reports.
Nying Nying Aye, also known as Mabel, started reporting on domestic politics for Mizzima soon after the coup, according to the outlet’s editor-in-chief Soe Myint, who communicated with CPJ via email. She has been detained since January 15, according to those reports.
The Myanmar Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on the journalists’ convictions and sentencings.
Myanmar was the world’s second worst jailer of journalists, trailing only China, with at least 26 behind bars when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census on December 1, 2021..."
Source/publisher:
Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2022-08-01
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Opinion and Expression - tools for change in Burma/Myanmar
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" ၁။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ ၅ ရက်နေ့တွင် ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားပြုကော်မတီကို ဖွဲ့စည်းခဲ့ပြီးနောက် လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ်များ၏ လက်ရှိဖမ်းဆီး၊ ထိန်းသိမ်းခံရမှု အခြေအနေများ နှင့်စပ်လျဉ်းပြီး သတင်းအချက်အလက်များကို စဉ်ဆက်မပြတ် မှတ်တမ်းကောက်ယူပြီး နိုင်ငံတကာသို့ သိရှိနိုင်စေရန်တင်ပြလျက်ရှိပါသည်။
၂။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်တပ်မှ အာဏာသိမ်းခဲ့သည့် ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့မှ ယနေ့ အချိန်ထိ ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းခံပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ် ၃၄ ဦး ရှိပြီး၊ ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက် လာသည့် ပြည်ထောင်စုလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ် ၇ ဦးရှိသဖြင့် လက်ရှိဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းခံနေရသူ ၂၇ ဦးရှိပါကြောင်း၊ တိုင်းဒေသကြီး သို့မဟုတ် ပြည်နယ်လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ် ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်း ခံရသူ ၇၉ ဦးရှိပြီး၊ ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်လာသူ ၁၁ ဦး ရှိပါကြောင်း၊ အခြား ၁ ဦးမှာ အကျဉ်းထောင်ထဲတွင် ဆေးကုသ ခွင့်မပြုသဖြင့် သေဆုံးပြီး ကျန် ၁ ဉီးမှာလည်း စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ဖမ်းဆီးခံရပြီးနောက် လမ်းဘေးတစ်နေရာတွင် ရက်စက်စွာ သတ်ဖြတ်ခံခဲ့ရပြီး သေဆုံးခဲ့ရခြင်းကြောင့် ဖမ်းဆီးခံရပြီး သေဆုံးသူ ၂ ဦး ရှိသွားပြီဖြစ်သဖြင့် လက်ရှိဖမ်းဆီး ထိန်းသိမ်းခံနေရသူ ၆၆ ဦးရှိသွားပြီဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် ပြည်ထောင်စုအဆင့် လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ်၊ တိုင်းဒေသကြီးနှင့် ပြည်နယ်အဆင့် လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ် စုစုပေါင်း ယခုလက်ရှိ ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းခံနေရသူ ၉၃ ဦး ရှိပါသည်။
၃။ စစ်ကောင်စီက မတရားအကြမ်းဖက်ပြီး အမှုဆင်ဖမ်းဆီးခံရခြင်း၊ နှိပ်စက်ခံရခြင်း၊ သတင်း အဆက်အသွယ်မရရှိဘဲ ထိန်းသိမ်းခံထားရခြင်း၊ ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းခံ လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ် အများစုအား မည်သည့်နေရာတွင် ထိန်းသိမ်းထားသည်ဆိုသည်ကိုပင် မိသားစုဝင်များ ကိုယ်တိုင် မသိရှိရခြင်းနှင့် တရားဥပဒေအရ အကာအကွယ်ရယူခွင့် အပြည့်အဝမရရှိခြင်း စသည့် အခြေခံလူ့ အခွင့်အရေးများ များစွာဆုံးရှုံးနေရခြင်းနှင့်စပ်လျဉ်း၍ CRPH အနေဖြင့် သတင်းအချက်အလက် များကို စနစ်တကျ ကောက်ယူပြီး နိုင်ငံတကာလွှတ်တော် အဖွဲ့အစည်းများ နှင့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေး အဖွဲ့အစည်းများထံသို့ ချိတ်ဆက်ဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။
၄။ အဆိုပါ လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ်ကြီးများအနက် တစ်ချို့ကို ကောက်နုတ်ဖော်ပြရလျှင် ပြည်ထောင်စု လွှတ်တော်အဆင့် လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ်များဖြစ်သည့် ဦးထွန်းအောင် (ခ) ဦးထွန်းထွန်းဟိန် ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်၊ နောင်ချိုမဲဆန္ဒနယ်သည် ၁-၂-၂၀၂၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် ပထမအကြိမ် ဖမ်းဆီးပြီး နောက်ပြန်လည် လွတ်မြောက်လာပြီး ဒုတိယအကြိမ်အဖြစ် ၁၀-၂-၂၀၂၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် ထပ်မံဖမ်းဆီးခံရပါသည်။ ၎င်းနောက် ၂၂-၁၂-၂၀၂၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် ပုဒ်မ ၅၀၅ (က)၊ (ခ) အမှုတို့အတွက် အလုပ်ကြမ်းနှင့်ထောင်ဒဏ် လေးနှစ် ချမှတ်ခဲ့ပြီး ၇-၆-၂၀၂၂ ရက်နေ့တွင် ရာဇသတ်ကြီး ပုဒ်မ ၁၂၄ (ဃ) ဖြင့် အမှုဆင်ပြီး ထပ်မံစွဲဆို၍ နောက်တိုးပုဒ်မများ ထပ်ထပ်တိုးခြင်း၊ ဒေါ်ဝင်းမြမြ မန္တလေးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး၊ စဉ့်ကိုင်မဲဆန္ဒနယ်အား ၂၇-၂-၂၀၂၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် ပုဒ်မ ၅၀၅ (က)၊ ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းခံခဲ့ရပြီး အိုးဘိုထောင်အတွင်း တစ်နှစ်ကျော် အကြာ ထိန်းသိမ်းထားခဲ့ပြီး ၂၉-၆၂၀၂၂ ရက်နေ့တွင်မှ အလုပ်နှင့် ထောင်ဒဏ် ၃ နှစ်ကို ချမှတ်ခြင်း၊ တစ်ချို့သော လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ်ကြီးများမှာ ထောင်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခံခဲ့ရသော်လည်း ထောင်ထဲတွင် ရှိ၊မရှိမှာ မသေမခြာသလို မည်သည့်အကျဉ်းထောင်တွင်ရှိနေမှန်းမသိရခြင်း စသည့် လုပ်ရပ်များသည် ကမ္ဘာ့ကုလသမဂ္ဂက ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာထားသော လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ကြေညာစာတမ်းပါ လူတစ်ဉီး တစ်ယောက်ချင်းစီ၏ အခွင့်အရေးများကို အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီမှ ပြောင်ပြောင်တင်းတင်း ချိုးဖောက်လျက်ရှိပါသည်။
၅။ ထို့အပြင် တိုင်းဒေသကြီးလွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ်ကြီးများအနက်မှ အချို့ကို ကောက်နုတ် ဖော်ပြရလျှင် ဉီးညွန့်ရွှေ ပဲခူးတိုင်းဒေသကြီး၊ မဲဆန္ဒနယ်(၁) တိုင်းဒေသကြီး လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ်ကို ၉-၇-၂၀၂၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် စကစက သဘာဝဘေးအန္တရာယ်ဆိုင်ရာ ပုဒ်မ ၂၅၊ တပ်မတော်ကို အကြည်အညို ပျက်စေမှု ပုဒ်မ ၅၀၅-က တို့နှင့် ဖမ်းဆီးတရားစွဲခဲ့ပြီး ပဲခူးကျိုက်ကဇော် အကျဉ်းထောင်ထဲတွင် Covid ရောဂါကူးစပ်ခြင်းခံရပြီး ဆေးကုသခွင့် လုံလောက်စွာမရသဖြင့် ၁၆-၈-၂၀၂၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် သေဆုံးခဲ့ ရခြင်း၊ ဦးကျော်မျိုးမင်း၊ မွန်ပြည်နယ်၊ ဘီးလင်းမဲဆန္ဒယ်အား ၂၂-၆-၂၀၂၂ ရက်နေ့ နံနက် ၉ နာရီခန့်တွင် ဆိုင်ကယ် Taxi ဖြင့် ခရီးထွက်ခဲ့စဉ် တော်လှန်ရေးသမား နှစ်ဦးအပါအဝင်Taxi မောင်းသူရွာသားနှင့် အတူ လမ်းခရီးတွင် စကစ၏ ပစ်ခတ်ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရပါသည်။ ယင်းနောက် ၃၀-၆-၂၀၂၂ ရက်နေ့ နံနက် (၈) နာရီတွင် တော်လှန်ရေးသမား နှစ်ဦးနှင့်အတူ ဦးကျော်မျိုးမင်းကို စကစ၏ စစ်ကြောရေးတွင် လူမဆန်စွာ လက်ပြန်ကြိုးတုတ်ထားပြီး ၎င်းကြိုးကို လည်ပင်းအား သိုင်းချည်ခြင်းတို့ ပြုလုပ်သည့် အပြင် မျက်နှာ၊ ဉီးခေါင်းနှင့်ခန္ဓာကိုယ်အနှံ့ စစ်ဖိနပ်ဖြင့် ကန်ခြင်း၊ ကျည်ကာ ဦးထုပ်ဖြင့် ရိုက်ခြင်း၊ ထိုးကြိတ်ခြင်များပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သဖြင့် ဒဏ်ရာပြင်းထန်သဖြင့် ညှင်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်သည့်နေရာတွင် မေ့မြော သွားခဲ့သည်။ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်ဖွဲများ၏ ရက်စက်စွာ ရိုက်နှက်နှိပ်စက်မှုကြောင့် ခန္ဓာကိုယ် အနှံ့ဒဏ်ရာများ ပြင်းထန်စွာရရှိခဲ့ပါသည်။ ဒါ့အပြင် ၃၀-၆-၂၀၂၂ ရက်နေ့တွင်ပင် သေနတ်ဖြင့် ပစ်သတ်၍ မြောင်းထဲတွင် အလောင်းကို ပစ်ချခဲ့ခြင်းမှာ လူတစ်ဉီးတစ်ယောက်ကို အတင်းအဓမ္မ ဥပဒေမဲ့စွာ ရက်စက်စွာသတ်ဖြတ်ပြီး လူ့အခွင့်အရေးများကို အဖန်တလဲလဲ ချိုးဖောက်နေခြင်း၊ လွှတ်တော် ကိုယ်စားလှယ်များ၏ အခွင့်အရေးများနှင့်စပ်လျဉ်း၍ “လွှတ်တော်ဆိုင်ရာဥပဒေများမှအပ အခြားဥပဒေ များဖြင့် အရေးယူခြင်းမရှိစေရ” ဟူသည့် ဥပဒေပြဋ္ဌာန်းချက်များနှင့် ဆန့်ကျင်နေပြီး ဖမ်းဆီးနေခြင်း စသည့် ကိစ္စရပ်များကို နိုင်ငံတကာသိရှိအောင် တင်ပြခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်သလို ပြည်သူအများ သိရှိနိုင်ပါရန် ထုတ်ပြန်အပ်ပါသည်။.."
Source/publisher:
Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-30
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Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Human Rights Defenders
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"NEW YORK—The Open Society Foundations are appalled and deeply saddened by the recent horrific executions by the military regime in Myanmar of former NLD Member of Parliament Phyo Zeya Thaw, prominent activist Kyaw Min Yu, as well as Aung Thura Zaw, and Hla Myo Aung. The executions are the first in Myanmar in more than three decades.
The executions, which were unanimously condemned by the UN Security Council on July 27, mark a further regression in the already dire human rights situation that has prevailed in Myanmar since the military coup of February 2021. Since the coup, Myanmar’s military regime has engaged in countless human rights violations including military air assaults targeting villages of ethnic communities, burning civilian facilities, and cracking down civil society organizations inside the country.
Open Society calls on the international community to step up its efforts to end the crisis in the country, with steps including:
the imposition of a full arms embargo
action to expand the number and type of sanctions on senior military leaders and those around them
fully supporting and expediting the work of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar established by the UN Human Rights Council in September 2018
Open Society is also calling on Myanmar to allow unimpeded access to UN investigators and human rights monitors, and urges the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to adopt a more effective diplomatic response to the crisis, drawing on support from civil society and humanitarian groups. We urge G20 leaders and donors to increase support for humanitarian aid, including funding for civil society to document these heinous acts and push for international accountability..."
Source/publisher:
Open Society Foundations
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-29
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights and international relations
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"he executions of four men have brought into sharp focus the fate of more than 100 people sentenced to death under the regime since the coup in February last year.
Student activist Minn Khant Kyaw Linn told the ABC the public was outraged.
"There is fear from the family members of death-sentenced victims who are detained. Will their family members be executed in the next round?"
But he said the people's hatred of the regime outweighed their fear.
"It will just add more fuel to the rebellion of pro-democracy supporters," he said.
Seventy-four people in detention have been sentenced to death in Myanmar since the February 1 military takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).
A further 41 people were handed death sentences in absentia and are not in the junta's custody, bringing the total to 115.
Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation on human rights in Myanmar, has said the estimate is even higher, at around 140.
AAPP said two boys under the age of 18 were also initially sentenced to death, but those sentences were revoked and they face re-trial in a juvenile court due to their age.
Among the four executed at the weekend were former hip hop artist and MP Phyo Zeya Thaw and prominent democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu, known as Jimmy.
Both had travelled to Australia in the past and built connections with the diaspora community here.
Reports have begun to swirl that further executions could be imminent, but the ABC has been unable to independently verify them.
"There is an information blackout from within Insein Prison at the moment. But we know 41 death row political prisoners have been separated [from] other sentenced prisoners," AAPP joint-secretary U Bo Kyi told the ABC.
"We do not know if it is a threat or intention to execute. Ultimately, the military does not care for any laws, so who can say."
Little is known about the prisoners on death row, who were mostly convicted in closed-door military trials.
The AAPP database shows most were sentenced under counter terrorism laws or section 302 of the penal code, which deals with punishment for murder.
But U Bo Kyi said the country's penal institution is being "used as a weapon to oppress the people".
Dr Justine Chambers, a postdoctoral researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, told the ABC many family members would be reluctant to speak out now for fear of painting a target on their backs.
"The reason it's so hard to get information on people who are currently on death row is because a lot of their families actually don't want to draw attention to them… in case they become another symbol for the military to show their power," she said.
Dr Chambers said Myanmar people had been left shaken by the executions — even under the former military regime, which was regarded as particularly brutal, death sentences had not been carried out in more than 30 years.
"The military, I think, was hoping to use these executions to reassert control and instil fear in the population, but actually, it's created anger — it's galvanised people against them," she said.
She added while the recent executions could be seen as an escalation in some respects, they took place in the context of the army's ongoing violence.
More than 2,100 have been killed by the junta since the coup, according to AAPP, and soldiers who defected have described to the BBC how the military forces burnt people alive and raped girls.
Dr Chambers said the military's unpredictability was "terrifying" for ordinary people — whether they were on death row or not.
"This constant threat of violence is always there," she said.
Children taken as hostages, UN rapporteur says
Mr Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur, told ABC's Radio National this week that executing the four prisoners "was a desperate move by a desperate junta".
Around 14,000 people have been arbitrarily detained since the coup, among them 1,400 children, he said.
"As a matter of fact, 61 children are being held by this junta as hostages, so that their parents, their family members, will give themselves up," he said.
"So this killing, these executions, are in the context of a very deep, horrific brutality that's become a living nightmare for people of Myanmar throughout the country."
Prior to the executions, Amnesty International had labelled Myanmar's approach to the death penalty as "abolitionist in practice" but had noted a dramatic increase in the number of people sentenced to death since the military seized control.
"As resistance to the coup shows no sign of waning, Myanmar's military is getting desperate, so desperate that it is willing to resume executions after more than 30 years in a despicable attempt to terrify the population into submission," an Amnesty regional spokesperson said.
"The military will apparently do anything to maintain control, even if that ruins lives and destroys families. International pressure on the Myanmar military must be stepped up.
"Silence and inaction will only embolden the military to commit more human rights abuses, which means more lives ruined and more loved ones lost."
Australian economist Sean Turnell, an advisor to Aung San Suu Kyi, remains in custody in Myanmar and faces trial under the Official Secrets Act.
"The Australian government should do even more for the Australian national in arbitrary detention facing a kangaroo court," AAPP's U Bo Kyi said.
He said every country in the region must condemn the "execution murders" and had a duty to put strong economic and political pressure on the regime.
"The Australian government must work together with like-minded countries and pressure other countries to impose targeted sanctions and stop the flow of weapons used by a military to kill its own people," he said.
The ABC understands the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade called in Myanmar's chargé d'affaires on Tuesday and made strong representations condemning the executions.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong this week said Australia was "appalled" by the executions and called for an end to the violence, adding that sanctions against members of the military regime were under "active consideration".
Myanmar's military spokesperson Zaw Min Tun has defended the executions, saying they were enacted under the law.
"I knew it would raise criticism but it was done for justice. It was not personal," he said.
Myanmar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs also slammed countries for condemning the executions.
"The ministry cautions that such concerns and criticisms of the Myanmar government's legal actions could be tantamount to interfering in the internal affairs of the country and indirectly abetting terrorism," it said in a statement..."
Source/publisher:
"ABC News" (Sydney)
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-28
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"Here is our urgent warning to the world: Myanmar’s barbaric regime is planning to execute more political prisoners on death row in the coming days and weeks.
For anyone who has sympathy for them and desires to see justice prevail in the country, now is not the time for procrastination.
Following the junta’s recent executions of four democracy activists, the fate of the remaining 76 political prisoners on the regime’s death row is now of great concern to Myanmar people.
They have reason to be worried.
After the weekend hangings of Ko Jimmy, Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, Ko Hla Myo Aung and Ko Aung Thura Zaw, alarming reports have emerged that political prisoners sentenced to death in Yangon’s Insein Prison have been isolated from other inmates. Forty-one of the 76 detainees sentenced to death are being held at Insein Prison. As of Thursday, 118 people had been sentenced to death for their anti-regime activism in Myanmar. Forty-two of those were sentenced in absentia.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma on Wednesday said the remaining 76—who include university students, young professionals and eight women—would likely face extrajudicial killings at the hands of the regime, like the four activists hanged over the weekend. The Irrawaddy has also learned that more hangings are in the pipeline.
The news has devastated the family members of the political prisoners on death row. They are silently praying they will not receive phone calls from prison authorities informing them they are to have “a meeting” with their condemned loved ones. The four recently executed activists were granted video meetings with their mothers and other relatives, then hanged within 24 hours.
“I don’t want to get the call from them. I fear bad consequences. I can’t bear to think about it,”said a family member of a political prisoner sentenced to death.
Through her tears, a deeply distraught mother begged the junta not to kill her son, while pleading for help from others: “Is there anyone who can save us? I would die if I face it. I can’t take it anymore.”
The quotes above are extracts from The Irrawaddy’s interviews with family members of some of the political prisoners on death row; they capture the bleak situation in the country, as well as the families’ emotional devastation. All of the interviewees asked that their names and those of their imprisoned relatives be withheld, as they were extremely worried that the junta would kill their loved ones in haste as a punishment for talking to the media.
For some skeptical souls who dare to wonder whether the regime would really do something so heinous for merely talking to the press, remember what regime leader Min Aung Hlaing once said: “There is nothing I don’t dare to do.”
In the latest testament to their limitless inhumanity, the regime on Wednesday organized attacks on the homes of the recently executed Ko Jimmy and Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, angered by the fact that the duo are being praised as martyrs, and because Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw’s mother told the media she was proud of her son. Please note the attacks came while the parents and relatives were still mourning their fresh losses.
As the regime never fails to show new acts of barbarity to the world, we should not underestimate the junta; they won’t allow (and have never allowed) any ethical consideration or pang of conscience to get in the way of their grip on power.
Given the junta’s relentless show of inhumanity, fears are high for the lives of the remaining 74 political prisoners on the regime’s death row. Even if they don’t kill them all, some—especially those convicted in high-profile cases—are at great risk, as the regime would simply carry out their executions as a form of reprisal, in the name of their so-called “rule of law” and “seeking justice” for junta informants and other regime targets attacked by resistance groups. Then, Myanmar will have to mourn more losses.
If the executions are carried out, it would be too much for many in Myanmar, which has already lost more than 2,000 people to the regime since the coup last year.
It’s time for the UN to adopt some meaningful resolutions to save lives in Myanmar—a step beyond Security Council condemnations of the executions of the four democracy activists. The same goes for the world’s democracies, including the US; it’s time to prove to the evil regime that they have to pay a price for their horrendous treatment of Myanmar and its people, as the world will no longer tolerate them.
With the regime’s executions last week, we have all failed Ko Jimmy, Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, Ko Hla Myo Aung and Ko Aung Thura Zaw.
The world should not fail the Myanmar people, and the 74 political prisoners on death row, again.
They should not feel they are forsaken while struggling to survive amid the junta’s unwavering abuses. They deserve to feel there are some in the world who care for them.
Show your humanity with meaningful action on Myanmar now, please!
EDITOR’s NOTE: The editorial was updated on Friday to reflect the latest number of death sentences..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-28
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
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"Atrocity Alert is a weekly publication by the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect highlighting situations where populations are at risk of, or are enduring, mass atrocity crimes.
FIRST EXECUTIONS IN MYANMAR IN DECADES UNDERSCORE ONGOING MILITARY REPRESSION
Myanmar’s (Burma) military – also known as the Tatmadaw – announced on 25 July that it had executed two democracy activists, as well as two other men, marking the first known executions in the country since 1988. Accused of violent resistance against the military, all four men – Phyo Zeya Thaw, Kyaw Min Yu (also known as Ko Jimmy), Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw – were sentenced to death by military tribunals during closed, politically motivated trials. Since the February 2021 coup, over 100 people in Myanmar have been sentenced to death, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The executions indicate a grave escalation in the Tatmadaw’s repression.
The executions received widespread condemnation from the international community, including from UN Secretary-General António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and several governments, among others. The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, said, “these depraved acts must be a turning point for the international community. What more must the junta do before the international community is willing to take strong action?”
The executions occurred amidst growing evidence of mass atrocities perpetrated by the military throughout the country, including the scorched earth campaign in the northwest. Last week, the military killed at least ten people and burned approximately 500 homes during a raid on a predominantly Muslim village in Sagaing Region – a resistance stronghold. The victims’ bodies were found burned beyond recognition with their hands bound. Amnesty International also recently reported that the Tatmadaw is “systematically” laying antipersonnel landmines in a “massive scale” in and around at least 20 villages in Kayah State. The military has reportedly laid landmines in homes, on farmland and on church grounds, threatening the lives and livelihoods of civilians in contaminated areas. The military’s use of banned landmines likely amounts to war crimes.
The international community – especially ASEAN and the UN Security Council – has a responsibility to respond to the deepening crisis in Myanmar with more than just words. The military should heed the calls of High Commissioner Bachelet by reinstating Myanmar’s de facto suspension on the use of the death penalty. All political prisoners and others arbitrarily detained must be immediately released. Member states must stop providing arms and weapons to Myanmar and support efforts to hold those responsible for atrocities to account..."
Source/publisher:
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-27
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Human Rights and international relations, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
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Title: [Joint Statement] Myanmar: Execution of four democracy activists highlights junta’s brutality
Description:
"We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the execution carried out by the military junta against four pro-democracy activists in Myanmar. We call on the international community, including ASEAN states, to publicly denounce these grave violations committed by the junta and to hold them accountable for their crimes.
The four include prominent democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu better known as ‘Ko Jimmy’, who was arrested in October 2021 and Phyo Zeyar Thaw, a former lawmaker from the National League for Democracy (NLD) and rapper, who was arrested in November 2021 for allegedly committing “terror acts” by the junta. The other two activists are Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw.
The four pro-democracy activists were convicted of trumped-up charges of terrorism under the draconian 2014 Counterterrorism Law and others laws and sentenced to death in June 2022. Their closed-door trial by secretive military tribunals has been condemned due to a lack of transparency and adherence to the due process of law. Kyaw Min Yu was also allegedly tortured during his detention.
We are appalled that family members of the activists were not informed ahead of time that the executions would be carried out. Since news of the executions was released, family members have only received vague answers from officers at Insein Prison, such as that the prison procedures had already been followed. Further, the military junta continues to refuse to disclose the location and condition of the bodies of those executed. When Phyo Zeyar Thaw’s mother requested for his body, the prison officers responded that there is no law that calls for the return of the body to family members. The military junta must clarify the exact date and time that the executions were carried out, as well as immediately provide information on the whereabouts of the bodies.
We condemn the cruelty of the military junta and are seriously concerned about the fate of many others who have been sentenced to death by the junta. These appalling actions are serious human rights violations and should be denounced by all members of the international community with calls for justice and accountability. With a total of 117 political prisoners being sentenced to death since the coup, failing to do so will put many other detained activists at risk of suffering the same fate.
The executions are reportedly the first known judicial executions for over the three decades in Myanmar. It was undertaken despite repeated calls from human rights groups and the international community to the junta to halt and reverse the decision. The junta has even disregarded the calls from the ASEAN chair, Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, to refrain from carrying out the executions.
The execution was conducted three days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) dismissed the Myanmar military government’s preliminary objections regarding the allegation of genocide against the Rohingya, giving the possibility of the investigation as requested by the Gambia to move forward.
Since the coup in February 2021, human rights groups have documented the arbitrary and extrajudicial killings of more than two thousand individuals in the country. Thousands remain in detention facing torture and ill-treatment while the National Unity Government (NUG), the legitimate government elected by the people of Myanmar in November 2022, was declared a terrorist organisation. The junta has also weaponised humanitarian aid to undermine the resistance movement and to gain legitimacy.
Various diplomatic efforts by international and regional mechanisms, including the ASEAN Five-Point Consensus that focuses on a meaningful and inclusive dialogue toward a peaceful solution, have failed to prevent the junta from committing serious human rights violations – some of which may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. While some countries have imposed targeted sanctions, others such as Australia and Japan have failed to move in that direction and have effectively relied on the Five-Point Consensus as a solution.
By executing the activists, the military junta has sent a strong message that it has no interest in respecting proposals from ASEAN and the international community to uphold democracy, human rights and the rule of law in the country. The international community must urgently step up and immediately deploy stronger actions to halt this brutality and hold the junta accountable..."
Source/publisher:
Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-27
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Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Human Rights Defenders, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights and international relations
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"The homes of recently executed pro-democracy activists Ko Jimmy and Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw were attacked on Wednesday by mobs of pro-regime thugs who denounced the two men for their anti-junta activities.
The apartment of Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw’s parents in Bo Aung Kyaw Street in downtown Yangon was pelted with stones and other projectiles by nearly a dozen junta-backed thugs on Wednesday afternoon. They cursed the executed activist’s parents.
In a video shared by pro-junta groups they can be seen hurling projectiles at the apartment and condemning the lawmaker’s mother, Daw Khin Win May, for telling the media she was proud of her son following his execution.
She confirmed to The Irrawaddy that their apartment was under attack.
The regime executed Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, another democracy activist, Ko Jimmy, and two other men during the weekend after sentencing them to death under the counter-terrorism law for masterminding the armed struggle against the regime and being involved in anti-junta activities. The world has condemned the hangings.
On Wednesday, pro-regime Telegram channels said “people against of violence” perpetrated the attack and shared the video online.
A mob also gathered in front of the house of the late Ko Jimmy in Yangon’s Insein Township on Wednesday, hurling stones at the building while denouncing him for his anti-regime activism.
Pro-junta groups on social media shared a video of the attack and called it “a demonstration by people who want peace and against violence.”
The attacks came one day after the regime’s spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said at a press conference that those executed were not democracy activists, but killers deserving of their punishment.
“They have committed crimes for which they should have been given death sentences many times,” said Zaw Min Tun.
In response to the international condemnations of the executions, the regime’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Tuesday that it protested “in the strongest terms on the statements issued by certain countries and regional/international organizations.”
“The Ministry cautions that such concerns and criticisms on the Myanmar government’s legal actions could be tantamount to interfering the internal affairs of the country and indirectly abetting terrorism,” it said..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-27
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"In the morning of 24th July 2022, state propaganda media of the terrorist military council reported that U Kyaw Min Yu also known as U Jimmy, U Phyo Zeyar Thaw, U Hla Myo Aung and U Aung Thuya Zaw had their punishment meted out according to prison procedure. When family members approached the authorities in Insein Prison, they confirmed that the announcement was true and that they were not at liberty to release the bodies of the deceased.
It is totally unacceptable that the terrorist military council, against all national and international legal norms, inhumanely went ahead with the executions of U Kyaw Min Yu, also known as U Jimmy, one of the leaders of the 88 Generation Students Group student leader, a veteran democracy activist and founder of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society and U Phyo Zeyar Thaw, a member of National League for Democracy and former Parliament Member of Pyithu Hluttaw including U Hla Myo Aung and U Aung Thuya Zaw. For this atrocious act of brutality, the National Unity Government pledges to take a systematic approach to any legal and political routes available, be it national, international, and military, to get legal retribution for their unlawful deaths and punish those responsible.
We bow our heads, salute, pay homage and stand together with the families, friends and relatives of all those fallen heroes of the Spring Revolution and those who had been arbitrarily detained in prison, tortured and murdered. To show our gratitude to those heroes who gave up their lives during the Spring Revolution, the National Unity Government vows to, together hand in hand with the people, uproot and rid our land of the ruthless fascist policy forever never to rear its head again. We also believe that the populace and those risking their lives on the frontline must be feeling sad and sorrowful and with this force of feeling focus on the revolution and fight to the end to achieve victory.
To those democracy activists and leaders of the revolution, this is solid evidence that the terrorist military is not prepared to solve our country’s difficulties and has no intentions of doing so peacefully. This is also proof, and a warning shot to those who believe that the terrorist military leaders can be approached, and political solutions found. We urge the international institutions and allied countries that treasure and value democracy and human rights to put pressure to bear on the terrorist military to stop their atrocities and in future to lend a helping hand to, and stand together with the Myanmar people, Committee Representing Pyithu Hluttaw (CRPH), National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC), National Unity Government (NUG), Ethnic Resistance Organizations (EROs) and democracy activists and as result ending fascism in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher:
National Unity Government of Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-26
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, National Unity Government (NUG), Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights and international relations
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"အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီသည် ဦးဂျင်မီ (ခ) ဦးကျော်မင်းယု၊ ဦးဖြိုးဇေယျာသော်၊ ကိုလှမျိုးအောင် နှင့် ကိုအောင်သူရဇော်တို့ကို ပြစ်ဒဏ်စီရင်ဆောင်ရွက်ပြီးကြောင်း ၂၀၂၂ခုနှစ် ဇူလိုင်လ (၂၄) ရက်နေ့တွင် သတင်းထုတ်ပြန်ခဲ့သည်။ အဆိုပါ ပြစ်ဒဏ်စီရင်မှုသည် ပြဌာန်း သတ်မှတ်ထားသော ဥပဒေများ လုပ်ထုံးလုပ်နည်းများနှင့်ညီညွတ်မှု လုံးဝမရှိသော အကြမ်းဖက် လူသတ်မှု သက်သက်သာ ဖြစ်သည်။
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖေါ်ဝါရီလ (၉) ရက်နေ့တွင် နေပြည်တော်၌ မမြသွဲ့သွဲ့ခိုင်အား ကျည်အစစ်ဖြင့် ဦးခေါင်းသို့ ပစ်ခတ်ချိန်မှ စ၍ နေ့စဉ်ရက်ဆက် အကြမ်းဖက် သတ်ဖြတ်မှုများကို ဥပဒေမဲ့ လက်ရဲဇက်ရဲ ကျူးလွန်နေသော ဖက်ဆစ်စစ်အုပ်စု၏ ခွင့်မလွှတ်နိုင်သော နောက်ထပ် ရာဇဝတ်မှုကြီးတစ်ခု ဖြစ် သည်။ ထို့ပြင် ခေတ်အဆက်ဆက် ပြည်သူလူထုအား အထူးသဖြင့် လူနည်းစုတိုင်းရင်းသားများအား ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်စွာ ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သော ရာဇဝတ်မှုများအား ထပ်မံ အတည်ပြုခြင်းလည်းဖြစ်သည်။
အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီအား အပြုသဘောဖြင့် ဆက်ဆံချဉ်းကပ်ခြင်းသည် ပြေလည် စေမည့် အဖြေဖြစ်နိုင်လိမ့်မည်ဟု ယုံကြည်နေသူများအနေဖြင့်လည်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်တို့၏ သဘောထားအမှန်ကို နားလည်သဘောပေါက်သင့်ပြီဖြစ်သည်။
ထို့ကြောင့် နိုင်ငံရေးပါတီများ တော်လှန်ရေးအင်အားစုများ နှင့် ပြည်တွင်းပြည်ပရှိ ပြည်ထောင်စုဖွားအားလုံးသည် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီနှင့် ဖက်ဆစ်စနစ်ကို ကျွန်ုပ်တို့နှင့် ပူးပေါင်း၍ ညီညီညွတ်ညွတ်ဖြင့် ဖြစ်နိုင်ချေရှိသည့် နည်းလမ်းပေါင်းစုံဖြင့် အမြစ်ပြတ်သည်အထိ ပြတ်ပြတ် သားသားတော်လှန်ကြရန်ဖြစ်သည်။
နိုင်ငံတကာအဖွဲ့အစည်းများနှင့် မိတ်ဖက်နိုင်ငံများအနေဖြင့် နိုင်ငံရေးနည်းလမ်းကို ငြင်းပယ် ထားသော အကြမ်းဖက် ဖက်ဆစ်စစ်ကောင်စီကို အပြစ်ပေးအရေးယူနိုင်ရေး၊ ပိတ်ဆို့ဟန့်တားရေးနှင့် တော်လှန်ရေးကို ဆင်နွှဲနေသော ပြည်သူလူထုနှင့် အင်အားစုအားလုံးကို အဖက်ဖက်မှ ကူညီပံ့ပိုးရေး တို့ကို လက်တွေ့ကျကျ ထိရောက်စွာ အရှိန်မြှင့်ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးကြရန် တောင်းဆိုလိုက်သည်။
ပြည်သူ့တော်လှန်ရေ၏ပန်းတိုင်သည် ဖက်ဆစ်စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ်ကို အမြစ်ပြတ်ဆန့် ကျင် တိုက်ဖျက်ပြီးနောက် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီစနစ်ကို တည်ဆောက်ရန်ဖြစ်သည်ဟူသော အချက်မှာ တော်လှန်ရေး အင်အားစုများ၏ ဘုံတူညီသောရည်မှန်းချက်အဖြစ် ရှင်းလင်းပြတ်သားပြီးဖြစ်သည်။ ဤကြေညာချက်သည် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီအင်အားစုများ ဆင်နွဲနေသည့် ဖက်ဆစ် စစ်အာဏာရှင် စနစ်မြေလှန်ပစ်မည့် ပြည်သူ့တော်လှန်ရေး အဆုံးသတ်တိုက်ပွဲများ၏ ခရာတွတ်သံ ဖြစ်သည်။
ကျွန်ုပ်တို့သည် ပြည်သူလူထုတစ်ရပ်လုံး၏ အင်တိုက်အားတိုက် ပူးပေါင်းပါဝင်မှုဖြင့် နိုင်ငံရေး၊ စစ်ရေး၊ သံတမန်ရေး၊ အုပ်ချုပ်ရေး စစ်မျက်နှာစုံတွင် ဖြစ်နိုင်သည့် နည်းလမ်းအားလုံးကို အသုံးပြုပြီး ဖက်ဆစ်စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ် အမြစ်ဖြတ်မည့် ပြည်သူ့တော်လှန်ရေး အမြန်ဆုံးအောင်မြင်အောင် ညီညီညွတ်ညွတ် မဆုတ်မနစ် ဆန့်ကျင်တွန်းလှန်တိုက်ပွဲဝင်သွားမည်ဟု ခိုင်မာသော သန္နိဌာန်ဖြင့် အဓိဌာန်ပြုကြောင်း ကြေညာလိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
National Unity Government of Myanmar, Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, Karen National Union, Karenni National Progressive Party, Chin National Front, National League for Democracy and All Burma Students' Democratic Front
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-26
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Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners is devastated by news today from the military-controlled Global New Light of Myanmar[1], that Ko Jimmy (aka Kyaw Min Yu), Phyo Zayar Thaw, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw were executed over the weekend.
These four political prisoners were detained by an illegal and murderous junta. The trial was a kangaroo court. Any forced confessions the outcome of mental and physical abuse. Relatives and friends are in agony because of the actions of the Prison Department and junta leaders who have imposed an information blackout from inside the walls of Insein.
According to Chapter VIII Section XIV of the Burma Jail Manual, paragraph 660 the body of executed prisoners “shall be carried outside the main gate and there delivered over to them [relatives or friends]. In addition to this, per paragraph 661 when the sentence has been executed the Superintendent shall “return the warrant to the court from which it issued… certifying the manner in which the sentence has been carried out”. Even if the dead bodies have not been returned, paragraph 1027 stipulates that graves shall be marked with “the name of the deceased, his residence and the date of his death”.
And yet, the military junta is refusing to disclose their location and condition, with only vague wording and unclear messages following news the execution was carried out. Junta officials must verify the exact date and time the executions were carried out. As well as where the dead body is now.
AAPP Joint-Secretary U Bo Kyi said “If they executed the four it is a crime, Min Aung Hlaing committed murder. The junta is illegal, unelected by the people, they have no right to execute”. This appalling event must be a wake-up call for diplomats. Promises were supposedly made these executions – which could constitute a war crime and crime against humanity[2] – would not take place.
The last execution of political prisoners was between 1986 and 1987, when three Karen resistance fighters were condemned by the previous murderous junta. Junta leaders are again telling the world they refuse dialogue. As Tom Andrews, UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar put it, “the status quo of international inaction must be firmly rejected”.
Since the coup 76 political prisoners have been sentenced to death under detention, while 41 others are evading a death sentence warrant. In total, 117 sentenced to death political prisoners..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-25
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"France strongly condemns the execution, announced on July 25, of four political prisoners by the military regime in Burma that came to power through the coup of February 1, 2021. They are writer Kyaw Min Yu, former National League for Democracy lawmaker Phyo Zayar Thaw, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw. With no executions reported in the country for more than 30 years, these executions represent a major step backward and a further escalation in the atrocities committed by the Burmese junta since the coup d’état.
France reaffirms its staunch opposition to the death penalty everywhere and in all circumstances. We remain firmly committed to the universal abolition of this unjust, inhuman and ineffective punishment. We call on all nations that still apply the death penalty to place it under a moratorium ahead of its ultimate abolition.
France reiterates its call for the release of all those who have been arbitrarily detained since February 1, 2021; for an end to the violence perpetrated by the Burmese military regime; and for the establishment of a dialogue that includes all stakeholders. France’s support for the Burmese people, whose courage we salute, remains unchanged..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-25
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Human Rights and international relations, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"25 July 2022: The summary executions of political prisoners are further abhorrent acts of terror by a military junta desperately trying to ensure its own survival. The United Nations (UN) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) must stop shamefully failing the Myanmar people and finally take concerted action against the junta, says the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M).
Myanmar military propaganda reported today that democracy activists Kyaw Min Yu, also known as “Ko Jimmy,” and Phyo Zeya Thaw, also a former member of parliament, as well as two other men, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, were executed in prison. The military first announced its plans to carry out the executions in June 2022.
The four individuals were sentenced to death by a military tribunal acting contrary to international standards of justice and due process. The courts in Myanmar under the control of the military junta are not independent and work only to serve the interests of the junta.
“The military has been executing Myanmar people in their thousands for the last 60 years and these are but the latest,” said Chris Sidoti of SAC-M. “What makes these executions especially revolting, however, is the military’s blatant attempt to give them the appearance of judicial legitimacy, though the military court was a sham, a mockery of justice, fairness and due process. No one is fooled.”
The Myanmar military has been losing ground to the democratic resistance since it launched a failed coup eighteen months ago. The junta is detaining at least 11,759 political prisoners in its jails without access to legal representation, including many of the 114 people it has sentenced to death since February 2021. 41 people have been sentenced to death in absentia. Multiple, credible reports have been made of systematic torture, sometimes resulting in death, occurring in military detention.
Across the country the junta is committing further massive human rights violations in an attempt to crush democratic resistance, but it is unable to defeat the national uprising revolting against Myanmar’s long-established military-dominated system.
“The military junta is acting with total barbarism. The despicable execution of these four men – that amount to summary executions – are intended entirely to drive fear into the hearts of anyone opposing the junta. That is an act of terror by any UN definition,” said Marzuki Darusman of SAC-M. “The junta is a massive militarised force that is waging war against the civilian population of Myanmar and is therefore primary accountable for the highest degree of violence currently prevailing, which these executions are the most manifest. The junta fails to understand that every act of brutality is only strengthening the resolve of the entire nation against it.”
The international community has failed shamefully to protect the Myanmar people from the junta’s extreme and escalating violence. UN Member States have been slow to grant formal recognition to the National Unity Government of Myanmar (NUG). The UN Security Council is yet to even table a single resolution on Myanmar, despite the gravity of the situation and the threat to international peace and security.
The ASEAN Five-Point Consensus agreed with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing in April 2021 is a failure with the junta making no progress towards its implementation. Current ASEAN Chair, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, wrote publicly to Min Aung Hlaing requesting that he refrain from carrying out the planned executions. By going ahead with them, Min Aung Hlaing has demonstrated that no one has the diplomatic leverage to curb his atrocities.
“It is long past time for a new approach to Myanmar’s crisis,” said Yanghee Lee of SAC-M. “The international failure of the Myanmar people cannot continue. Min Aung Hlaing and his illegal barbaric junta are not people that can be reasoned with. The UN and ASEAN must exert as much pressure on the junta as possible to bring this crisis to an end.”
SAC-M is calling for all UN Member States to formally recognise the NUG. The UN Security Council should pass a resolution on Myanmar referring the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC). States parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC should also refer the situation in Myanmar to the Court. If the ICC cannot act, then the General Assembly or the Human Rights Council should establish a special tribunal on Myanmar to begin the prosecutorial process and bring Min Aung Hlaing, the junta leaders and their cronies to justice.
SAC-M calls on ASEAN to maintain permanently its rejection of Min Aung Hlaing and the military junta from participation in ASEAN meetings as a consequence of its abrogation of the Five-Point Consensus and contempt for the efforts of successive ASEAN Chairs. SAC-M calls on ASEAN to work with the NUG to develop a new roadmap towards resolving the crisis, beginning with the urgent provision of cross-border humanitarian assistance..."
Source/publisher:
Special Advisory Council for Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-25
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Type:
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"ကိုဂျင်မီ (ခ) ကိုကျော်မင်းယု၊ ကိုဖြိုးဇေယျာသော်၊ ကိုလှမျိုးအောင်နှင့် ကိုအောင်သူရဇော်တို့ကို ပြီးခဲ့သော သတင်းပတ်တွင် သေဒဏ်ပေးလိုက်ပြီးဖြစ်ကြောင်း မြန်မာ့အလင်းသတင်းစာတွင်[1] ယနေ့ထုတ်ပြန်လိုက် သည့် သတင်းကြောင့် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေး အသင်းအနေဖြင့် အထူးဝမ်းနည်း ကြေကွဲရပါသည်။
မတရားသဖြင့် တိုင်းပြည်အာဏာကို လုယူထားသည့် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုသည် ထိုနိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား (၄) ဦးကို ဖမ်းဆီးခဲ့ပြီး ဥပဒေဘောင်မဝင်သော တရားရုံးတွင် စစ်ဆေးခဲ့ကြသည်။ စိတ်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ၊ ရုပ်ပိုင်း ဆိုင်ရာ နှိပ်စက်ခဲ့ကြပြီး အတင်းအကြပ် ဝန်ခံထွက်ခိုင်းစေမှုများ လုပ်ခဲ့ကြသည်။ အကျဉ်းဦးစီးဌာနနှင့် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်များ၏ အင်းစိန်ထောင်အတွင်းမှ သတင်းအချက်အလက်များကို ဖုံးကွယ်ထား မှုကြောင့် ဆွေမျိုးသားချင်းများနှင့် မိတ်ဆွေများသည် ပူပန်သောက ရောက်ကြရသည်။
မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ အကျဉ်းထောင်လက်စွဲ အခန်း ၈၊ ပုဒ်မ ၁၄၊ အပိုဒ် ၆၆၀ အရ သေဒဏ်ကွပ်မျက်ခံရသော အကျဥ်းသားများ၏ ခန္ဓာကိုယ်အား “ထောင်အကျဥ်းတံခါးပေါက်အပြင်သို့ သယ်ဆောင်သွားပြီးနောက် ထိုနေရာတွင် ဆွေမျိုးများ (သို့) မိတ်ဆွေများထံ ပေးအပ်ရမည်”ဟု ပြဌာန်းထားသည်။ ထို့အပြင် အပိုဒ် ၆၆၁ အရ ပြစ်ဒဏ်အမိန့်အတိုင်း သေဒဏ်ကွပ်မျက်ဆောင်ရွက်ပြီးလျှင် “အကျဥ်းထောင်တာဝန်ခံသည် (ဝရမ်းအား ထုတ်ဆင့်သည့် တရားရုံးသို့ ပြန်လည်ပေးပို့ပြီး) ဝရမ်းထုတ်ပေးသည့် တရားရုံးသို့ ပြစ်ဒဏ်အမိန့်အတိုင်း မည်သို့ ဆောင်ရွက်ပြီးစီးကြောင်းကို အောက်ပါပုံစံဖြင့် မှန်ကန်ကြောင်း ထောက်ခံချက်ပြုလုပ်ပြီး ပြန်ပို့ပေး ရမည်”ဟု ဖော်ပြပါရှိသည်။ သေဆုံးသူ၏ရုပ်အလောင်းကို အထူးအကြောင်းတစ်စုံတရာကြောင့် ပြန်လည် မပေးအပ်ခဲ့လျှင် “မြှုပ်နှံသော သင်္ချိုင်းမြေနေရာများတွင် သေဆုံးသူ၏ အမည်၊ နေရပ်လိပ်စာနှင့် သေဆုံး သည့် နေ့ရက်တို့ကို မှတ်သားထားရှိရမည်”ဟု အကျဉ်းထောင်လက်စွဲ အပိုဒ် ၁၀၂၇ တွင် ပြဌာန်းထားသည်။
သို့သော်လည်း အထက်ဖော်ပြပါ ပုဂ္ဂိုလ် (၄) ဦးကို သေဒဏ်ပေးခံရသည့် သတင်းများထွက်ရှိလာပြီးနောက် စစ်အာဏာရှင်များက သေဒဏ်ပေးခံရသူတို့နှင့် ပတ်သက်သည့် တည်နေရာနှင့် အခြေအနေများကို ရှင်းရှင်း လင်းလင်း ထုတ်ပြန်ထားခြင်းမရှိသေးပါ။ စစ်အုပ်စု တာဝန်ရှိသူများအနေဖြင့် သေဒဏ်ပေးခဲ့သည့် နေ့ရက်၊ အချိန်အတိအကျနှင့် အခုလက်ရှိ ရုပ်အလောင်းကို မည့်သည့်နေရာမှာထားရှိသည်ကို အတည်ပြု ထုတ်ပြန် ရမည်ဖြစ်သည်။
နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဥ်းသားများ ကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း (AAPP)၏ တွဲဖက်အတွင်းရေးမှူး ဦးဘိုကြည်က “ဒါလူသတ်မှုကျူးလွန်တာပဲ။ သူတို့က တရားဝင် ရွေးကောက်တင်မြှောက်ခံထားရတဲ့ အစိုးရမဟုတ်ဘူး။ သူတို့မှာ ဒါမျိုးလုပ်ခွင့်မရှိဘူး။ အခုလို လူသတ်အလောင်းဖျောက်တဲ့လုပ်ရပ်ဟာ သူရဲဘောကြောင်သူတွေရဲ့ လုပ်ရပ်သာ ဖြစ်ပြီး အကြီးမားဆုံး ရာဇဝတ်မှုကို ကျူးလွန်လိုက်တာ ဖြစ်တယ်”ဟု မှတ်ချက်ပြုသည်။ ဤ ထိတ်လန့်တုန်လှုပ်စရာ သေဒဏ်ပေးသည့်ဖြစ်ရပ်သည် နိုင်ငံတကာသံတမန်များ အနေဖြင့် စစ်အုပ်စု၏ ရက် စက်၍ လူမဆန်သောလုပ်ရပ်များအတွက် ပြန်လည်သတိမူနိုးကြားလာရမည့် ကိစ္စရပ်ပင်ဖြစ်သည်။ စစ်အုပ်စု ကို ထောက်ခံသည့် နိုင်ငံတကာအာဏာရှင်များက စစ်အုပ်စုအနေဖြင့် နိုင်ငံတကာရာဇဝတ်မှုများတွင် အကျုံး ဝင်နိုင်သည့်[2] သေဒဏ်ကိုလက်တွေ့ကျင့်သုံးခြင်းမျိုး မပြုတန်ရာဟု ပြောဆိုနှစ်သိမ့်ခဲ့ကြသော်လည်း အမှန် တကယ်အားဖြင့်မူ စစ်အုပ်စုက ၎င်း၏သရုပ်မှန်ကို ဖော်ပြခဲ့ပြီဖြစ်သည်။
ယခင် ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ကြီးနေဝင်းဦးဆောင်သည့် စစ်အစိုးရလက်ထက်တွင် ကရင်တော်လှန်ရေး တိုက်ပွဲဝင် ရဲဘော် (၃) ဦးကို ၁၉၈၆ ခုနှစ်နှင့် ၁၉၈၇ ခုနှစ် တို့၌ သေဒဏ်စီရင်ချက်ချမှတ်ခဲ့ခြင်းသည် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကို နောက်ဆုံး သေဒဏ်ပေးခဲ့သည့် ဖြစ်ရပ်ဖြစ်သည်။ ယခုကဲ့သို့ ဥပဒေမဲ့ကွပ်မျက်လိုက်ခြင်းသည် စစ်အုပ်စု အနေဖြင့် နိုင်ငံရေးအရတွေ့ဆုံ ဆွေးနွေးမှုမလုပ်နိုင်ဟု ငြင်းဆိုလိုက်ခြင်းပင်ဖြစ်သည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံဆိုင်ရာ ကုလသမဂ္ဂ လူ့အခွင့်အရေး အထူးကိုယ်စားလှယ် Tom Andrews က “နိုင်ငံတကာရဲ့ နဂိုနေမြဲအတိုင်း နေနေ တဲ့ အနေအထားကို ပြတ်ပြတ်သားသားပယ်ချရမယ်” ဟုဆိုထားသည်။
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးချိန်မှစ၍ ယနေ့အထိ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုက နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား (၇၆) ဦးကို သေဒဏ်ပြစ်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ထားသည်။ ထို့အပြင် (၄၁) ဦးမှာ မျက်ကွယ်သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခံထားရသည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် လက်ရှိအချိန်ထိ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် သေဒဏ်ပေးခံရသည့် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား စုစုပေါင်း (၁၁၇) ဦး ရှိနေ သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-25
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Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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Sub-title:
The three senior election officials, including UEC chair Hla Thein, have been in regime custody since last year’s coup
Description:
"The ousted chair of Myanmar’s Union Election Commission (UEC) and two other senior election officials have each been sentenced to three years in prison.
UEC chair Hla Thein, secretary Myint Naing, and commission member Than Htay were sentenced under Section 130a of the Penal Code last Thursday, according to court sources.
The charge is related to alleged violations of electoral laws during the 2020 general election, which Myanmar’s military claimed was marred by massive voter fraud.
All three were tried by a special court inside Naypyitaw Prison. They have been in regime custody since the military seized power in a coup on February 1 of last year.
Hla Thein, a 74-year-old former professor from Meiktila University, was appointed chair of the UEC after the 2015 election, which the now-deposed ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won in a landslide.
Myint Naing, who is also 74 years old, was also the UEC’s spokesperson. He joined the commission prior to 2015 and had also served as a parliamentary advisor on legal matters.
According to Khin Maung Oo, a member of the new, junta-appointed UEC, the cases against the three defendants were among 373 filed by the commission since last year’s military takeover. At a press conference held in Naypyitaw on July 1, he said that action had already been taken in 369 cases.
Despite the military’s claims of widespread voter fraud, the UEC revealed earlier this year that it had discovered just over 3,200 instances of double voting and other irregularities, representing barely more than 0.1% of the votes cast in 2020.
The junta has also used its claims of a stolen election to lay charges against senior leaders of Myanmar’s elected civilian government, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint.
It has also imprisoned and fined a total of 2,173 local election workers for allegedly failing to ensure that votes were cast and counted correctly..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-11
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, The 2020 General Elections in Burma/Myanmar, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
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"This report aims to tackle the impunity of junta military leaders for crimes violating international norms of jus cogens. As the National Unity Government (NUG), the legitimate representative of the state, is currently ‘unable’ to ensure fair functioning of domestic courts, and as it has lodged a declaration with the ICC accepting the court’s jurisdiction under article 12 (3) of the Rome statute on August 20, 2021, the court has jurisdiction to prosecute perpetrators of atrocity crimes committed from 2002 on. AAPP argues that military leaders should be held accountable for the crimes committed by their subordinates as per the Rome Statute in all cases where their active (art. 25) or passive (art. 28) responsibility can be incurred..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-08
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, International Criminal Court, Human Rights and international relations
Language:
Format :
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422.64 (5 pages), KB 2.72 MB (87 pages) - Original version. 422.64 KB
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"နိုင်ငံတကာဥပဒေ၏ အခြေခံနှုန်းစံများအားဖေါက်ဖျက်သည့်ရာဇဝတ်မှုများအတွက် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်အုပ်စုခေါင်းဆောင်များ၏ ပြစ်ဒဏ်မှ ကင်းလွတ်ခွင့်ရနေခြင်းကို တားဆီးရပ်တန့်ရန် ဤအစီရင်ခံစာက ရည်ရွယ်ပါသည်။ ပြည်သူလူထုကို တရားဝင်ကိုယ်စားပြုသော အမျိုးသား ညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ (NUG) သည် လက်ရှိတွင် ပြည်တွင်းတရားရုံးများကို လွတ်လပ်စွာ လုပ်ငန်းလည်ပတ်စေနိုင်သည့် အခြေအနေ မရှိသေးရာ၊ ရောမစာချုပ်၏ ပုဒ်မ ၁၂(၃) အရ နိုင်ငံတကာရာဇဝတ်ခုံရုံး တရားခွင်တွင် ICC ၏ စီရင်ပိုင်ခွင့်ကို လက်ခံကြောင်း ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဩဂုတ်လ ၂၀ ရက်တွင် ကြေညာချက် ထုတ်ပြန်ခဲ့ပြီး ဖြစ်သည့်အတွက်၊ ၂၀၀၂ ခုနှစ်မှ နောက်ပိုင်းကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သော ဖိနှိပ်ရက်စက်၊ သတ်ဖြတ် မှုများအတွက် ကျူးလွန်သူများအား တရားစွဲအပြစ်ပေးရန် ခုံရုံးက စီရင်ပိုင်ခွင့်ရှိမည် ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ရောမစာချုပ်အရ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု ခေါင်းဆောင်များအနေဖြင့် ၎င်းတို့ကိုယ်တိုင်ဖြစ်စေ (ပုဒ်မ ၂၅)၊ အခြားသူများကြောင့်ဖြစ်စေ(ပုဒ်မ ၂၈) ဖြစ်ပေါ်စေခဲ့သော အဆိုပါဖြစ်စဉ်များ အားလုံးတွင် ၎င်းတို့၏ လက်အောက်ငယ်သားများကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သော ရာဇဝတ်မှုများအတွက် တာဝန်ခံကြရမည်ဟု အေအေပီပီက အခိုင် အမာယုံကြည်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-08
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Crimes Against Humanity, Human Rights and international relations
Language:
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470.61 (6 pages), KB 3.16 MB (87 pgaes) - Original version 470.61 KB
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"The Myanmar military has been blocked from livestreaming MRTV broadcasts by Dacast, a live streaming and video hosting company, based in California.
MRTV is a national broadcaster controlled by the illegitimate Myanmar military junta, under its information ministry, and had been using Dacast to livestream broadcasts on its new MRTV website and mobile apps.
The Myanmar military uses MRTV to disseminate hate speech and disinformation.
Justice For Myanmar contacted Dacast warning about the Myanmar military’s use of their software. A Dacast representative replied, “We had no prior knowledge of the customers use case and will investigate the issue thoroughly. If it breaches our terms we will take action.” Dacast declined to comment further.
Hours later, the livestream on the MRTV website and apps displayed the message, “The broadcaster of this content has been blocked”.
Dacast’s Terms of Service allow for immediate termination of service without notice, when used for illegal purposes, to violate the rights of a third party and for other legal or regulatory reasons.
The MRTV website and apps were first launched by war criminal Min Aung Hlaing on May 4, 2022.
Justice For Myanmar publicly called out the Iowa-based company, Apps Web Social LLC, which had published the MRTV apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play in May. They were removed from the App Store and Google Play on May 5, and the website was taken down.
The website has since been republished under a new domain, and the apps are again available in the Apple App Store and Google Play.
The registrar for the junta’s new domain name, mrtv-media.com, is GoDaddy.com, also a US company.
MRTV continues to publish on Twitter and Telegram.
The illegal junta’s State Administrative Council (SAC), which has control over MRTV, is sanctioned in the US, raising questions over whether tech companies are compliant with US sanctions.
The junta’s former information minister, Chit Naing, was sanctioned by the US on July 2, 2021, shortly before he was replaced by Maung Maung Ohn.
MRTV is banned from Facebook, as part of a ban against the Myanmar military and its businesses.
Justice For Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung says: “We welcome Dacast’s swift action when notified that the illegitimate Myanmar military junta, a terrorist organisation, was using their software to spread hate speech and disinformation.
“It is deplorable that companies including Apple, Alphabet, Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Telegram and Twitter continue to do business with the Myanmar military and allow its junta to use their technology against the people of Myanmar.
“The junta targets human rights defenders, journalists and democracy activists with total impunity. More than 2,000 people have been murdered by the junta, with over 14,000 arrested, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Its deliberate attacks against the people, indiscriminate airstrikes, shelling, rape and torture amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“We call on tech companies to act swiftly, in accordance with their global human rights responsibilities, and ban the Myanmar military and its businesses, including MRTV and the military’s mobile operator, Mytel.”..."
Source/publisher:
Justice For Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-06
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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150.76 KB 100.37 KB
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"A transgender prisoner detained in Sagaing Region’s Monywa Prison for anti-junta activities has been sexually abused by a prison officer, said LGBT Alliance-Myanmar.
Prison officer Zaw Zaw Aung, also known as Paline, forced the prisoner into performing oral sex on him on June 30 and also attempted to have anal sex, said the Monywa Strike Committee.
The LGBT Alliance-Myanmar issued a statement condemning the sexual assault. Justin Min Hein, a spokesperson for the LGBT Union Mandalay, said that the report came from credible sources inside Monywa Prison and that the group is making further inquiries.
The transgender prisoner was detained at home around one month ago and charged with incitement. The prisoner has reportedly been forced to wear male clothes while in jail.
Justin Min Hein said: “Anyone subjected to sexual violence, not just LGBT people, can be demoralized. We feel emotional and discouraged when we hear about such cases. I can’t help respecting the prisoner for having the courage to speak out about the abuse.”
The prison officer perpetrator reportedly often beats political prisoners when he is drunk.
“Similar things happen in other prisons across the country,” said a member of LGBT Alliance-Myanmar. The group said it would report the case to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and ask for its intervention.
In March, rights groups called on the ICRC to probe human rights violations in the country’s jails and the use of sexual violence against political prisoners.
However, the regime has rejected the ICRC’s request to resume its prison visits and other humanitarian activities and allow family visits. Prison visits by the ICRC and families of detainees have been suspended since March 2020, following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Former political prisoner U Tun Kyi said: “A prison officer sexually assaulting a LGBTQ person is not something unusual anymore. They do it as if it was part of their daily routine. They are officially licensed to do so. It is indisputably one of the worst and gravest human rights violations.”
Since the coup, female detainees have especially suffered from sexual abuse inside prisons, but sexual assaults on male and LGBTQ prisoners are on the increase.
In October last year, Shin Thant, an advocate for LGBTQ rights in Mandalay, was detained after junta troops rammed a car into her. The activist was sexually abused during her interrogation.
Over 20 LGBTQ detainees have experienced sexual assaults in prisons, according to sources.
LGBTIQ groups in Myanmar have actively participated in anti-regime protests since last year’s coup and so have been targeted by the military regime..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2022-07-05
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Sexual orientation - Discrimination based on
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Description:
"Three days after her 77th birthday, Myanmar’s leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi found herself in a prison of one of the most ruthless regimes in the world.
It’s hard for anyone to imagine themselves in her shoes—from a pro-democracy fighter to a prisoner, from a prisoner to the country’s elected leader, from the elected leader to a prisoner again.
At this age, she must be the unluckiest person or politician in the world to be subject to solitary confinement in prison. Worse, she is a prisoner of a brutal and wicked regime.
That’s her choice, however. Life is a choice.
If it’s a fault, then it has been her fault since the start. Consciously, she chose this life.
Since 1988, she has taken up the cause to fight for “the country’s second independence struggle”, in her own words, for her country and its people to be free from dictatorship.
She must have known that one day her life was likely to end this way.
At least, it must have occurred to her on Feb. 1, 2021 when she became a prisoner again when the military seized power after overthrowing her elected government.
As a sensible and mindful person, she must since then have prepared to spend time alone in prison.
Perhaps this time the 77-year-old was prepared for worse things, or even the worst—to face death behind bars—given the regime’s lengthy sentences against her.
No doubt that is the final mission of her captors.
She should have known that the junta and its chief Min Aung Hlaing himself were planning to end the political life she’s chosen, and her own life too, the one her mother brought into this world.
She has been the biggest thorn in the side of the ruling generals ever since she first shook their grip on power.
Thus, the generals tried to keep her away from politics with the punishments below:
Detaining her under house arrest for 15 years over the past three decades. Annulling the electoral victories of her party. Overthrowing her elected government. Crippling her popular party. Slaying her supporters. Sentencing her to lengthy imprisonment terms. Keeping her under house arrest until recently.
All these punishments were not enough.
Sending her to prison on Wednesday was a part of their final mission.
This time, the generals seriously intend to get rid of her, unlike before. A lucky thing for them now is her age.
Min Aung Hlaing, his deputy generals and his former senior generals as mentors will feel lucky that soon they can rest assured she will draw her very last breath in prison.
But for the people of Myanmar, they have lost their leader again after losing her repeatedly in the past following her multiple arrests.
They can’t help appreciating her selfless efforts for their country. They can feel her true feeling for them. They respect her and love her. They voted for her whenever they got the chance to exercise their democratic right at polling stations.
She and her party repeatedly won landslide victories over the past three decades.She is their sole representative. She is more representative than other elected leaders around the world.
By sending their leader to prison it seems that the generals were punishing the people for voting for her.
Whatever the junta did to her was done to the Myanmar people too.
Annulling the 2020 election result was itself the junta’s attack on the people who voted for her party. The junta is waging a war against the people.
The leader suffers and the people suffer too.
To err is human, and she is no exception.
She was wrong to believe in reconciliation with the military leaders. Totally wrong. But she was not alone. At that time, many believed that working with the military was the only option.
That was a general idea or concept at that time—to try, as the best option, to rebuild the country together with the country’s most powerful institution.
That notion lasted until the coup in 2021 but is now a relic of the past. The coup destroyed that political idea. People in Myanmar no longer accept it.
Another thing she was wrong about was the generals’ genocidal intent.
She didn’t think the generals had genocidal intent when their troops committed atrocities against the Rohingya in Rakhine State in 2017.
In fact, Myanmar’s generals have not been professional military officers for a very long time. They long ago became “a bunch of thugs” killing innocent people, willing to destroy any ethnic people or any political group or party.
After the coup last year, the genocidal intent with which they killed many people indiscriminately was shown again.
The generals also proved that they are no more than a bunch of thugs. That’s what the people believe too.
So most people have given up on the idea of negotiating with these thugs at all. What they all seek is to uproot the military and found a new army to serve the people.
That’s what the people want their leader to understand too. No more reconciliation with that bunch of thugs. She must be with the people. Otherwise, she can’t represent the people. But history has proved that she is always a leader of the people.
Because she is the one the thuggish generals fear most. That’s why she has been arrested and attacked much more than any other leading activist or politician in the country. She is the biggest enemy for them, as most people support her.
That means she is on the right side of the people. She has continued to fight together with the people for what the people want.
That’s why on her birthday on Sunday, even young protesters in urban areas and young resistance fighters in their military outfits celebrated her birthday as their leader.
Let’s see if the ruthless generals will accomplish their final mission, which is against the people’s will. Previously, she has always survived the regime’s arrests, attempts to assassinate her and all of their wicked plots against her.
She is thin but strong. She is old but determined. She is alone but mindful. She is locked up but peaceful..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2022-06-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
About Aung San Suu Kyi, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
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"Human Rights Watch says the moving of detained 77-year-old State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi into solitary confinement in Naypyitaw Prison is an attempt to break her will which will backfire.
“What we are seeing is the Myanmar junta moving towards a much more punitive phase, towards Aung San Suu Kyi,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for the New York-based NGO. “They are obviously trying to intimidate her and her supporters.”
According to sources, the ousted leader predicted she would be transferred to prison and arranged to leave behind all her possessions not required for her trial.
Agence France-Presse reported that she remained in strong spirits after being moved from house arrest on Wednesday, quoting a legal source.
Robertson told AFP that the junta may think it is showing its strength but it will backfire and boost the resistance movement.
Ko Bo Kyi of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners told The Irrawaddy: “They may think the prison is safer and maybe that it will trouble her more mentally and physically and disconnect her more from the environment.”
The regime has held Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest since last year’s coup in which her government was ousted. It followed her resounding victory in the November 2020 general election.
She has won in every election by a landslide she and her party have contested.
The junta moved her to an unknown location in Naypyitaw in April 2021 where she was accompanied by a few of her staff and her dog.
In solitary confinement, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will have three female prison staff.
The Nobel peace laureate faces numerous charges, carrying a combined sentence of over 100 years.
She remains hugely popular with the electorate.
On Sunday resistance fighters, striking civil servants, anti-regime protesters, political prisoners and expats marked her 77th birthday and called for her release.
Three days later, the state counselor was moved into solitary confinement.
Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told reporters on Thursday that the global body was “very concerned” for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
“The junta’s move goes against everything we’ve been calling for, which was her release and the release of all of the other political prisoners,” Dujarric said.
Since the coup, the junta has detained more than 14,000 people, including elected leaders, lawmakers, activists, students, peaceful protesters and striking civil servants..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2022-06-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
About Aung San Suu Kyi, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
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"Dealing a new blow to detained Myanmar democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the military junta has ordered that she be moved to Naypyitaw Prison on Wednesday from an undisclosed location where she has been under house arrest, according to sources close to the matter.
She will be held in solitary confinement in a small isolated building within the prison, the sources said.
The Myanmar Police Force’s Special Branch informed Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her lawyers of the transfer during a hearing on Tuesday at a special court in Naypyitaw, where she has been tried on more than a dozen charges filed by the regime.
The reason for the transfer wasn’t clear yet.
The regime has held Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who turned 77 on Sunday, under house arrest since the coup in February last year. It moved her to an unknown location in Naypyitaw in April 2021.
Under the previous military regime she spent 15 years under house arrest, ending in 2011.
It will be the second time she has been incarcerated in a prison. In 2009, the previous regime transferred Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from her home to Yangon’s Insein Prison for four months for violating the rules of her house arrest after an American intruded onto her property.
After her move to Naypyitaw Prison on Wednesday, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s ongoing trials will be conducted at a special court inside the prison. So far the regime court has sentenced her to 11 years in prison.
If found guilty on all counts, she will spend the rest of her life behind bars, as the charges carry a combined sentence of more than 100 years.
Since her house arrest last year, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been assisted by seven people detained with her, and has had the companionship of her dog.
It was not clear whether her aides would be released upon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s transfer to the prison.
The move to the prison has prompted concerns about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s wellbeing, especially given her old age.
On Wednesday, Myanmar’s detained President U Win Myint was also reportedly moved to Naypyitaw Prison from house arrest. The Irrawaddy was unable to independently confirm the report, however..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2022-06-22
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
About Aung San Suu Kyi, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
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Description:
"The Independent Mechanism for Myanmar is closely following events surrounding the recent announcement by the Myanmar military that it intends to carry out death sentences imposed on four individuals by military courts following non-public trials. Imposing a death sentence, or even a period of detention, on the basis of proceedings that do not satisfy the basic requirements of a fair trial may constitute one or more crimes against humanity or war crimes.
The Myanmar military announced on 3 June 2022 that it intends to execute four individuals who have been sentenced to death by a military court. The available information strongly suggests that under international law, fundamental rights of the convicted persons were blatantly violated in these proceedings. One of the most fundamental attributes of a fair trial is that it be held in public to the greatest extent possible. Exceptions based on national security or other considerations must be limited to the extent that they are strictly justified.[1] Yet it appears that there were no public proceedings nor are the judgments publicly available. The secrecy of proceedings is itself a violation of one of the most basic principles of a fair trial, and casts doubt on whether any of the other fair trial guarantees have been respected, such as the requirement that the tribunal was impartial and independent.
Imposing a prison or death sentence in such circumstances could constitute crimes against humanity or war crimes. The crime against humanity of persecution is the severe denial of a person’s fundamental rights under international law when committed on discriminatory grounds, such as a person’s political affiliation. Imprisonment as a crime against humanity is committed when a person is detained without due process of law, including in violation of fundamental rules of international law. It is also a war crime to impose sentences and carry out executions without a judgement by a regularly constituted court, affording all judicial guarantees which are generally recognized as indispensable. National laws or procedures relied upon to justify a conviction and sentence must not violate international law.
In particularly egregious situations, such as those presented in the Nuremberg case of Altstötter et al., the imposition of the death penalty following proceedings that blatantly violate basic fair trial rights – including holding such proceedings entirely in secret and without proper records – can lead to the inference of a “mock trial” that “is not a judicial proceeding but a murder.”[2] The participation of those involved in such proceedings is not excused on the basis that they were merely following domestic law. Even judges and prosecutors, as in the Altstötter case, can be found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their roles in such proceedings.
The Mechanism will continue to monitor and collect evidence in relation to these cases, and any other cases involving the imposition of the death penalty in circumstances that appear to violate fundamental fair trial guarantees..."
Source/publisher:
United Nations
Date of entry/update:
2022-06-20
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
Language:
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Description:
"More than 10 people held in Yangon’s Insein Prison by Myanmar’s military regime for anti-junta activities were injured in a beating by the prison authorities, according to sources close to the prison where hundreds of activists are being held and face prosecution.
Some political prisoners from Thabyay ward in Insein staged a hunger strike on June 8 against the junta’s decision to execute four dissidents, including prominent 88 Generation student leader Ko Jimmy and National League for Democracy lawmaker Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw.
Some also complained about forced labor to a director of the Correctional Department who visited the prison the following day.
Prison officers were angry with their complaints and ordered staff and criminal inmates to beat 11 political prisoners who made complaints.
One of them had a rib cracked, another had his forearm broken and another had his nose torn. Among the torture victims were a priest, doctor, lawyer and engineer.
The Thabyay warden reportedly told political prisoners: “You can report your beating. We just need a piece of paper [to show our commanders] why you died.” Prison staff also reportedly swore and made threats.
The prisoners’ health conditions are unknown. Those who participated in the hunger strike have been moved to other wards, said a source.
“They were forced to work on prison farms for 12 hours a day. They were told to pay 150,000 kyats if they don’t want to work on the farm. If they refused, they were forced to sleep in a crowded cell. Around 120 prisoners were in a cell which can only hold 60 people,” said the source.
The prison authorities have cut off electricity and water to the women’s ward since a strike, forcing inmates to drink toilet water. Many are suffering from diarrhea.
Last month, the prison authorities failed to take a pregnant woman having a difficult labor to hospital and the baby was stillborn, prompting women detainees to strike.
Sources said the woman who lost her baby and her husband were prosecuted and jailed on political charges. Their details are unknown.
A former prison officer said: “I suspect that they are deliberately and systematically torturing political prisoners. I never saw such awful things when I worked in the prison. They appear to be trying to inflict permanent trauma on inmates.”
Prison commander Zaw Lin Aung and supervisor Aung Ko Oo are responsible for torture in Insein, said sources. Several criminal inmates are involved in beating political prisoners at the instruction of Zaw Lin Aung and Aung Ko Ko, said sources.
Zaw Lin Aung is a former military officer who was transferred to the Correctional Department after the 2021 coup. Observers said the regime has replaced civilian staff with military personnel in prisons across the country to torture political prisoners.
The torture of political prisoners has been the most severe at Insein, Obo Prison in Mandalay, Monywa Prison in Sagaing and Hpa-an Prison in Karen State, according to observers.
On June 6, when political prisoners raised objections to a plan to keep them with convicted criminals in Hpa-an, the authorities fired warning shots and attacked with catapults and bamboo sticks, injuring around 60 political prisoners.
Political prisoners were beaten following a brawl in Obo on June 5. Two political prisoners were stabbed by prison staff and at least 10 others were injured. Political prisoners were subsequently kept in solitary confinement..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2022-06-14
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Free All Wrongfully Imprisoned; End Capital Punishment
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"(New York) – Myanmar’s military junta announced on June 3, 2022, that it would execute four people whose appeals were rejected following grossly unjust closed-door trials, Human Rights Watch said today. The activist Kyaw Min Yu, known as “Ko Jimmy,” and the opposition lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw were sentenced to death on January 21 by a military tribunal under Myanmar’s overbroad Counterterrorism Law of 2014.
Military tribunals in Myanmar have sentenced 114 people to death since the February 2021 military coup, including 41 in absentia. The United Nations (UN), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and concerned governments should press the junta to immediately release all those wrongfully imprisoned, including Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy, and commute all death sentences.
“Myanmar military courts’ disregard of basic rights was evident in the farcical trials and death sentences of Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy,” said Manny Maung, Myanmar researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These secretive tribunals with their lightning convictions are aimed at chilling any dissent against the military junta.”
On October 24, 2021, soldiers arrested Ko Jimmy, 52, in Yangon’s North Dagon township. The authorities had issued a warrant for his arrest on February 13, 2021, for allegedly inciting unrest and taking part in “terrorism”, both offenses under the Counterterrorism Law. The soldiers severely beat Ko Jimmy during his arrest and tortured him in custody, his family said.
On November 18, soldiers and police arrested Phyo Zeya Thaw, 41, during a raid on a housing complex in Yangon’s Dagon Seikkan township. A military court charged the former National League for Democracy legislator and hip-hop artist under the Counterterrorism Law and the Public Property Protection Act with leading deadly shootings on pro-military targets.
A junta spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, announced that the two men would be “hanged according to prison procedures,” but said that no date had been set for the executions. Two other men, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, who were convicted for killing an alleged military informant, would also be hanged, the spokesperson said. The military has not revealed where Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy are, and the men have not been seen since their arrests, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy were arrested in townships in which the junta has declared martial law. In imposing martial law, the junta transferred all executive and judicial authority to the head of the relevant regional military command, and instituted the death penalty as a possible sentence for 23 crimes, the majority of which are not capital crimes in civilian courts.
Military tribunals have issued death sentences against defendants in rushed and closed legal proceedings, depriving those charged of their basic fair trial rights. Those on trial before military tribunals face almost certain conviction regardless of the available evidence against them. There is no scrutiny of the trials by the public or the international community. Myanmar security forces have subjected many people arrested since the coup to torture and other ill-treatment, including frequent beatings.
In May 2021, the junta formally designated the opposition National Unity Government, its parliamentary committee, and their offshoot militias as “terrorist groups” for alleged acts of incitement against the junta, seemingly to justify broad suppression and to criminalize any support for activities opposing the coup. In August 2021, the chairman of the State Administration Council junta, Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, amended the Counterterrorism Law to introduce harsher penalties for anti-coup activities that do not distinguish between acts of violence and peaceful protest, shifting the burden of proof to the accused.
Martial law regulations require the State Administration Council chair to approve all execution orders. They also state there is “no appeal for decisions or convictions handed down” by a military tribunal. The only option for defendants sentenced to death is to apply to the junta chair within 15 days of the conviction to reverse the decision or to reduce the sentence. The applications can only be filed through prison officials, not lawyers, Radio Free Asia reported. A source who is familiar with Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy’s cases said the families were unaware of the appeal efforts until the junta’s statement to the media.
The UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said he was “deeply troubled” by the military’s decision to proceed with the executions of political dissidents. “This is a blatant violation of the right to life, liberty, and security of person as per Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” he said.
Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances and has long called on Myanmar to ban all capital punishment. Capital punishment is unique in its cruelty and finality, and is universally plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error.
Since the February 2021 coup, junta security forces have carried out mass killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and indiscriminate attacks on civilians that amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes. The security forces have killed over 1,800 people, including at least 130 children, and arbitrarily arrested over 13,000.
Australia, Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and other countries that have banned capital punishment, as well as ASEAN member states, should call for the release of all those wrongfully detained and the commutation of death sentences. All concerned governments should agree on a stronger, coordinated effort to impose or enhance targeted sanctions against senior military officials including by increasing restrictions on Myanmar’s foreign currency revenues.
“The junta’s threats to execute Ko Jimmy and Phyo Zeya Thaw after sham military trials should be dropped immediately,” Maung said. “Concerned governments should use concerted levers of pressure to stop these executions, and be crystal clear that executing people after unfair trials will have consequences.”..."
Source/publisher:
"Human Rights Watch" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2022-06-07
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"On June 3, 2021, the junta council announced they intend to carry out the execution of death row detainees Jimmy (aka Kyaw Min Yu), Phyo Zayar Thaw, Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw, heretofore given by military courts. Though announced, information regarding the status of the military court, location of the trials, and specific information on the nature of the trial, were not given to family members of each of the condemned political prisoners. The junta council has been destroying every facet of the judicial system in Burma.
Since the beginning of the coup, the junta council has been killing people across the country, burning towns and villages, as well as looting and stealing belongings of the people every day. The council’s statement on the execution of the political prisoners violates domestic, and international law, and is a blatant attempt to audaciously murder.
The execution announcement openly mocked the worlds’ efforts to abolish capital punishment. This calculated act uses political prisoners as hostage, to threaten a population resisting the military coup. As well as to bargain with international actors, who put pressure on the junta council to return democracy to Burma. The UN and others in the international community bare responsibility to help prevent the use of hostages in unjustified executions.
In accordance with our organizations belief that there can only be a true national reconciliation when there are no incarcerated political prisoners, we see the recent statement as a junta attempt to challenge and destroy future national reconciliation, including the stability of our country.
A junta council working to carry out an execution like this, is an unforgiveable act, and clear proof of utter disregard for the will of the international community who wish to return Burma to democracy, as well as to ASEAN who wish to resolve the issue through the 5-Point Consensus.
Therefore, we, the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners (AAPP), strongly urge all at the UN, ASEAN and other international actors to take a stand and put political pressure to halt the announced executions..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-06-06
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"JAKARTA – Parliamentarians from Southeast Asia are alarmed by the announcement by the Myanmar junta that it will carry out the death sentences handed down to four political prisoners, including prominent former member of Parliament, Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, and well-known pro-democracy activist, Kyaw Min Yu, better known as “Ko Jimmy”, both convicted on charges of terrorism.
These death sentences would be the first known judicial executions in the country since 1988, according to Amnesty International, which considers Myanmar as “Abolitionist in Practice”, as it retains the death penalty in law, but has not applied it for decades. Ever since the coup in February last year that ousted the democratically elected government, Myanmar has seen a drastic surge in the number of people sentenced to death with at least 86 people, including minors who were under 18 at the time.
“ASEAN and the international community must use every means at their disposal to prevent these executions from taking place. If they are carried out they will be nothing less than cold blooded political assassination. These executions would further contribute to prevent the already remote possibility of a sustainable political dialogue, as prescribed over one year ago in the Five-Point Consensus agreed by ASEAN member states and Min Aung Hlaing’s junta, which has not made any effort whatsoever in that direction,” said Charles Santiago, Member of Parliament from Malaysia, and APHR Chairperson.
The Myanmar military has killed at least 1,887 protesters since the coup, but it is attempting to give a veneer of legality to the execution of the four men. Yet it is abundantly clear that, as in dozens of sentences handed by military tribunals, there was no respect for fair trial rights.
ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) unreservedly supports the recent United Nations Secretary General’s statement reminding Myanmar’s military that the death sentences are a blatant violation of the right to life, liberty and security of the person, as per Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We also join him in emphasizing that the Declaration also enshrines the principles of equality before the law, the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, and all of the guarantees necessary for a person’s defense.
“This announcement should be viewed in the context of the increasingly brazen atrocities being committed by the Myanmar military in order to consolidate its power in the face of widespread popular resistance. The junta is killing, torturing and arbitrarily arresting Myanmar people with an impunity that owes a great deal to the failure of the international community to hold it accountable for its crimes,” said Santiago.
APHR calls on each and every member state of ASEAN, as well as its Dialogue Partners, to urgently demand an unconditional and immediate stay of execution and release of the four detainees by the self-declared State Administration Council. They must individually and collectively make a stand before it is too late, not only for these four, but for all those currently arbitrarily detained who should be immediately and unconditionally released..."
Source/publisher:
ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights
Date of entry/update:
2022-06-06
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"ကိုဂျင်မီ (ခ) ကိုကျော်မင်းယု၊ ကိုဖြိုးဇေယျာသော်၊ ကိုလှမျိုးအောင်၊ ကိုအောင်သူရဇော် တို့ ၄ ဦးအား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု၏ စစ်ခုံရုံးက ချမှတ်ခဲ့သည့် သေဒဏ်ကို အတည်ပြုလိုက်ပြီး ကွပ်မျက်ရန် ဆောင်ရွက်နေပြီဟု စစ်အုပ်စုမှ ဇွန်လ ၃ ရက်နေ့တွင် အတည်ပြု ပြောကြားလိုက်သည်။
သို့သော်လည်း ထိုသူများကို မည်သည့် စစ်ခုံရုံး၊ မည်သည့်နေရာတွင် အမှုကို ကြားနာခဲ့ကြောင်းနှင့် အမိန့်ချမှတ်ခဲ့ကြောင်းကို သက်ဆိုင်ရာ မိသားစုများထံသို့ပင် အသိပေးခြင်း မရှိပါ။ စစ်အုပ်စုသည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ တရားစီရင်ရေး ယန္တရားတခုလုံးအား အလုံးစုံ ဖျက်ဆီးနေပေသည်။
အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုသည် အာဏာသိမ်းယူပြီးသည်မှစ၍ ၎င်းတို့အား ဆန့်ကျင်သူများကို နေ့စဉ်နှင်အမျှ သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း၊ မြို့ရွာများကို မီးရှို့ခြင်း၊ နေအိမ် ပစ္စည်းဥစ္စာများကို သိမ်းယူခြင်းများကို တစိုက်မတ်မတ်လုပ်ဆောင်လျှက်ရှိသည်။ ယခုကဲ့သို့ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကို ကွပ်မျက်ရန် ပြောကြားမှုမှာ နိုင်ငံတကာနှင့် ပြည်တွင်း တရားဥပဒေကို အလွဲသုံးစားလုပ်ကာ ပြောင်ပြောင်တင်းတင်း သတ်ဖြတ်ရန် ကြိုးစားမှုတရပ်ဖြစ်သည်။
ယနေ့အချိန် ကမ္ဘာ့နိုင်ငံအနှံ့တွင် သေဒဏ်စီရင်ရေးအား ဖျက်သိမ်းရန် အပူတပြင်း ကြိုးစားနေချိန်တွင် ထိုကဲ့သို့ ကွပ်မျက်ရန် ကြေညာခြင်းသည် နိုင်ငံတကာ၏ ကြိုးပမ်းဆောင်ရွက်နေမှုကို ပျက်ရယ်ပြု လိုက်ခြင်းပင်ဖြစ်သည်။ ထို့အပြင် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ဒီမိုကရေစီလမ်းကြောင်းအပေါ် ပြန်ရောက်နိုင်ရေး နိုင်ငံတကာမှ အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်အုပ်စုအား အပြင်းအထန် ဖိအားပေး တောင်းဆိုနေမှုများအား တစုံတရာ လျော့ကျစေရေးအတွက် အပေးအယူလုပ်ရန်နှင့် ပြည်တွင်းရှိ စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းမှုဆန့်ကျင်သူများကို ခြိမ်းခြောက်ရန်ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ဖြင့် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကို ဓားစားခံအဖြစ် အသုံးပြု တုန့်ပြန်လိုက်ခြင်းလည်း ဖြစ်သည်။ ထိုကဲ့သို့ ဓားစားခံအဖြစ်အသုံးချကာ ပြောင်ပြောင်တင်းတင်း ကွပ်မျက်ရန် ဆောင်ရွက်မှုကို တားဆီးရန်မှာ ကုလသမဂ္ဂအပါအဝင် နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုင်းအဝိုင်းတွင်လည်း တာဝန်ရှိသည်ဟု ထင်မြင်ပါသည်။
မိမိတို့ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်းသည် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ အကျဉ်းထောင်တွင်း တစ်ဦးတစ်ယောက်မျှ မရှိမှသာ အမျိုးသားပြန်လည်သင့်မြတ်ရေး ရရှိနိုင်မည်ဟု ယုံကြည်သည့်နည်းတူ အထက်ပါကဲ့သို့ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကို သေဒဏ်စီရင်ခြင်းသည် အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်အုပ်စုမှ အမျိုးသားပြန်လည်သင့်မြတ်ရေးနှင့် နိုင်ငံတည်ငြိမ်ရေးကို စိန်ခေါ် ဖျက်ဆီးလိုက်ခြင်းဖြစ်သည်ဟု သဘောထားသည်။
စစ်အုပ်စုအနေဖြင့် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကို ကွပ်မျက်ရေး လုပ်ဆောင်နေမှုသည် သမိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ ခွင့်လွှတ်၍ မရနိုင်သောလုပ်ရပ် ဖြစ်ပြီး မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ဒီမိုကရေစီလမ်းကြောင်းအပေါ် ပြန်လည်ရောက်ရှိရေး ကြိုးစားဆောင်ရွက်နေသော နိုင်ငံတကာ အသိုင်းအဝိုင်းနှင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရေးအကြပ်အတည်းကို သဘောတူညီချက် ၅ ချက်ဖြင့် ဖြေရှင်းရန် ကြိုးစား အဖြေရှာနေသည့် အာဆီယံ နိုင်ငံများ၏ သဘောထား နှင့် လုံးဝကိုက်ညီမှုမရှိကြောင်း ထင်ရှားသည့် သက်သေပြချက် ပင်ဖြစ်သည်။
သို့ဖြစ်၍ ကုလသမဂ္ဂ၊ အာဆီယံအပါအဝင် နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုင်းအဝိုင်းအားလုံးမှ အထက်ပါလုပ်ရပ်ကို ပြင်းပြင်းထန်ထန် ဆန့်ကျင်တားမြစ်ရန် မိမိတို့ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း (AAPP) အနေဖြင့် အလေးအနက်တိုက်တွန်းတောင်းဆိုလိုက်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update:
2022-06-06
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"Two men will be executed in Myanmar by the military junta after their death sentence appeals were denied, the junta said Saturday, in what would mark the first judicial executions in the country in decades.
"It's confirmed that Phyo Zayar Thaw and [Ko] Jimmy would be on the execution list," junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told CNN, without giving a date.
In January 2022, veteran democracy activist Ko Jimmy and former National League of Democracy lawmaker Phyo Zayar Thaw were sentenced to death, according to a statement by Myanmar's Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services.
The junta accuses the two men of being "involved in terrorist acts such as explosion attacks, killing of civilians as informants," the junta spokesperson said.
It's unclear whether Phyo Zayar Thaw and Ko Jimmy have denied the charges levied against them. Comments from the junta made no reference to their plea.
The UN said Friday it was "deeply troubled" by the decision, calling it a "blatant violation to the right to life, liberty and security of person," spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Stéphane Dujarric said in a briefing, referring to an article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
"The Secretary-General reiterates his calls for the respect of people's rights to freedom of opinion and expression and also to drop all charges against those arrested on charges related to the exercise of their fundamental freedoms and rights," Dujarric added.
The junta accuses the two men of being "involved in terrorist acts such as explosion attacks, killing of civilians as informants," the junta spokesperson said.
It's unclear whether Phyo Zayar Thaw and Ko Jimmy have denied the charges levied against them. Comments from the junta made no reference to their plea.
The UN said Friday it was "deeply troubled" by the decision, calling it a "blatant violation to the right to life, liberty and security of person," spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Stéphane Dujarric said in a briefing, referring to an article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
"The Secretary-General reiterates his calls for the respect of people's rights to freedom of opinion and expression and also to drop all charges against those arrested on charges related to the exercise of their fundamental freedoms and rights," Dujarric added.
Amnesty International said news of the resumption of executions is "shocking." They called on authorities to "immediately" drop the plan and for the international community to step up intervention efforts.
"The death sentence has become one of many appalling ways the Myanmar military is attempting to sow fear among anyone who opposes its rule, and would add to the grave human rights violations, including lethal violence targeted at peaceful protesters and other civilians," the organization said in a post published on its verified Twitter account.
Amnesty added that since the February 2021 coup in Myanmar, the organization recorded an "alarming" increase in the number of known death sentences in the country from at least one in 2020 to at least 86 in 2021.
An Amnesty from 2021 said that the last judicial execution in Myanmar known to have taken place was in 1988. There have been numerous death sentences in Myanmar since but they've usually been "commuted through mass pardons," Amnesty says.
CNN has been unable to independently verify when the last execution by the state was carried out in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher:
"CNN" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2022-06-04
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
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"၁။ (၈၈) မျိုးဆက် ကျောင်းသားခေါင်းဆောင် ကိုဂျင်မီ၊ ကိုဖြိုးဇေယျာသော်နှင့် လူပုဂ္ဂိုလ် (၂) ဦး အပါအဝင် နိုင်ငံတစ်ဝန်းလုံးရှိ အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူများအပေါ် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ သေဒဏ် အတည်ပြုခြင်းများနှင့် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ လက်အောက်ခံ တရားရုံးများက ချမှတ်သည့် ပြစ်ဒဏ်များ အားလုံးတို့သည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ တည်ဆဲ ဥပဒေများနှင့် အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာဥပဒေများကို ပြောင်ပြောင်တင်းတင်း ချိုးဖောက်ခြင်း ဖြစ်သည်။ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ အနေဖြင့် ယခုကဲ့သို့ ဥပဒေမဲ့ အညိုးအတေး အာဃာတများဖြင့် တရားစီရင်ရေးကို စိတ်ထင်ရာ တဖက်သတ် လုပ်ဆောင်ခြင်းနှင့် သေဒဏ်အား အတည်ပြုလုပ်ဆောင်ခြင်းသည် ကြီးလေးသောပြစ်မှုကြီးကို ကျူးလွန်ခြင်း ဖြစ်သည်။
၂။ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ အလိုကျ အမှုများကို စစ်ဆေးစီရင်နေသည့် တရားရုံးများနှင့် ယင်းတရားရုံးများက ချမှတ်သည့် စီရင်ချက်၊ အမိန့်များသည် တရားဝင်မှု လုံးဝ မရှိပါ။ ထိုသို့ တရားဝင်မှု မရှိသည့် စီရင်ချက်၊ အမိန့်များကို အတည်ပြုဆောင်ရွက်ကြသည့် စစ်ကောင်စီ လက်အောက်ခံ အဖွဲ့အစည်းများနှင့် ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်များအနေဖြင့် ဥပဒေမဲ့ ဆောင်ရွက်ချက်များကို မသိကျိုးကျွန်ပြုခြင်း၊ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အလိုကျ လိုက်ပါဆောင်ရွက်နေခြင်းများသည် ရာဇဝတ်မကင်းသော ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်နေခြင်းဖြစ်သဖြင့် ပြည်သူလူထုနှင့် ဥပဒေ၏ ဒဏ်ခတ်အရေးယူခြင်းကို မလွဲမသွေ ခံကြရမည် ဖြစ်သည်။
၃။ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ အလိုကျ အမှုများကို စစ်ဆေးစီရင်နေသည့် လက်အောက်ခံ တရားရုံးများ၊ တရားရေး ဝန်ထမ်းများ၊ ဥပဒေဝန်ထမ်းများသည် ရာဇဝတ်မှုများကို ကျူးလွန်နေကြသော ရာဇဝတ် ဂိုဏ်းသားများသာဖြစ်ကြောင်း ကြေညာချက်အမှတ် (၅/၂၀၂၁) ဖြင့် တရားရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနက ထုတ်ပြန် ကြေညာခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ်သည်။
၄။ ထို့ကြောင့် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ဥပဒေမဲ့ တရားစီရင်ခြင်းများ၊ သေဒဏ်အတည်ပြုခြင်းများနှင့် နည်းမျိုးစုံဖြင့် ဥပဒေချိုးဖောက်နေခြင်းများကို ပြင်းထန်စွာ ကန့်ကွက်ရှုတ်ချကြောင်း၊ သက်ဆိုင်သူများအားလုံးကို ထိရောက်စွာ အရေးယူ ဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်းနှင့် နောက်ဆက်တွဲ ဖြစ်ပေါ်လာမည့် အကျိုးဆက်များအားလုံးအတွက် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီက လုံးဝ တာဝန်ခံရလိမ့်မည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာလိုက်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Justice
Date of entry/update:
2022-06-04
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Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
National Unity Government (NUG), 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
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Sub-title:
Four people including ex-MP Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy to be put to death
Description:
"Myanmar’s junta has said it will execute a former lawmaker from Aung San Suu Kyi’s party and a prominent democracy activist, both of whom were convicted of terrorism, in the country’s first judicial executions since 1990.
Four people, including the former MP Phyo Zeya Thaw and the democracy activist Kyaw Min Yu, better known as Ko Jimmy, “will be hanged according to prison procedures,” Zaw Min Tun told AFP on Friday.
The junta has sentenced dozens of anti-coup activists to death as part of its crackdown on dissent after seizing power last year, but Myanmar has not carried out an execution for decades.
Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former lawmaker from Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy who was arrested in November, was sentenced to death in January for offences under anti-terrorism laws.
Ko Jimmy received the same sentence from the military tribunal.
“They continued the legal process of appealing and sending a request letter for the amendment of the sentence,” said Zaw Min Tun, a spokesperson for the junta. “But the court rejected their appeal and request. There is no other step after that.”
Two men who were convicted and sentenced to death for killing a woman they alleged was an informer for the junta in Yangon will also be executed, the spokesperson said. No date has been set for the executions, he said.
A spokesperson for Amnesty International called on the junta to “immediately drop such plans and for the international community to step up its efforts to intervene”.
Phil Robertson, a deputy director at Human Rights Watch, said the junta’s decision to “move towards executing two prominent political leaders will be like pouring gasoline on the fire of popular anti-military resistance in the country. Such a move will also lead to global condemnation and cement the junta’s reputation as among the worst of the worst human rights abusers in Asia.”
Phyo Zeya Thaw had been accused of orchestrating several attacks on regime forces, including a gun attack on a commuter train in Yangon in August that killed five police officers. A hip-hop pioneer whose subversive rhymes irked the previous junta, Phyo Zeya Thaw was jailed in 2008 for membership of an illegal organisation and possession of foreign currency.
He was elected to parliament representing Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD in the 2015 elections, which ushered in a transition to civilian rule.
The country’s military alleged voter fraud during elections in 2020 – which the NLD won by a landslide – as justification for its coup on 1 February 2021.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained ever since and faces a slew of charges in a junta court that could lead to her facing a prison sentence of more than 150 years.
Kyaw Min Yu, who rose to prominence during Myanmar’s 1988 student uprising against the country’s previous military regime, was arrested in an overnight raid in October. The junta issued an arrest warrant for him last year, alleging he had incited unrest with his social media posts..."
Source/publisher:
Agence France-Presse (Paris) via "The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2022-06-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
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Description:
"အလေးထားရမည့် ဒေတာအချက်အလက်များ အမှတ် – (၂၂)
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ ၁ ရက်ကနေ ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ်၊ မေ ၂၆ ရက်အတွင်း လက်နက်ကိုင်ပဋိပက္ခတွေအကြား မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခံရတာအပြင် လက်နက်ကျည်တွေ ထိမှန်လို့ပျက်စီးဆုံးရှံးခဲ့ရတဲ့ နေအိမ်၊အဆောက်အအုံ (ဘာသာရေးအဆောက်အအုံတွေအပါအဝင်) ၂၂,၂၉၉ လုံးထက်မနည်းရှိခဲ့ပါတယ်။ တနှစ်ကျော်ကာလအတွင်း ပျက်စီးဆုံးရှုံးခဲ့ရတဲ့ နေအိမ်၊ အဆောက်အအုံ ၂၂,၂၉၉ လုံးထဲမှာ စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းအတွင်းက ၁၅,၅၃၀ လုံးရှိခဲ့ပြီးတော့ ရာခိုင်နှုန်းအားဖြင့် ၆၉ ဒသမ ၇ ရာခိုင်နှုန်းရှိပါတယ်။ စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဟာ နေအိမ်၊ အဆောက်အအုံ မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခံရမှု အများဆုံးရှိခဲ့တဲ့ ဒေသတစ်ခု ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ဒုတိယအများဆုံး မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရတဲ့ ဒေသကတော့ မကွေးတိုင်းဖြစ်ပြီး နေအိမ်၊ အဆောက်အအုံ ၄,၈၂၂ လုံး မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရကာ ရာခိုင်နှုန်းအားဖြင့် ၂၁ ဒသမ ၆ ရာခိုင်နှုန်း ရှိခဲ့ပါတယ်။ ကျန်ပျက်စီးဆုံးရှုံးခဲ့တဲ့ ၁,၉၄၇ အိမ်၊ ရာခိုင်နှုန်းအားဖြင့် ၈ ဒသမ ၇ ရာခိုင်နှုန်း ကတော့ မန္တလေးတိုင်း၊ တနင်္သာရီတိုင်း၊ ပဲခူးတိုင်း၊ ကယားပြည်နယ်၊ ချင်းပြည်နယ်၊ ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်နှင့် ကရင်ပြည်နယ်တို့ထဲက နေအိမ်၊ အဆောက်အုံတွေဖြစ်ပါတယ်။
တဆက်တည်းမှာပဲ ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ်၊ မေ ၁ ရက်ကနေ ၂၆ ရက်အတွင်း မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခံရတဲ့ နေအိမ်၊ အဆောက်အအုံ ၇,၆၆၂ လုံးထက်မနည်း ရှိခဲ့ပါတယ်။ အာဏာသိမ်ပြီးနောက် ဖြစ်ပွားခဲ့တဲ့ လက်နက်ကိုင်ပဋိပက္ခတွေအကြား မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရတဲ့ နေအိမ်၊ အဆောက်အအုံ အရေအတွက် (လအလိုက်) ထဲမှာ ယခုလအတွင်း ဖျက်ဆီးခံရတဲ့ပမာဏာကတော့ တနှစ်တာအတွင်း အများဆုံး ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ဒီလိုမျိုး မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရတဲ့ ၇,၆၆၂ လုံးထဲမှာ စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းက ၅,၃၃၇ လုံး၊ မကွေးတိုင်းက ၂,၁၄၃ လုံး၊ ရှမ်းပြည်နယ်က အလုံး ၁၁၀၊ မန္တလေးတိုင်းက အလုံး ၃၀၊ ချင်းပြည်နယ်က ၂၉ လုံး၊ ကရင်ပြည်နယ်က ၁၀ လုံးနဲ့ ကယားပြည်နယ်က ၃ လုံးတို့ ပါဝင်ပါတယ်။
၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ်၊ မေ ၁၈ ရက်ကနေ ၂၅ ရက်အတွင်း စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်း၊ မြောင်မြို့နယ်က ကျေးရွာ အနည်းဆုံး ၁၈ ရွာမှာ နေအိမ်၊ အဆောက်အအုံ ၃၉၃ လုံးထက်မနည် မီးရှို့၊ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရပါတယ်။ မီးရှို့ခံခဲ့ရတဲ့ ကျေးရွာတွေဟာ ဒေသခံ ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့တွေ (LDF/PDF/CDSOM စသည်ဖြင့်) လှုပ်ရှားကြတဲ့ အဓိကဒေသတွေဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်း၊ မြောင်မြို့နယ်က မင်းတန်းကျေးရွာမှာ နေအိမ်၊ အဆောက်အအုံ ၁၀၀ ထက်မနည်း မီးရှို့၊ ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရပြီးတော့ မယ်မသော်ကျေးရွာဟာ ခုနစ်ကြိမ်ထက်မနည်း မီးရှို့၊ ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရပါတယ်။
∎ ဘာကြောင့်အလေးထားသင့်သလဲ
စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးနောက်ပိုင်း ဖြစ်ပွားလာတဲ့ တိုက်ပွဲအခြေအနေတွေအပြင် လက်နက်ကိုင်ပဋိပက္ခတွေနဲ့ ဆက်စပ်နေတဲ့ အခြင်းအရာတွေကို လေ့လာခြင်းအားဖြင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရဲ့ ပဋိပက္ခမြေပုံအပြောင်းအလဲ နဲ့ ပဋိပက္ခရေချိန် အတက်၊အကျ စတဲ့ အကြောင်းအရာတွေကို သုတေသနပြုဖော်ထုတ်နိုင်မှာ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ဒါ့အပြင် ပဋိပက္ခနဲ့တိုက်ပွဲတွေအတွင်း စစ်ဘေးတိမ်းရှောင်နေရတဲ့ ဒုက္ခသည်ပမာဏာ၊ အရပ်သားတွေအပေါ် လက်နက်ကိုင်တပ်ဖွဲ့တွေရဲ့ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုး ဖောက်မှု ကျူးလွန်တာတွေ ရှိ၊မရှိကို လေ့လာပြီး အသွင်ကူးပြောင်းမှုဆိုင်ရာတရားမျှတမှုရှုထောင့် (Transitional Justice) ကနေ သုတေသနပြုနိုင်မှာ ဖြစ်တဲ့အတွက် အလေးထားသင့်တဲ့ ဒေတာအချက်အလက်များပဲ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။
∎ တွဲဖက်လေ့လာသင့်သည်များ
မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာ စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးနောက်ပိုင်း နိုင်ငံတဝန်းမှာ ဖြစ်ပွားလာတဲ့ လက်နက်ကိုင်ပဋိပက္ခတွေနဲ့ အကျိုးဆက် တွေ အရပ်သားထိခိုက်သေဆုံးမှုတွေ၊ နေအိမ်မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခံရတာတွေနဲ့ စစ်ဘေးရှောင်ဒုက္ခသည်တွေရဲ့ အခြေအနေ တွေကို လွတ်လပ်တဲ့သတင်းမီဒီယာတွေ အထူးသဖြင့် တိုင်းရင်းသားသတင်းဌာနတွေရဲ့ မြေပြင် အခြေအနေ ဖော်ပြချက်တွေအပြင် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံဆိုင်ရာ ကုလသမဂ္ဂ လူသားချင်းစာနာမှုဆိုင်ရာ ညှိနှိုင်းရေးရုံး (UNOCHA Myanmar) လို ကုလသမဂ္ဂဆိုင်ရာ အဖွဲ့အစည်းတွေ အခြားလွတ်လပ်သော ပြည်တွင်း၊ပြည်ပအဖွဲ့အစည်းတွေရဲ့ မှတ်တမ်း၊ အစီရင်ခံ စာ စတာတွေနဲ့လည်း တွဲဖက်လေ့လာနိုင်ပါတယ်။..."
Source/publisher:
Institute for Strategy and Policy - Myanmar
Date of entry/update:
2022-06-02
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Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Human Rights Defenders, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
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As of March 11, army tribunals in the Yangon region have sentenced more than 150 people to death or life in prison.
Description:
"Myanmar’s junta condemned seven youths to death this week in the Yangon region after a secret military tribunal found them guilty of murder, a junta newspaper reported.
The seven, all from all from Hlaingtharyar township in the country’s largest city Yangon Region, were ruled guilty of taking part in the March 6 murder of a ward official suspected of being a police informer and sentenced to death on Wednesday under Section 54 of the Anti-Terrorism Law.
As of March 11, military tribunals in the Yangon region have sentenced more than 150 people to death or life imprisonment, RFA reporting has revealed. No executions have been reported by the military regime that overthrew Myanmar’s elected government on Feb. 1, 2021.
The seven were identified as Ye Min Naing, Soe Moe, Thant Zin, Daewa, San Shay, Athay Lay and Aye Aye Min.
Another youth, Htet Myat Naing from Yangon’s North Dagon township, was sentenced on Wednesday to life in prison under Section 50(j) of the Anti-Terrorism Law for having links to and collecting money for terrorist organizations.
An underground youth activist in Yangon said the military is imposing harsh punishments on young people to discourage them from participating in resistance movements against the junta, the junta newspaper said.
"The deliberate arrests of young people and such harsh sentences are attempts to intimidate the youth not to be involved in the revolution. No matter what they do, young people are already determined to march on with this,” he told RFA.
Lawyers have argued that the sentences imposed by military tribunals handing down highest sentences on the youth are unjust and punishable.
Military spokesman Maj Gen Zaw Min Tun said the government was not targeting young people but was prosecuting violators of the law.
According to Thai-based rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma, a total of 10,707 people were arrested and 1,072 of them were imprisoned between Feb. 1, 2021 and May 19, 2022, and 72 have been sentenced to death, including 2 children. And another 41 have been sentenced to death in absentia..."
Source/publisher:
"RFA" (USA)
Date of entry/update:
2022-05-20
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Human Rights Defenders, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
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"Bangkok, May 18, 2022 – Myanmar authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalist Maung Maung Myo and stop jailing members of the press for reporting the news, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.
Around 6 p.m. on May 10, Maung Myo, a contributor to the local Mekong News Agency, was traveling by train to report on recent armed clashes between the military and anti-junta people’s defense forces when military authorities arrested him, according to news reports and the news agency’s editor Nyan Linn Htet, who communicated with CPJ via messaging app.
The reporter, who is also known as Myo Myint Oo, was arrested at the Salween River bridge checkpoint near the town of Hpa-an in eastern Kayin state after officials discovered he had shared Mekong News Agency reports on his personal Facebook page, according to Nyan Linn Htet, who told CPJ that the news publication had been banned by the military junta regime that seized power in the February 1, 2021 coup.
Maung Myo has since been charged under section 52(a) of the Counter-Terrorism Law, which carries a maximum of seven years in prison, according to Nyan Linn Htet. Since his arrest, the journalist has been held at Hpa-an Prison.
“Myanmar authorities must free journalist Maung Maung Myo and drop any charges pending against him,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar’s junta must cease leveling outrageous terrorism-related charges against journalists who are merely doing their jobs as reporters.”
Maung Myo has reported for Mekong News Agency since June 2020 and has covered various political topics, including Myanmar’s COVID-19 situation, anti-coup protests, and clashes between the military government and different armed resistance groups.
Nyan Linn Htet told CPJ that military authorities raided Mekong News Agency’s office and his residence on two occasions after the 2021 coup, and the publication had to close its bureau in the Shan state town of Tachiliek on April 15, 2021, due to threats from security forces.
Nyan Linn Htet added that he is in hiding from an arrest warrant issued against him on March 6, 2021, under section 505(a) of the penal code, a vague anti-state provision that penalizes incitement and the dissemination of “false news.”
Myanmar’s Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on Maung Myo’s arrest and detention.
CPJ’s latest prison census published in December ranked Myanmar as the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists. Myanmar authorities have killed at least three journalists since the military seized power on February 1, 2021, according to CPJ documentation..."
Source/publisher:
Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2022-05-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Freedom of Opinion and Expression - tools for change in Burma/Myanmar, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"မြန်မာစစ်တပ်သည် ဆယ်စုနှစ်ပေါင်းများစွာ တိုင်းရင်းသား လူမျိုးစုများအပေါ် လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်မှုများ ဆိုးရွားစွာ ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သည့်အပြင် ပြည်တွင်းစစ်များတွင် စစ်ရာဇဝတ်မှုမြောက်သည်အထိ ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့ကြောင်း ကုလသမဂ္ဂနှင့် ပြည်တွင်း၊ ပြည်ပ သုတေသနမှတ်တမ်းများအရ သိရှိရသည်။ ရိုဟင်ဂျာနှင့် မွတ်စလင်များကိုလည်း စစ်တပ်သည် မူဝါဒချမှတ်၍ စနစ်တကျ မဟာဗျူဟာမြောက် နည်းလမ်းများသုံးပြီး Genocide ကို အဆင့်ဆင့်ကျူးလွန်နေကြောင်း BHRN က မှတ်တမ်းတင်ထားသော သုတေသန အချက်အလက်များအရ လည်းကောင်း၊ နိုင်ငံတကာအဖွဲ့အစည်းများနှင့် အမေရိကန် နိုင်ငံခြားရေး ဝန်ကြီးဌာန က ထုတ်ပြန်ထားသော မှတ်တမ်းများအရ လည်းကောင်း တွေ့ရှိရသည်။
၎င်း ရိုဟင်ဂျာနှင့် မွတ်စလင်ဆန့်ကျင်ရေး မူဝါဒများကို အလွယ်တကူ အကောင်အထည်ဖော်နိုင်ရန်နှင့် အဆင့်ဆင့် အောင်မြင်အောင် အကောင်အထည်ဖော်နိုင်ရန် အစ္စလာမ်မိုဖိုးဘီးယား အစ္စလာမ်ကြောက် ရောဂါကို မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုကြားသို့ ဆယ်စုနှစ်များစွာကတည်းက ဖြန့်ကျက်ထားသည်။ မွတ်စလင်များသည် တိုင်းပြည်၏အချုပ်အခြာအာဏာကို တိုက်ရိုက်ထိပါးနေသော အန္တရာယ်အဖြစ် လည်းကောင်း၊ အမျိုး၊ ဘာသာ၊ သာသနာကို ဖျက်ဆီးမည့် ဓမ္မန္တရာယ်အဖြစ်လည်းကောင်း၊ အမုန်းစကားများကို နိုင်ငံတဝန်းရှိ ပြည်သူများသို့ နည်းလမ်းပေါင်းစုံ အသုံးပြု၍ လှည်းနေလှေအောင်း၊ မြင်းဇောင်းမကျန် ပျံ့နှံ့စေခဲ့သည်။ မျိုးဆက်နှင့်ချီ၍ ဖြန့်ဝေခဲ့သော အမုန်းတရားများသည် မြန်မာပြည်သူများ၏ ရင်ထဲ၊ အသည်းထဲတွင် စွဲမြဲစွာ ကိန်းအောင်း လာချိန်တွင် အမျိုးမပျောက်စေရန် ကာကွယ်ရန် နည်းလမ်းများဟူ၍ လူထုလှု့ံဆော်မှုများ ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သည်။ ယင်းနောက် ဘာသာရေးအကြမ်းဖက်မှုများ၊ နယ်မြေရှင်းလင်းရေးများအထိ ပြုလုပ်လာခဲ့ပြီး ယင်းလုပ် ဆောင်ချက်များသည် တိုင်းပြည်လုံခြုံရေးနှင့် အမျိုးဘာသာသာသနာအတွက် ပြုလုပ်ခြင်းဖြစ်၍ တရားကြောင်း ပြည်သူလူထုအား လှည့်စားခဲ့သည်။
အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးနောက် ဖွဲ့စည်းခဲ့သော စစ်ကောင်စီသည် လူထုတော်လှန်ရေးနှင့် ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေး လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်များကြောင့် အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးယန္တရား မလည်ပတ်နိုင်ဘဲ ပိုမိုကြပ်တည်းသောအခြေအနေများဖြင့်သာ ရင်ဆိုင်နေရသည်။ နိုင်ငံတကာ အသိအမှတ်ပြုမှုမရှိဘဲ အာဏာသိမ်းအကြမ်းဖက်အဖွဲ့အဖြစ်သာ နိုင်ငံတကာ မျက်နှာစာတွင် သတ်မှတ်ခံထားရသည်။ အရက်စက်အကြမ်းကြုတ်ဆုံးနည်းများသုံး၍ ပြည်သူလူထုအား အကြောက်တရားဖြင့် ထိန်းချုပ်သော်လည်း အများပြည်သူလူထုမှာ ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးအဖွဲ့များနှင့် စစ်အာဏာရှင် ဆန့်ကျင်ရေး လှုပ်ရှားမှုများကို ပိုမိုထောက်ခံအားပေးနေသောကြောင့် စစ်ကောင်စီမှာ အုပ်ချုပ် ရေးယန္တရားပင် မလည်ပတ်နိုင်ဘဲ ကဏ္ဍအသီးသီးတွင် အထွေထွေအကြပ်အတည်းနှင့် ရင်ဆိုင်နေရသည်။ မြန်မာစစ်တပ်က ၂၀၁၇ ခုနှစ်တွင် ရခိုင်ပြည်နယ်အတွင်း ရိုဟင်ဂျာလူမျိုးသုန်းသတ်ဖြတ်မှု ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့ကြောင်း အမေရိကန်အစိုးရက ကြေညာခြင်းနှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာက ပိတ်စို့အရေးယူမှုများကြောင့်လည်း စစ်ကောင်စီသည် အဖက်ဖက်မှ ထွက်ပေါက်ပိတ်လာခဲ့သည်။
ထိုသို့သော အခြေအနေတွင် မွတ်စလင်လူထုကို ဥပဒေဘောင်ပြင်ပမှ လုပ်ပိုင်ခွင့်များပေး၍ စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ယန္တရားများ လည်ပတ်စေရန် လုပ်ဆောင်လာသည်များကိုလည်း ဝမ်းနည်းစွာ တွေ့ရှိရသည်။ ဘာသာရေးလွတ်လပ်ခွင့်နှင့် ကန့်သတ်ထားမှုများ ဖြေလျော့သယောင် သွားလာလှုပ်ရှားမှုများကို ခွင့်ပြုပေးပြီး ဗလီဝတ်ကျောင်းတော်တွင်း ဥပုသ်ကာလ စုပေါင်းဝါဖြေမှုများတွင် စစ်ကောင်စီ တိုင်းမှူးများလာရောက်၍ ဗလီ ဝတ်ကျောင်းတော်ပိုင် စားဖွယ်ပစ္စည်းများကို စစ်ကောင်စီက ၄င်းတို့ အလှုပစ္စည်းများ သွားရောက်ဝေငှသည်ဟု မီဒီယာများတွင် အရှက်မဲ့စွာ လိမ်လည်ဖော်ပြခဲ့သည်။
စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ယင်းလုပ်ဆောင်ချက်များသည် လူထုအတွင်း ပုံမှန်လည်ပတ်နေသည်ဟု ထင်ယောင်ထင်မှားဖြစ်စေရန် လိမ်လည်လှည့်စားမှု တစ်ရပ်အဖြစ်လည်းကောင်း၊ ပြည်သူတစ်ရပ်လုံးမှ ၎င်းတို့အာဏာသိမ်းမှုအား ဆန့်ကျင်လှုပ်ရှားမှုများ ပြုလုပ်နေချိန် မွတ်စလင်များ ပုံမှန်လည်ပတ်နေသည်ဟု ယုံမှားစေရန် ဖန်တီးလုပ်ဆောင်မှုများအဖြစ် BHRN က ရှုမြင်သည်။
၂၀၂၀ ခုနှစ်တွင် ကိုဗစ်ကပ်ရောဂါကြောင့် လည်းကောင်း၊ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်တွင် အာဏာသိမ်း စစ်ကောင်စီ ၏ ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်မှုများကြောင့် လည်းကောင်း၊ မြန်မာပြည်သူများမှာ သမိုင်းတလျှောက်တွင် မကြုံခဲ့ဖူး သော ခက်ခဲကြပ်တည်း ကြမ်းတမ်းသော ကာလကို ဖြတ်သန်းခဲ့ရသည်။
၂၀၂၁ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ ၁ ရက် အာဏာသိမ်းမှုနောက်ပိုင်းတွင် နိုင်ငံတဝန်း စစ်အာဏာရှင် တော်လှန်ရေး လူထုလှုပ်ရှားမှုများ ပေါ်ပေါက်လာခဲ့ရာ ဒေသအသီးသီးက မွတ်စလင်ကျောင်းသား လူငယ်များသည်လည်း ကဏ္ဍအသီးသီးက ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြသည်။ ၎င်းတို့သည် မည်သည့် ဘာသာရေး လူပုဂ္ဂိုလ်၊ အဖွဲ့အစည်း၏ အားပေး လှုံ့ဆော်မှုကြောင့် မဟုတ်ဘဲ စစ်အာဏာရှင်တို့၏ မတရား ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ် ဖိနှိပ်မှုများကို မိမိတို့၏ နိုင်ငံရေးခံယူချက်အလျောက် အသက်စွန့်၍ တွန်းကန်တော်လှန်ခဲ့ကြသည်၊ တွန်းကန်တော်လှန်နေကြသည်။ ပြည်နယ်နှင့် တိုင်းအသီးသီးရှိ ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေး လုပ်ငန်းစဉ်မျာတွင်လည်း တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင်လျက် ရှိကြောင်း လေ့လာတွေ့ရှိရသည်။
၂၀၂၂ တွင်လည်း တော်လှန်ရေး မြှင့်တင်လာမှုကြောင့် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ရက်စက်သတ်ဖြတ်မှုများကို ပြည်သူများ ကြံ့ကြံ့ခံဆက်လက် ရင်ဆိုင်နေရသည်။ မွတ်စလင် (၆၂) ဦးအပါအဝင် ပြည်သူ(၂၀၂၉)ဦး မတရား သတ်ဖြတ်ခံခဲ့ရပြီး AAPP စာရင်းအရ ပြည်သူပေါင်း (၁၀၂၉၀) ဦးကျော် ဖမ်းဆီးခံထားရသည်။ မြန်မာပြည်အနှံ့ အိုးအိမ်စွန့်ခွာ ပြည်သူလူထုမှာလည်း တစ်သန်းကျော် ရှိနေပြီဖြစ်သည်။
ယခုကဲ့သို့ တိုင်းပြည်အမှောင်အတိ ကျရောက်နေချိန်တွင် လူများစု ဗုဒ္ဓဘာသာဝင်များသည် ၄င်းတို့၏ ၁၂ ရာသီ ပွဲလမ်းသဘင်များကို လည်းကောင်း၊ အထွတ်အမြတ်ထားရာ သင်္ကြန်နှင့် နှစ်သစ်ကူးပွဲလမ်း သဘင်များကိုလည်းကောင်း ကျင်းပခြင်းမပြုလုပ်ကြကြောင်း တွေ့ရသည်။ ခရစ်ယာန်ဘာသာဝင်များ သည်လည်း ခရစ်စမတ်အပါအဝင် မည်သည့်ပွဲလမ်းသဘင်များမှ မကျင်းပဘဲ ဝတ်ပြုဆုတောင်းမှုများသာ ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သည်။ ဟိန္ဒူနှင့် အခြားသော ကိုးကွယ်ယုံကြည်မှုများသည်လည်း ထိုနည်းလည်းကောင်း ပြုမူခဲ့သည်ကို တွေ့ရသည်။
မကြာခင်ကျရောက်မည့် အီးဒ်ပွဲတော်ကာလတွင်လည်း မွတ်စလင်ပြည်သူများအနေဖြင့် အခြား ဘာသာဝင်ညီနောင်များနှင့်အတူ ညီညွတ်စွာရပ်တည်ပြီး ပွဲလမ်းသဘင်များကို ရှောင်ရှားကာ ဝတ်ပြုဆုတောင်းမှုများကိုသာ ပြုလုပ်ပေးကြပါရန် BHRN က မေတ္တာရပ်ခံအပ်ပါသည်။
အဖွဲ့အစည်းနောက်ခံ
+++++++++++
BHRN သည် ၂၀၁၂ ခုနှစ်တွင် တည်ထောင်ခဲ့ပြီး ၂၀၁၅ ခုနှစ်မှစတင်ကာ လူနည်းစုများအပေါ် ဖိနှိပ်ခွဲခြား ဆက်ဆံမှုများ၊ လူ့အခွင့်ရေးချိုးဖောက်ခံရမှုများ၊ ဘာသာရေးလွတ်လပ်ခွင့်ဆုံးရှုံးမှုများနှင့် စစ်တပ်၏ ညှင်းပမ်းဖိနှိပ်မှုများကို စောင့်ကြည့်လေ့လာမှတ်တမ်းတင်ခြင်း၊ သုတေသနတွေ့ရှိချက်များကို နိုင်ငံတကာ အစိုးရများနှင့် အဖွဲ့စည်းများထံသို့ တင်ပြပြီး စစ်တပ်ကိုထိရောက်စွာအရေးယူရန် နိုင်ငံတကာအဆင့် လှုပ်ရှားနေသော အဖွဲ့အစည်းတစ်ရပ်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Burma Human Rights Network
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Human Rights Defenders, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Inter-Communal violence and discrimination - Myanmar - General articles and analysis
Language:
Format :
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888.11 KB
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Description:
"The Archbishop of Mandalay, his staff, and approximately 20 diocesan priests were placed under incommunicado house arrest on 8 April after an estimated 40 soldiers from the Myanmar/Burma army forcibly occupied the Sacred Heart Cathedral where they were holding a Lenten prayer service.
Soldiers reportedly entered the church at 2.30pm on 8 April and detained the congregation for approximately three hours. On 9 April the Catholic News Agency reported that Archbishop Marco Win Tin, Vicar General Mgr Domenic Kyo Du and their staff, together with around 20 diocesan priests, were still being held in the cathedral compound.
Thirty soldiers remained in the cathedral overnight, claiming that they were searching for weapons after an informant alleged that Archbishop Win Tin was supplying weapons to rebels throughout the country. However, no weapons were found on the premises.
CSW’s Senior Analyst for East Asia Benedict Rogers said: “This appalling raid on the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Mandalay is one of the latest indicators of the continued antagonism of the Myanmar army towards religious groups in the country. We call on the army to release all those currently held in the cathedral compound, and to cease its harassment of religious communities and other civilians. CSW continues to call for the urgent restoration of democracy in Myanmar, and for the immediate and unconditional release of all religious and political prisoners.”..."
Source/publisher:
Christian Solidarity Worldwide
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-22
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Opinion and Expression - tools for change in Burma/Myanmar
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Today marks the eighth anniversary of the death of former political prisoner, founding member of the
National League for Democracy, and Hantharwaddy journalist U Win Tin.
For his fearless behavior to free people in Burma from the military dictatorship, U Win Tin was set up
with false charges by the then military junta and given extensive prison sentences. During his time in
prison, the journalist was tormented in many ways and on constant basis, both mentally and
physically. He was evicted from his apartment. He was revoked of his right to receive pension. He
also lost all his teeth due to the torturous interrogation sessions. He was denied nourishment with hard
rice and raw soup for his teeth-less mouth.
U Win Tin developed stomach problems for which he was denied treatment for five whole years. The
prison refused to let him seek treatment for heart issues which became a chronic issue and eventually
led to his death. He documented everything he experienced inside the prison for almost 20 years, with
no one to contact, and enduring isolation inside his cell. In his autobiographical book “What’s that? A
Human Hell”, readers understand the hellish experience U Win Tin endured.
After he was released from the prison, he wore the prison uniform – blue shirt and longyi – to his
death to make a statement, campaigning for the release of all political prisoners. All domestic and
international supporters of Burma’s democratic movement symbolically adorn the blue shirt on April
21, to campaign for the release of political prisoners still inside Burma.
It has been over a year since the military junta attempted to illegally seize power in a coup d’état.
People’s resistance, in many shapes and forms, has continued for over a year. 10,271 political
prisoners, 996 of whom have been sentenced whilst 9,275 await trial, remain unlawfully detained
since the Spring Revolution. The terrorist group has been arbitrarily detaining, torturing and
imprisoning dissidents, so they can have power.
The unconditional and immediate release of all political prisoners is the first step to move Burma
forward into a federal democracy. We urge international leaders like at the UN, EU, ASEAN, US,
Japan, and South Korea to put further pressure on the junta to release all political prisoners.
We also request people in Burma to remember that political prisoners remain behind bars and suffer
brutal oppression by the junta. Do not forget them or their family members who face grueling
challenges. Please help them as much you can..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-22
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Military History
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
404.85 KB
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Description:
"ယနေ့ ဧပြီလ ၂၁ ရက်နေ့သည် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားဟောင်း၊ အမျိုးသားဒီမိုကရေစီအဖွဲ့ချုပ်-နာယက၊ သတင်းစာဆရာကြီး ဟံသာဝတီဦးဝင်းတင် ကွယ်လွန်ခဲ့တာ ၈နှစ် ပြည့်မြောက်သည့်နေ့ ဖြစ်ပါသည်။
မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုတရပ်လုံး စစ်အာဏာရှင်အောက်မှ လွတ်မြောက်ရေးအတွက် ရဲရင့်ပြောင်မြောက်စွာ တိုက်ပွဲဝင်ခဲ့သည့် ဆရာကြီးအား စစ်အာဏာရှင်တို့က မတရားအမှုဆင်ကာ ဖမ်းဆီးပြီး နှစ်ရှည်ထောင်ဒဏ် ချမှတ်ခဲ့သည်။ ဆရာကြီးသည် အကျဉ်းထောင်တွင်း နေထိုင်စဉ် ကာလတလျှောက်တွင်လည်း အမျိုးမျိုးသော စိတ်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ၊ ရုပ်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ နှိပ်စက်ညှဉ်းပန်းမှုများ တောက်လျှောက်ခံခဲ့ရသည်။ အိမ်ခန်းက ဖယ်ပေးခဲ့ရ သည်။ အငြိမ်းစားလစာ ရိက္ခာခံစားခွင့် ဆုံးရှုံးခဲ့ရသည်။ ထောက်လှမ်းစစ်ကြောရေးလက်ချက်ဖြင့် သွားများ အားလုံး ပြောင်သလင်းခါခဲ့ရသည်။ ထောင်ဆန်ကြမ်းထမင်းနှင့် ထောင်ဟင်းရွက်ပြုတ်ရည်ကို မသေရုံတမယ် သွားဖုံးနှင့်မြုံခဲ့ရသည်။ အစာအိမ်ရောဂါစွဲခဲ့ရသည်။ အူကျရောဂါကို ငါးနှစ်တိတိ ကုသခွင့်မပေး၊ နှလုံးရောဂါ ကို ကုသခွင့်မပေးသည့်အတွက် သေရာပါ နာတာရှည်ဖြစ်သွားခဲ့ရသည်။ နှစ်နှစ်ဆယ်နီးနီး မည်သူနှင့်မျှ ဆက်သွယ်ခွင့်မရဘဲ တစ်ဉီးတည်း တိုက်ပိတ်ခံရသည်ကို ဆရာကြီး ကိုယ်တိုင်ရေးသားထားသည့် ဘာလဲဟဲ့ လူ့ငရဲစာအုပ်တွင် ဖေါ်ပြထားခဲ့သည်။ သို့သော်လည်း ထိုကဲ့သို့ ဆိုးရွားလှသော ငရဲခန်းကို မကြောက်မရွံ့ ရဲရင့်စွာ ကျော်ဖြတ်ခဲ့သည်ကိုလည်း ထိုစာအုပ်တွင် လေ့လာကြရမည်ဖြစ်သည်။
ဆရာကြီးသည် အကျဉ်းထောင်မှ လွတ်မြောက်ပြီးနောက် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ လွတ်မြောက်ရေး အတွက် လှုပ်ရှားမှုတစ်ခုအနေဖြင့် အကျဉ်းထောင် ဝတ်စုံဖြစ်သည့် အပြာရောင်အင်္ကျီနှင့် ပုဆိုးကို ကွယ်လွန် သည်အထိ ဝတ်ဆင်သွားခဲ့သည်။
ပြည်တွင်း၊ပြည်ပရှိ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ဒီမိုကရေစီရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှုကို ထောက်ခံအားပေးသူများအနေနှင့်လည်း နှစ်စဉ် ဧပြီလ ၂၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ လွတ်မြောက်ရေးအတွက် အပြာရောင် အင်္ကျီများ ဝတ်ဆင်ခြင်း သင်္ကေတပြုကာ လှုပ်ရှားမှုများ ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့ကြသည်။
၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် ဖေဖေါ်ဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် စစ်အုပ်စုမှ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုမှ မတရားအာဏာလုခဲ့သည်မှာ တစ်နှစ်ကျော်ကြာခဲ့ပြီဖြစ်ပြီး ယနေ့တွင် အာဏာလုမှုကို ဆန့်ကျင်တိုက်ပွဲဝင်ခဲ့ကြသဖြင့် အကျဉ်းထောင် အသီးသီး၌ မတရားဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းခံနေရသူပေါင်း အနည်းဆုံး (ထောင်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ပြီး ၉၉၆ ဦး + ထောင်တွင်းမှတရားရင်ဆိုင်နေရသူ ၉၂၇၅ ဦး) (၁၀၂၇၁)ဦး ရှိနေပြီဖြစ်သည်။
အကြမ်းဖက်အာဏာလုစစ်အုပ်စုက ၎င်းတို့အာဏာတည်မြဲရေး အတွက် ဆန့်ကျင်တော်လှန်သူမှန်သမျှကို နည်းမျိုးစုံဖြင့် မတရားဖမ်းဆီးညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ကာ အကျဉ်းထောင်တွင်း၌ ချုပ်နှောင်ထားလျက်ရှိသည်။
နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားအားလုံး ခြွင်းချက်မရှိ ချက်ချင်းလွှတ်ရန်မှာ ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီနိုင်ငံတော် တည် ဆောက်ရေးအတွက် ပထမဆုံးခြေလှမ်းဖြစ်သည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် ကုလသမဂ္ဂ၊ ဥရောပသမဂ္ဂ၊ အာဆီယံ၊ အမေရိကန်၊ ဂျပန်နှင့် တောင်ကိုရီးယားအပါအဝင် နိုင်ငံတကာခေါင်းဆောင်များအနေဖြင့် အကြမ်းဖက် အာဏာလု စစ်အုပ်စုအပေါ် လုံလောက်သော ဖိအားပေးမှုများ လုပ်ဆောင်ရန် တိုက်တွန်းအပ်ပါသည်။
ပြည်သူများအနေဖြင့်လည်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုနှင့် ၎င်း၏ယန္တရားများက အကျဉ်းထောင်တွင်းရှိ နိုင်ငံရေး အကျဉ်းသားများကို နည်းမျိုးစုံသုံးကာ ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်၊ ဖိနှိပ်လျက်ရှိသည်ကို သတိမူပြီး နိုင်ငံရေး အကျဉ်းသားများနှင့် ၎င်းတို့မိသားစုများ၏ စွန့်လွှတ်အနစ်နာခံမှုနှင့် ပေးဆပ်မှုများကို မမေ့လျော့ဘဲ တတ်နိုင်သမျှ ဝိုင်းဝန်းကူညီပေးပါရန် တောင်းဆိုအပ်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-22
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Military History
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Description:
"Myanmar’s junta has sentenced Dr. Htar Htar Lin, who led Myanmar’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout under the ousted civilian government, to three years in prison with hard labor on corruption charges because she denied the regime international COVID-19 grants.
Junta-controlled newspapers reported on Thursday that the director of the national immunization program defied ministerial orders by returning a Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization’s Health System Strengthening grant of 168 million kyats (US$91,000) from Unicef and the World Health Organization on Feb. 10, 2021, shortly after the coup.
The return of the grant depleted governmental assets and she was found guilty under the Anti-Corruption Law, the junta’s media reported.
Since June last year, the well-respected director was charged with three more charges, including high treason and incitement and under the Unlawful Association Act for allegedly assisting the civilian National Unity Government (NUG), which the junta has designated as a terrorist group. The charges carry up to 20 years in prison.
An arrest warrant was issued for Dr. Htar Htar Lin shortly after the coup and she was arrested in June last year in Yangon. Her seven-year-old son, husband, friend and her daughter were also detained at the same time. The regime raided her home and seized her belongings.
In early February last year, Dr. Htar Htar Lin emailed colleagues to say she would probably face accusations that she misused funds as the dictatorship would try to steal from the vaccination program.
The email said: “We can’t let military dictators use COVID vaccinations as a weapon. I may still be free or detained by the military when you read this. But I will never surrender.”
On Wednesday, the junta also sentenced Dr. Soe Oo, who chaired the external aid committee which was overseeing the COVID-19 grant, on the same corruption charges for failing to stop Dr. Htar Htar Lin from returning the grants. He was sentenced to two years with hard labor on Wednesday.
Both high-profile doctors refused to work under the regime and they took part in the civil disobedience movement (CDM) after the coup.
The CDM was launched by medics on Feb. 3 in protest against the coup and was followed by other government staff nationwide.
The junta said last year that Dr. Htar Htar Lin confessed to communicating with Dr. Zaw Wai Soe, the NUG’s health minister, through the applications Signal and Zoom. She helped write speeches and NUG health-care policy documents and helped prepare for Zoom meetings and plan to implement the NUG health-care programs, including estimating the required drugs and costs, the state media stated.
It made the same accusation against 26 other doctors, who it said had accepted NUG public health, health administration and clinical roles. Among those accused was Dr. Maung Maung Nyein Tun, 45, a lecturer at the Department of Surgery at the Mandalay University, who died in junta detention with COVID-19 in August last year.
According to Physicians for Human Rights, 286 health staff have been detained since the Feb. 1 coup. The junta had raided at least 128 clinics and hospitals and killed at least 30 health staff by Jan. 10, the group reported..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-21
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Opinion and Expression - tools for change in Burma/Myanmar, Anti-coup protesters
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Local URL:
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Description:
"On 21 April 2022, people around the world will be wearing blue shirts or blue clothing to raise awareness for Burma’s political prisoners and in solidarity with those who have been unlawfully imprisoned for supporting human rights and democracy.
21 April 2022 also marks the eighth anniversary of the death of U Win Tin – journalist, democracy activist, founding member of the National League for Democracy, and one of Burma’s most high profile and respected political prisoners. He spent over 19 years in prison. Every year, human rights activists in Burma hold a Blue Shirt Day event, with Burma Campaign UK and other organisations around the world supporting it.
Arrest, torture, and forced disappearances are taking place daily in Burma since the military staged a coup on 1 February last year. Over 13,000 people have been arrested, and more than 9,900 political prisoners are currently in jail. This figure does not include people who have forcibly disappeared in remote ethnic areas or Rohingya civilians who have been arrested unlawfully.
“Political prisoners in Burma face horrific torture, harassment and intimidation, but the international community barely mentions their cases,” said Wai Hnin Pwint Thon, Senior Advocacy Officer at Burma Campaign UK. “These activists bravely stood up against the military coup, but the world seems to have forgotten about them. The international community must speak out for political prisoners in Burma and call for their immediate, unconditional release.”
Please join Blue Shirt Day on Thursday 21st April. Wear blue, post pictures on social media, and tell the world that there is a growing number of political prisoners in Burma and that they must be freed immediately.
Post a picture of yourself on Facebook, Twitter etc, using the hashtag #blueshirt4burma or on Instagram: @blueshirt4burma..."
Source/publisher:
"Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-18
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Politics, Government and Governance - Burma/Myanmar - general studies, Human Rights Defenders
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Local URL:
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Sub-title:
Exclusive: Junta detained at least 26 intellectuals last year as it sought to suppress opposition
Description:
"Myanmar jailed more writers and public intellectuals in crackdowns last year than any other country, according to a freedom of expression advocacy group.
PEN America’s annual census of detained writers, the Freedom to Write Index, found Myanmar’s junta detained at least 26 writers in 2021 as it sought to suppress opposition after seizing power from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
According to PEN’s study, in total, Myanmar detains the third-highest number of writers and public intellectuals globally (26), behind only Saudi Arabia (29) and China (85). Many of those held in Saudi Arabia and China are serving long-term sentences and had been arrested in previous years.
Across the world, at least 277 writers in 36 countries were jailed last year in connection with their writing or for exercising free expression, PEN said.
Karin Deutsch Karlekar, the director of PEN America’s “free expression at risk” programmes, described the figures as intolerably high. “In Myanmar and in countries across the globe, writers and public intellectuals are being imprisoned for the ‘crime’ of exercising their freedom of expression and, in many cases, for using the power of the written word to fight back against authoritarianism,” she said.
After the coup in Myanmar in February 2021, many poets and authors used their writing to express outrage and grief at military atrocities and inspire dissent.
Of the 26 detained in Myanmar in 2021, the majority are held in prisons but have not yet been charged, according to PEN.
Many have continued to write while in hiding or temporary exile, sharing work on Facebook or private apps where they feel it is safe to do so, said Karlekar. Others have been forced to self-censor due to the security risks. Reports of mistreatment and torture in Myanmar’s detention facilities are widespread.
The writers represent only a fraction of those imprisoned by Myanmar’s junta, which has arrested those suspected of opposing its rule – from student protesters to teachers and doctors who have refused to work in junta-controlled facilities. More than 10,183 people are in detention, according to estimates by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners Burma, an advocacy group that tracks arrests and killings.
The Freedom to Write Index is based on PEN’s internal research as well as news reports, data from other rights groups and information provided by the relatives of people who are detained. The index includes any instance where a writer was targeted because of their work, and jailed for more than 48 hours during 2021.
PEN’s report raised particular concern about the oppression of writers in Iran, where 21 people were imprisoned, and pointed to a deteriorating situation in Belarus, where many writers were arrested during crackdowns in 2020 and 10 were detained last year.
One in five of those detained globally were serving sentences of 10 or more years in prison, it said. Four writers and academics who were recorded in PEN’s 2021 Index died in custody. This includes the Iranian poet and film-maker Baktash Abtin who died of Covid in January 2022..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations
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Local URL:
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Description:
"In one drawing, dozens of men sit crammed into a single room, hunched with their knees together, every inch of space occupied. In another, they lie back to back on the floor, their faces straining with discomfort.
Fourteen sketches smuggled out of Myanmar's Insein Prison and interviews with eight former prisoners offer a rare glimpse inside the country's most notorious jail, where thousands of political prisoners have been sent since last year's military coup and communication with the outside world is sharply limited.
The rough, blue-ink sketches show daily life for groups of male prisoners in their dormitories, queuing for water from a trough to wash, talking or lying on the floor in the tropical heat.
Beyond those depictions, the eight recently released inmates told Reuters the colonial-era facility in Yangon is infested with rats, a place where bribes are common, prisoners pay for sleeping space on the floor and widespread illness goes untreated.
"We're no longer humans behind bars," said Nyi Nyi Htwe, 24, who smuggled the sketches out of the prison when he was released in October, after spending several months for a defamation conviction, on charges he denies, in connection with joining protests against the coup.
Reuters could not independently verify the accounts provided by the former inmates.
Myanmar's junta, which seized power from the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, and prison administration did not respond to multiple requests for comment on conditions shown in the sketches and described by the former inmates.
Humanitarian groups including the International Committee of the Red Cross told Reuters they have been denied access to the jail.
Built by the British in 1871, Insein is Myanmar's largest prison, housing many people arrested for opposing the junta.
Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, convicted of breaking Myanmar's Official Secrets Act in 2017, spent most of their 511 days behind bars in Insein. They were released in a 2019 amnesty, before the latest coup.
PRISON POPULATION SWELLS
The artist drew the prison sketches between April and July of last year. Later released, he declined to be interviewed or identified, telling Nyi Nyi Htwe he feared rearrest.
Nyi Nyi Htwe, who met the artist in prison, said he sketched prisoners if asked and drew prison scenes wherever he went, saying he felt more relaxed while drawing. He gave Nyi Nyi Htwe the sketches as a birthday present.
Nyi Nyi Htwe said he smuggled them out on his release to show friends, family and others the conditions inside.
Since the coup, 10,072 people have been detained in the Southeast Asian country, including Suu Kyi and most of her cabinet, and over 1,730 people have been killed, according to the nonprofit Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, whose tallies are widely cited. The junta has said AAPP's figures are exaggerated.
Many of those detained have been sent to Insein.
Built to incarcerate around 5,000 people, the prison has seen inmate numbers swell to over 10,000 since the coup, said a spokesperson for the AAPP. Reuters could not confirm the figures.
The sketches reflect the increase in the months after the coup, said Nyi Nyi Htwe.
In one from late April, a few prisoners sit apart in their dorm, some reading books. A picture from June shows about 60 people in the same room - many lying in tight rows down the centre, the rest hunched against the walls.
Nyi Nyi Htwe said he and as many as 100 others were packed well beyond capacity into a room where they "slept a finger-width apart," and that he watched prison officers beat inmates with batons and had to pay bribes to send messages to family that they told him often did not arrive.
'LUCKY NOT TO DIE'
With the overcrowding came water shortages, disease, fatigue, fighting between prisoners and flourishing bribery, said people released in recent months.
"Rats ran around in the room. The toilets were filthy. The food was mixed with flies. Those who couldn't pay a bribe had to sleep next to the toilet bucket," said Sandar Win, a 42-year-old social worker jailed at Insein for several months for defamation after protesting against the junta.
She was released under an amnesty while awaiting sentencing for the charges, which she denies. She has since fled Myanmar.
Access to outdoor latrines was limited, forcing prisoners to defecate in buckets in their rooms, three women former inmates said. These unsanitary conditions allowed skin and bowel diseases to spread, and there was little medical help, they said.
A handwritten note by a group of anonymous Insein inmates, smuggled out to a prominent human rights activist in February, alleges several instances of medical negligence, including failure to treat people beaten unconscious and a person who had suffered a stroke and was paralysed.
"These cases are happening right in front of us," said the note, which was shown to Reuters by the activist, Nan Lin. "We request urgent help from international organisations and local organisations."
Reuters could not independently verify the note's authenticity, but several former inmates said they had witnessed or suffered beatings by guards and there was little medical support.
Despite a COVID-19 vaccination drive at Insein last summer that was publicised on state media, former inmates said the coronavirus thrived in the crowded prison. At least 10 prisoners are suspected to have died from the disease, according to the AAPP. read more
Nyi Nyi Htwe, who has joined an armed rebel group, said nearly two-thirds of his dormitory were sick with COVID symptoms last summer.
"They put all the sick people in our room — high fever, coughing and ill," he said. "I was lucky enough not to die."
A set of smuggled notes shown to Reuters by an aid group show an exchange between a father, held on defamation charges, and his young son.
"Behaving well, Papa. I miss you. I'd like to have a toy boat," wrote the boy.
"My little son," came the reply, including a tiny boat the father fashioned from instant coffee wrappers. "I love you so much, my sweetheart. Please listen to your grandma."..."
Source/publisher:
"Reuters" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-07
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"Myanmar authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalist Win Naing Oo and stop using terrorism charges to imprison independent reporters, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.
A special court in Obo Prison, in the central city of Mandalay, on Tuesday, April 5, sentenced Win Naing Oo, chief reporter with the local Channel Mandalay TV news station, to five years in prison under Section 52(a) of the Counter Terrorism Law, a provision that outlaws acts of organizing or participating in a terrorist group, knowingly concealing or harboring a terrorist group, or giving permission for a terrorist group to use a building or gather, according to a report by The Irrawaddy and data compiled by local rights group the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners.
Win Naing Oo was arrested on August 31, 2021, in Mandalay, according to news reports and CPJ research. He was initially charged under Article 505(a) of the penal code, a broad provision that criminalizes “any attempt to cause fear, spread false news or agitate directly or indirectly a criminal offense against a government employee” or that “causes their hatred, disobedience, or disloyalty toward the military and the government.”
“Journalist Win Naing Oo should be released immediately and unconditionally, and allowed to continue his work of reporting the news without fear of reprisal,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “The military regime’s bid to equate journalism with terrorism marks a dark and preposterous turn in its brutal campaign to stifle Myanmar’s free press.”
The 505(a) charge was changed in mid-October to one of terrorism, according to a Myanmar Now report. A defense lawyer cited in The Irrawaddy report said Win Naing Oo has no plans to appeal his conviction, which found that he was involved with a local anti-military People’s Defense Force in Mandalay’s Sint Kaing Township.
Win Naing Oo’s arrest came in the wake of the military’s February 1, 2021, democracy-suspending coup and subsequent protests. The military junta cracked down on Myanmar’s independent media, detaining dozens of journalists. Myanmar is the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists, trailing only China, with at least 26 behind bars at the time of CPJ’s December 1, 2021, prison census.
CPJ messaged Channel Mandalay TV on Facebook for information on Win Naing Oo’s case, but did not receive any response. The Myanmar Ministry of Information did not immediately reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment..."
Source/publisher:
Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-06
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights and international relations, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations
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Local URL:
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Description:
"Nine young activists belonging to an anti-coup protest group in Mandalay were detained on Monday evening, according to their colleagues in Mandalay’s Pyigyitagun Township.
U Aggavumsa, the leading organizer of anti-coup protests in Pyigyitagun, said: “After we lost contact with them, we issued an alert so that others involved could flee. We can now confirm that they have been detained. Two safe houses were raided and six men and three women were detained.”
Another organizer of anti-coup protests in Mandalay said the young activists were detained in Amarapura Township when safe houses were raided after one protester was arrested on a street.
“We had contact with one protester, and we noticed from his words that something was wrong. So, we assumed that he had been detained, and we issued an alert,” he said.
The whereabouts of the detained activists are still unknown, and family members still can’t contact them.
U Aggavumsa said he is concerned that the detainees might have been tortured during the raid and during interrogation. “As they [the regime] haven’t issued a press release about their detention, it appears that they are searching for other people involved.”
More than one year after the coup, more than a dozen groups of anti-coup protesters continue to stage flash mob protests against the military regime in Mandalay despite crackdowns and arrests.
The regime has also stepped up its arrest of anti-coup protesters and urban guerilla resistance fighters and is holding them incommunicado, according to anti-coup protesters.
Ko Philips, an anti-coup protester, was beaten in public and detained by junta security forces on March 27. His whereabouts is still unknown.
On March 2, two university students including the chairman of the Mandalay District Students’ Union and a striking teacher were detained during a junta raid in Amarapura Township.
At least 17 young people were detained when around 500 junta security forces combed wards and villages in Patheingyi Township on March 22-23.
In Yangon, an urban guerilla resistance fighter died and six others from resistance group Free Tiger Ranger were arrested when junta soldiers raided their apartments in Kyimyindaing Township on March 26. Junta security forces fired shots as they raided the apartments, the resistance group said.
Four men and two women aged between 18 and 35 were detained and are being held for interrogation at the Myanmar military’s Division 44 in Shwepyithar Township, according to the Free Tiger Ranger.
Junta soldiers did not return the body of the resistance fighter who was shot dead during the raid.
Free Tiger Ranger is an urban guerilla resistance group that targets military informants, military-linked businesses and the junta administrative mechanism in Yangon. In their latest attack, the group said it killed a local administrator in Hlaing Tharyar Township on March 24..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-06
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"April 4, 2022
Since the failed coup, the military junta has been terrorizing, repressing, and plundering the lives and livelihoods of the civilian population in escalatory attacks with each passing day.
The military junta’s intensification of so-called military operations has resorted to instilling a climate of fear. Inhumane tactics detailed below further demonstrate the military’s intent to return Burma to harsh authoritarian rule.
According to documentation collected by Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), since the coup and as of March 31, 2022, more than (547) households and buildings have been seized by the military junta.
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-04
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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Format :
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876.86 KB
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Description:
"၄-ဧပြီ-၂၀၂၂
အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုသည် အာဏာကိုမတရားလုယူချိန်ကတည်းက နေ့စဉ်နှင့်အမျှ ပြည်သူလူထု၏ အသက် အိုးအိမ်၊ စည်းစိမ်ကို ခြိမ်းခြောက်၊ အနိုင်ကျင့်၊ ဖျက်ဆီးမှုများ ပြုလုပ်နေခဲ့ရာ လက်ရှိအချိန်တွင် အကြမ်းဖက် မှုများမှာ ပိုမိုအရှိန်မြှင့် ဆိုးရွားရက်စက်လာလျက်ရှိသည်။
စစ်အုပ်စုအနေဖြင့် နယ်မြေစိုးမိုးရေးလုပ်ငန်းစဉ်ဟု အကြောင်းပြကာ အဆမတန် အင်အားသုံး၍ စစ်ရေးအရှိန် မြှင့်တင်ဆောင်ရွက်လျက်ရှိသလို တစ်ဖက်တွင်လည်း ပြည်သူများကို အကြောက်တရားလွှမ်းခြုံနေစေရေး အတွက် လူမဆန်သောနည်းလမ်းပေါင်းစုံအသုံးပြုလျက်ရှိသည်။
နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ ကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း (AAPP) မှ လက်လှမ်းမီသမျှ ကောက်ယူရရှိထား သော အချက်အလက်များအရ မတရားအာဏာလုရန်ကြိုးပမ်းချိန်ကတည်းက မတ်လ (၃၁)၊ ၂၀၂၂ အထိ နေအိမ်၊အဆောက်အအုံ စုစုပေါင်း (၅၄၇) ထက်မနည်း စစ်အုပ်စုက ချိပ်ပိတ်သိမ်းဆည်းခဲ့သည်။
နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ ကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-04
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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Format :
pdf
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973.22 KB
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"After last weekend’s massive show of force by Myanmar’s armed forces and their chief’s promise to “annihilate” all forms of opposition, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) looks back at the past three weeks of intensified judicial persecution of journalists and reiterates its call for the unconditional release of all media personnel currently held in Myanmar’s prisons.
The additions to the list of arrests and prison sentences seem to never end. According to information verified by RSF, Nay Naw, a journalist also known as Myo Naung Naung Zaw who is an editor with the Karen Information Centre (KIC) and a reporter for Bloomberg Business, was arrested on 28 Marsh in Myawaddy, a southeastern city on the Thai border.
Naung Yoe, a freelance journalist arrested on 9 April 2021, was sentenced on the same day to 18 months in prison by a court in the remote northern town of Hpakant, in Kachin State. In both cases, the authorities invoked Section 505 (a) of the penal code, which penalises the publication of false information about representatives of the armed forces.
“From north to south, in cities and in rural townships, Myanmar’s repressive military machine harasses and hunts down journalists,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “With more than 60 media workers currently in jail, Myanmar is one of the worst places in the world to try to keep your fellow citizens informed. We urge the international community to apply tougher targeted sanctions on the regime’s officials, who dare to shamelessly parade their relentless persecution of civil society.”
“Annihilate”
Addressing 8,000 soldiers gathered for a military parade on 27 April, armed forces day, in the capital, Naypyidaw, military junta chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing vowed to “annihilate” all forms of opposition “until the end.” His speech coincided with a disturbing escalation in the junta’s crackdown on press freedom.
The past three weeks of judicial persecution of journalists:
- 23 March: Two convictions in the space of 12 hours
Ye Yint Tun, a reporter for the Myanmar Than Taw Sint (or Myanmar Herald) news website, was sentenced to two years in prison by a special court in the southwestern city of Pathein. He was arrested while covering a protest on 28 February 2021.
Aung Zaw Zaw, a video editor with the Mandalay Free Press news agency, was also sentenced to two years in prison on same day by a court in Kantbalu Township, in northern Myanmar. He was arrested on the evening of 16 January 2022 at his father's home in the nearby village of Tauk Ka Shat. Like Ye Yint Tun, he was jailed under Section 505 (a) of the penal code.
- 22 March: Jail sentence for detained Mizzima News editor
After more than a year in detention, Than Htike Aung, a former editor at Mizzima News, a media outlet that has played a historic role in the fight for a free press in Myanmar, was sentenced to two years in prison. RSF has learned that he does not intend to appeal for fear that his sentence could be increased. He was transferred to Yamethin prison in the big northern city of Mandalay, where he will serve the rest of his sentence.
- 21 March: Two years hard labour for Kamayut Media co-founder
Kamayut Media news agency co-founder Han Thar Nyein was sentenced to two years of hard labour on a “false news” charge by a military court in Insein prison, in a suburb of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. He was arrested in March 2021 along with his US colleague Nathan Maung, who sought refuge in the United States after his release on 14 June 2021.
Maung told RSF he feared that his colleague could also tried for an alleged violation of the Electronic Transactions Law, which carries a possible 15-year prison sentence under Section 33 (b). He said he was saddened at the thought that “he could be brought to trial with chains on his legs and hands as a prisoner facing new charges."
- 15 March: Freelancer Aung Win Htay arrested
As reporters throughout Myanmar are increasingly forced to work clandestinely, freelance journalist Aung Win Htay was seized by a military unit in Mong Ton, a rural township near the Thai border in northeastern Shan State, and was formally detained by the police a few hours later under Section 505 (a) of the penal code for criticising the junta on Facebook.
He has worked in the past for Democratic Voice of Burma, a historic protagonist in the struggle for an independent press in Myanmar and recipient of the RSF Press Freedom Prize in 2007.
- 14 March: Convictions of Kanbawza Tai News journalists upheld on appeal
Nann Nann Tai, also known as Nann Nway Nway Hlaing, the editor of Kanbawza Tai News, a media outlet based in Taunggyi, the capital of northeastern Shan State, and one of her reporters, Nang Win Yi, were sentenced to two years in prison on appeal. Arrested in Taunggyi on 24 March 2021, the two women journalists were convicted last December under the all-purpose Section 505 (a) of the penal code.
- 11 March: 11 years in prison for Bago Weekly reporter
Nyein Chan Wai, a Bago Weekly reporter based in Tharrawaddy, a city 120 km north of Yangon, was given the extremely harsh sentence of eight years and three months in prison for inciting “disaffection towards the government” under Section 124 of the penal code. This sentence is added to the three-year jail term he received on 16 December under Section 505 (a) of the penal code. He will now have to spend more than 11 years in prison.
- 10 March: Journalist arrested, pardoned, freed… and rearrested
After Yangon-based freelance reporter Soe Yarzar Tun was kidnapped by soldiers, his family had to wait six days until the police finally told them that he was being held at Hlegu Myoma police station.
This is the second time he has been arrested. Following his arrest a few weeks after the February 2021 coup d’état, he spent four months in Insein prison until released under a pardon on 30 June 2021. For him, as for many of Myanmar’s journalists, the nightmare now resumes.
Myanmar is ranked 140th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2021 World Press Freedom Index..."
Source/publisher:
Reporters Without Borders (Paris)
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"This Briefing pape provides a summary of the body evidence on the long-term implication for the mental health of people in Burma in view of the unprecedented levels of violence directed by the military junta towards the population, as well as the weaponization of the COVID-19 crisis in the country (1) Drawing from AAPP data, as well as academic literature and several interviews with CSO Activists, this birefing paper reveals the severe consequences of psychological traum, and the persisting effects of destress, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among communities, after suffering from insecurity, widespread attacks, torture, displacement, and terrorist-like action by the armed wing of the military junta..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-04-01
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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Format :
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Size:
10.57 MB 3.43 MB
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Description:
"Junta courts in Myanmar have sentenced three journalists, Hanthar Nyein, Than Htike Aung and Ye Yint Tun, to two years in prison each for allegedly “spreading false news”. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns the ongoing attacks to journalists in Myanmar and calls on the Myanmar officials to immediately drop all the charges against Hanthar Nyein, Than Htike Aung, and Ye Yint Tun.
According to the International Press Institute, Hanthar Nyein was sentenced on March 21 in a military-run court inside Yangon’s Insein Prison. The court charged the journalist for incitement under Section 505(A) of the Myanmar Penal Code.
On March 22, Than Htike Aung was handed the same charge, but was sentenced in Dekkhina District Court in Naypyitaw, Myanmar's capital. Section 505(A) of Myanmar’s Penal Code criminalises the circulation of any information that is deemed “false news” against the military regime. Both journalists pleaded not guilty.
Radio Free Asia reported that Ye Yint Tun, a reporter for the Myanmar Herald, was also sentenced for two years on March 23 under Sections 505(A) and 505(B) of the Penal Code.
The sentencing of the three journalists comes one year after their original arrests. Hanthar Nyein, co-founder of Kamayut Media, was arrested on March 9, 2021, during a military raid of the news outlet’s office in Yangon.
“They said Kamayut Media had incited riots and rallied people to protest. However, Hanthar Nyein appealed to them that he had just reported the news in accordance with journalistic ethics,” Hanthar Nyein’s lawyer said.
Than Htike Aung, a news editor affiliated with independent media outlet Mizzima, was arrested on March 19, 2021, in Naypyitaw whilst reporting on a court hearing. Authorities arrested Ye Yint Tun on February 28, 2021, whilst he was covering a protest in Pathein.
Section 505(A) of the Penal Code has been heavily criticised in Myanmar, with activists arguing that it is a “legal catch-all for bringing criminal charges against a broad range of individuals deemed to pose a challenge to the military regime”, and thus justifies the arbitrary arrest of journalists.
The IFJ said: “The ongoing detainment and harassment of journalists by the military junta continues to curb press freedom in Myanmar and contravene international human rights standards. The IFJ calls for the immediate release of Hanthar Nyein, Than Htike Aung and Ye Yint Tun, and urges the military to immediately cease its intimidation of Myanmar’s media.”..."
Source/publisher:
International Federation of Journalists
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"March 24 is observed as the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims, marking the day Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador was assassinated on March 24th, 1980 for denouncing violations of human rights.
The military coup in Myanmar/Burma on February 1st, 2021 exacerbated the number and intensity of gross human rights violation across the country. Since the military seized power, civilians have become victims of arbitrary arrest, torture, targeted and indiscriminate killing, airstrikes, shelling and other violent abuses at the hands of the Burma Army. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, 1,687 civilians have already been killed since the coup, though the number is likely much higher. Across the country, over 800,000 civilians are displaced and living under constant threat to their physical security and mental health[1]. Those who have become victims still await justice, while their perpetrators are yet to be punished and continue to commit further human rights violations. On the other hand, State Administration Council is continuing to commit human rights violation with impunity and there is no accountability from any perpetrator.
In Southeast Burma where armed conflict has been happening for more than seven decades, local communities are subjected to widespread human rights violations, especially by armed actors. The ethnic minorities in Southeast Burma has been systematically targeted and attacked by the Burma Army. According to KHRG’s documentation, the majority of the victims of human rights violations or their families have never received remediation for what they have suffered due to the culture of impunity within armed groups, especially within the Burma Army. The Burma Army has been committing forced disappearance, rape, murder, torture, the deliberate destruction of civilian property, and other forms of human rights abuses without facing any repercussions, whereas the victims and families of the victims have had to endure the long-lasting impacts of the abuses.
Since the coup, conflict has escalated again in Southeast Burma and dozens of villagers have been killed by airstrikes, shelling, landmine explosions, and other forms of violent attacks, including while being used as human shields. Civilians have also been systematically used as forced labour by the Burma Army. While accountability for past abuses has not been realised, further abuses are being committed by the Burma Army. KHRG calls upon the international community to take resolute action against the Burma Army, its military-owned businesses, and any entity that works with the Burma Army in an effort in diminish human rights abuses in Burma, end military impunity, restore accountability and justice, and assist victims of gross human rights abuses.
The countless victims of human rights violations and their families deserve and have the right to know the truth, receive justice, and be able to live their lives with dignity. The penetrators must be held accountable for the violations they have committed during both times of war and peace. It is the responsibilities of all to ensure the right to the truth concerning gross human rights violations and the dignity of victims.
KHRG would like to acknowledge those who have suffered human rights violations and victims who continue to wait for justice. KHRG also pays tribute to those who have suffered or lost their lives while striving to raise awareness to human rights violations in Burma..."
Source/publisher:
Karen Human Rights Group
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Human Rights and international relations, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Burma: Internal displacement/forced migration of several ethnic groups., Armed conflict in Burma - attacks on civilians
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Format :
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Size:
134.47 KB
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Description:
"Myanmar authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalists Hanthar Nyein and Than Htike Aung, and stop sentencing members of the press to prison for their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.
On Monday, March 21, a military court in Yangon’s Insein Prison convicted Hanthar, co-founder of the local news website Kamayut Media, under Section 505(a) of the penal code, a broad anti-state provision that criminalizes incitement and the dissemination of “false news,” and sentenced him to two years in prison, according to news reports and Kamayut Media editor-in-chief Nathan Maung, who communicated with CPJ via email.
The following day, a court in the capital city, Naypyidaw, convicted Than Htike Aung, a news editor with the news website Mizzima, on the same charge and also ordered him to be imprisoned for two years, according to reports and Mizzima editor-in-chief Soe Myint, who also communicated with CPJ via email.
The courts both said that the time the journalists had already served, following Hanthar’s March 9, 2021, arrest and Than Htike Aung’s March 19, 2021, arrest, would count toward their sentences, according to the journalists’ editors.
“The sentencing of journalists Hanthar Nyein and Than Htike Aung on bogus anti-state charges underscores Myanmar’s dubious distinction as one of the world’s worst jailers of the press,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “They should be freed immediately, along with the dozens of other reporters wrongfully held behind bars under the abusive rule of the country’s military junta.”
Both reporters pleaded not guilty to the charges, their editors said.
Maung told CPJ that Hanthar did not have any immediate plans to appeal his conviction, and that his prison sentence included hard labor. He said Hanthar was currently in good health.
Previously, Maung told CPJ that authorities physically abused Hanthar at the Yay Kyi Ai interrogation center in Insein Township before moving him to Insein Prison.
Soe Myint also told CPJ that Than Htike Aung would not appeal his conviction. He said the journalist was transferred to Mandalay Division’s Yamethin Prison on Wednesday to serve his sentence.
Myanmar’s Ministry of Information did not immediately reply to CPJ’s request for comment sent via email. Myanmar is the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists, trailing only China, with at least 26 behind bars at the time of CPJ’s annual prison census, conducted on December 1, 2021..."
Source/publisher:
Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
Local URL:
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Sub-title:
The Myanmar Junta’s Crimes Against Humanity Following the Coup d’État
Description:
"Based on more than 120 interviews, “Nowhere is Safe”: The Myanmar Junta’s Crimes Against Humanity Following the Coup d’État , exposes how the Myanmar military junta murdered, imprisoned, tortured, disappeared, persecuted, and forcibly displaced or transferred peaceful protesters, activists, political leaders, and other civilians throughout the country in the six months following the military coup on February 1, 2021.
It provides the most extensive legal analysis to date on the attack, finding that the Myanmar junta is responsible for crimes against humanity under international law, and it reveals the identities of 61 Myanmar military and police officials who should be investigated and possibly prosecuted. It also reveals the physical locations of 1,040 military units nationwide.
Through detailed recommendations, this report provides a pathway for the international community to address impunity by the Myanmar junta, hold preparators accountable, and end ongoing attacks..."
Source/publisher:
Fortify Rights
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf pdf
Size:
32.93 MB 31.03 MB 141.25 KB
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Description:
"The entire population of Myanmar has been deprived of their basic human rights at the moment. Among them, prisons are the worst place of the most serious HR violations which are totally unknown to the rest of the world, to the entire country and the humanity. Political prisoners and detainees who took part in the anti-coup movement and fought against the military dictators by all means during the Spring Revolution have been heavily tortured by the prison authority, stooges of the dictator. This animation video is presented by GSCC, AAPP and AJAR marking the “International Day for the Right to the Truth” to disclose the true reality and to make known of the most unknown and worst HR violations behind bars.
(Our Revolution Must Surely Win!!!)..."
Source/publisher:
General Strike Collaboration Committee, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners and Asia Justice and Rights
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-23
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"From the day the organization was established, throughout its 22-year existence, AAPP has been diligently observing, documenting, and reporting on the violations of prisoner rights, and human rights throughout Burma.
Through our work, we have discovered the situation inside prisons and interrogation centers in the country has clearly worsened since the February 1, 2021, attempted military coup. The inhumane conditions suffered by political prisoners demonstrate how the junta thinks. For them, it is as if those who show dissent do not have fundamental human rights.
In this report, we have described the experiences of political prisoners, pro-democracy supporters, who have been subjected to interrogation, judicial processes, and imprisonment by the junta since the beginning of the attempted coup. Evidence has been collected from AAPP records on file, interviews with family members of political prisoners, interviews with released political prisoners, and other credible sources.
This brief report provides inexorable evidence that arbitrary arrests and unlawful imprisonment will continue, along with persecution over all peoples, including ethnic nationalities, with violations of human rights everywhere across the country, if the coup continues. As long as the military dictatorship exists, people in Burma will have no future..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-23
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders
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Format :
pdf
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615.64 KB
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Description:
"ယနေ့ မတ် ၂၃ ရက်နေ့၊ ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ်တွင် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း (AAPP) စတင် ဖွဲ့စည်း ထူထောင်ခဲ့သည်မှာ (၂၂) နှစ် ပြည့်မြောက်ခဲ့ပြီဖြစ်သည်။
စတင်ထူထောင်ချိန်မှစ၍ ၂၂ နှစ်တာကာလအတွင်း AAPP အနေဖြင့် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားအရေး၊ လူ့အခွင့်အရေး၊ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုများနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ အစဉ်တစိုက်လေ့လာစောင့်ကြည့် မှတ်တမ်းတင်မှုများ၊ ထုတ်ပြန်မှုများကို ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သည်။
ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ ၁ ရက်နေ့၊ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် စစ်အုပ်စု၏ မတရားအာဏာလုယူမှုနောက်ပိုင်း မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ စစ်ကြောရေးစခန်းများနှင့် အကျဉ်းထောင်များ၏ အခြေအနေမှာ ယခင်ကထက် အဆပေါင်းများစွာ ပိုမိုဆိုးရွားလာခဲ့သည်ကို စောင့်ကြည့်လေ့လာမှုများအရ တွေ့ရှိရသည်။ အထူးသဖြင့် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ၏ ထောင်တွင်းရင်ဆိုင်ကြုံတွေ့နေရသည့် အခြေအနေများမှာ လူတစ်ယောက်၏ အခွင့်အရေးမှန်သမျှ အဟောသိကံဖြစ်ကြရသည်။
ယခုအစီရင်ခံစာတွင် စစ်အုပ်စုမှ နိုင်ငံတော်အာဏာကို မတရားအာဏာလုယူချိန်မှ အစပြု၍ ရင်ဆိုင်နေရသည့် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ၏ စစ်ကြောရေး၊ တရားစီရင်ရေးနှင့် အကျဉ်းစံ အတွေ့အကြုံများကို ဖေါ်ပြထားသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်းမှ ကောက်ယူထားသော မှတ်တမ်းများ၊ အကျဉ်းကျခံနေရဆဲ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ၏ မိသားစုဝင်များနှင့် တွေ့ဆုံမေးမြန်းမှုများ၊ ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်သူများနှင့် တွေ့ဆုံမေးမြန်းမှုများအပေါ် အခြေခံ၍ သက်သေခံအထောက်အထားနှင့်တကွ တင်ပြထားခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။
မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ် သက်ဆိုးရှည်နေသေးသ၍ ပြည်သူများ၏ အနာဂတ်ပျောက်နေဦးမည်သာဖြစ်သည်။ ထို့အတူ တရားလက်လွတ်ဖမ်းဆီးထောင်ချမှုများ၊ တိုင်းရင်းသားပြည်သူတရပ်လုံးအပေါ် အနိုင်ကျင့်စော်ကားမှုများ၊ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုများ နယ်ပယ်အသီးသီး၊ နေရာဒေသအသီးသီးတွင် ဆက်လက်ရှိနေဦးမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ဤအစီရင်ခံစာက တစိတ်တဒေသအားဖြင့် သက်သက်ခံနေမည်ဖြစ်သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-23
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
530.9 KB
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Description:
"လက်ရှိမြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာ တစ်နိုင်ငံလုံးအနှံ့ လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်ခံနေရတာဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ အဲဒီထဲကမှ ကမ္ဘာကရော၊ နိုင်ငံကရော၊ လူ့လောကတစ်ခုလုံးကပါ လူမသိသူမသိ ချိုးဖောက်ခံနေရဆုံးနေရာက အကျဉ်းထောင်တွေဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးမှာ နည်းမျိုးစုံနဲ့ပါဝင်ပြီး အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်ကို ဆန့်ကျင်တိုက်ပွဲဝင်ရင်း အကျဉ်းထောင်ထဲ ရောက်နေကြတဲ့ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားတွေကို အာဏာရှင်ရဲ့ လက်ပါးစေ ထောင်အာဏာပိုင်များမှ နည်းမျိုးစုံဖြင့် ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်နေကြပါတယ်။ အဆိုပါဖြစ်ရပ်တွေကို အခြေခံပြီး အကျဉ်းထောင်တွေထဲက လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်အခံရဆုံး အဖြစ်အပျက်တွေကို အများပြည်သူ သိရှိနိုင်အောင် ဖော်ထုတ်ဖို့အတွက် ရည်ရွယ်ပြီး “The International Day For The Right To The Truth” အထိမ်းအမှတ်အဖြစ် အောက်ပါ Animation Video ကို GSCC ၊ AAPP ၊ AJAR တို့ပူးပေါင်း စီစဉ်တင်ဆက်လိုက်ပါတယ်။
(အရေးတော်ပုံအောင်ရမည်!!)..."
Source/publisher:
General Strike Collaboration Committee, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners and Asia Justice and Rights
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-23
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
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Sub-title:
Whereabouts of children taken by the military since the 2021 coup are mostly unknown, according to Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe
Description:
"Hundreds of children have been detained by the Myanmar military since it seized power more than one year ago, with many held ransom by soldiers and police who are seeking to arrest their relatives, according to a minister of the country’s National Unity Government.
Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe, minister of Women, Youths and Children Affairs Ministry in the NUG, which was formed last year by elected lawmakers to challenge the junta, said 287 children under the age of 18 had been detained since 1 February 2021. Most had been held in police station detention centres, and some in prisons.
A further 80 school children aged under 12 were detained for about 36 hours at a Buddhist monastery in Yinmabin Township in Sagaing Region, according to local media reports last month. The area was targeted by the military as it sought members of the armed resistance.
The whereabouts of children taken by the military since the coup is mostly unknown, according to Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe.
She referred to the detention of Dr Htar Htar Lin, the former head of Myanmar’s Covid vaccination programme, who was taken by the military in June 2021 along with her husband, seven-year-old son and their family dog. Dr Htar Htar Lin was targeted because she had returned 168 million kyat ($US94,580) in funding to the UN, preventing it from being seized by the military. Her family’s location is still unknown, said the minister.
“[The children] are doing nothing wrong, but the military tried to arrest the activist and also NLD members and the political activists,” said Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe, referring to Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, National League for Democracy. “When they could not find the people, they arrested the children as a ransom. They also ask the activist to come and be arrested so that this child will be released,” she said.
Parents face an impossible choice, fearing they, or older relatives, could be killed if they come forward. “So many parents are heartbroken people. The children were arrested but they couldn’t do nothing because they have to run for their lives,” she said.
A previous estimate by Unicef suggested hundreds more young adults have also been detained. It said last year that about 1,000 children and young people aged up to 25 years old had been held by the military without apparent reason.
Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe spoke to the Guardian while in hiding inside Myanmar, where she continues her work for the NUG, which comprises elected lawmakers, ethnic minority representatives and activists. The NUG, which has been labelled a “terrorist” group by the junta, has sought to gain international recognition as Myanmar’s legitimate government. The UN General Assembly last year deferred a decision on who should take the country’s seat, allowing representative Kyaw Moe Tun, a critic of the junta, to remain in place.
In the wake of the coup, Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe stayed with doctors, wearing a medical coat to avoid detection. She eventually travelled to an area of the country that is controlled by an ethnic armed group that supports pro-democracy activists. Like many civilians, she has faced the continued threat of airstrikes, and suffered from dehydration and diarrhoea due to the conditions in which she has been forced to seek shelter.
The military has unleashed a campaign of terror on the public in order to crush a pro-democracy movement that continues to oppose its rule. At least 1,600 people have been killed by security forces since the coup, according to the UN. More than 12,800 have been arrested, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), an advocacy group that tracks detentions.
Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe also raised concern over the military’s use of sexual violence against those who oppose the coup, but said data is hard to gather.
It was young people, she said, who were leading the struggle for democracy in the face of such brutality. Many have taken up arms in response to military violence, while others are using peaceful forms of protest to disrupt the junta.
Their fight was not about supporting Aung San Suu Kyi or her party, but was driven by a determination not to “go back to the dark age”, and by a desire to rid Myanmar of age-old discrimination – against ethnic minorities as well as on the basis of age or gender, said Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe.
She referred to apologies made by young protesters, who have said they should have done more to support the Rohingya, who received little public sympathy when they were subject to a brutal campaign of violence by the military in 2017. UN investigators later said the violence was carried out with “genocidal intent”. Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe, previously an NLD lawmaker, has made a similar apology.
Older politicians should follow the lead of young people, she added.
“My opinion is that [young people] are fighting in this revolution to completely tear down the military dictatorship and to end the old-established discriminations based on gender, age, skin colour, race and religion. The dictators are abusing nationalism to promote hate between us to preserve their status quo. We are fed up with them and we won’t be divided any more. They can’t divide us any more. We’re going to turn the system upside down..."
Source/publisher:
"The Guardian" (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-22
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Children's rights: reports of violations in Burma against more than one ethnic group, Children, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"According to AAPP documentation, at least (440) houses and buildings have been sealed off by the Junta since the 2021 coup up until February 2022.
As of March 11, 2022, (1652) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (10) fallen heroes today. These (10) fallen heroes from Shwebo Township, Kale Township and Khin-U Township in Sagaing Region, Hakha Township in Chin State, Loikaw 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 March 11, 2022, a total of (9588) people are currently under detention. (837) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On March 8 at 12:30 pm, three children aged around 7 years old, 10 years old and 12 years older, living in Lwe Htae Village in Kayah State’s Loikaw Township, were killed on the spot by Junta’s heavy artillery shell which exploded nearby while they were playing. In addition, Hla Tun, father of the deceased, and his other daughter, aged 15 years old, got injured.
On March 5, Rung Hu, who suffered from mental illness, was shot to death on the head and chest by junta soldiers, in Chun Kyune Village in Chin State’s Hakha Township. He stayed at home and did not run away when junta soldiers entered the village.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses. 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: [email protected] [email protected]..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-11
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf pdf
Size:
2.65 MB 8.14 MB 1.11 MB
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Description:
"According to AAPP documentation, at least (440) houses and buildings have been sealed off by the Junta since the 2021 coup up until February 2022.
As of March 10, 2022, (1642) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (2) fallen heroes today. These (2) fallen heroes from Mobye Town in Pekon Township, Shan 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 March 10, 2022, a total of (9571) people are currently under detention. (834) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On March 6, 2022, Lar Sa Ru, aged 10 years old, and Augustine, aged 17 years old, were arrested at home to be used as human shields, when the Junta raided Pwe Kone (1) Ward in Mobye Town in Pekon Township, Shan State. They were murdered near Warisu Palai Village.
On March 4, 2022, activist Hein Min Ko Ko (aka Hein Lwin Htoo) was sentenced to 28 years imprisonment with hard labor by the special court in Dawei Prison. He was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code, and 26 years imprisonment under The Explosive Substances Act. He was arrested while participating in a protest at Bon Maw Ward, in Dawei Township, on May 11, 2021, and got shot in the arm and leg with rubber bullets. He was seriously injured.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses. 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: [email protected] [email protected]..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-10
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf pdf
Size:
2.59 MB 8.01 MB 1.06 MB
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Description:
"According to AAPP documentation, at least (440) houses and buildings have been sealed off by the Junta since the 2021 coup up until February 2022.
As of March 9, 2022, (1640) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (17) fallen heroes today. These (17) fallen heroes from Pauk Township in Magway Region, Mayangone Township in Yangon Region and Yinmarbin Township 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 March 9, 2022, a total of (9559) people are currently under detention. (833) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On March 8, 2022, eight civilians, IDPs sheltering at the Lat Pan Taw Village monastery, were shot to death on the spot, when the military raided the Lat Pan Taw Village in Sagaing Region’s Yinmarbin Township and fired heavy artillery shells. Six civilians were from Lat Pan Taw villagers: Tin Nyunt, aged 93 years old, Than Maung, aged more than 70 years old, Moh Moh Win, aged 30 years old, her two sons named Myat Bhone Naing and Swan Htet Naing, aged 7 and 9 years old respectively, and her mother Thein Hla, aged more than 70 years old. The other two victims were from Kan Thar village, named Thein Maung and Ohn Hlaing who were more than 7o years old.
On February 25, 2022 at around 5 pm, Junta military personnel opened fire and raided the homes in Ward (3) in Mayangone Township, Yangon Region, where members of the ABFSU (All Burma Federation of Student Unions) from different township unions in Yangon Region temporarily stayed. During the raid, eight students from ABFSU were arrested. The former chairman of the Basic Education Students’ Union (ABFSU), named Nyi Min Thu, was shot in the chest and died on the spot.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses. 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: [email protected] [email protected]..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-09
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf pdf
Size:
2.63 MB 8.02 MB 1.09 MB
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Description:
"According to AAPP documentation, at least (440) houses and buildings have been sealed off by the Junta since the 2021 coup up until February 2022.
As of March 8, 2022, (1623) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (3) fallen heroes today. These (3) fallen heroes from Madaya Township in Mandalay Region and Pauk Township in Magway Region were killed on March 5, 2o22 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 March 8, 2022, a total of (9533) people are currently under detention. (833) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On March 1, 2022, the house of the village administrator exploded in Gwegyi Village, in Kyaung Kone Village Tract, Mandalay Region’s Madaya Township. When the junta soldiers arrived at the village, a civilian named Wai Phyo Aung, his three family members, and three other friends were arrested. On the night of March 5, soldiers brought Wai Phyo Aung to the village, searched the area, and shot him to death in a road nearby.
On the night of March 5, 2022, the armed wing of the Junta raided and fired artillery shells at Inn Nge Daunk Village, in Magway Region’s Pauk Township. The military soldiers arrested Aye Aye Win, aged 42 years old, and her daughter Yati Moe, aged 3 years old, while they were preparing to run away. Aye Aye Win was raped then killed at a public resthouse in front of her home, a 3-year-old Yati Moe was also stabbed in the chest.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses. 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: [email protected] [email protected]..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-08
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders
Language:
Format :
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Size:
2.55 MB 7.97 MB 1.08 MB
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Description:
"According to AAPP documentation, at least (440) houses and buildings have been sealed off by the Junta since the 2021 coup up until February 2022.
As of March 7, (1620) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (18) fallen heroes today. These (18) fallen heroes from Thaketa Township in Yangon Region, Kyunhla Township and Tabayin Township in Sagaing Region, Nattalin Township in Bagon Region and Butho Township in Hpapun District, Kayin 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 March 7, a total of (9523) people are currently under detention. (833) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On March 5, at around 7:20 pm, seven civilians, including three children, from Kalawday Village in Butho Township in Hpapun District, Kayin State, were shot dead by junta artillery shells based in Kayin State’s Hpapun Township. The seven victims were Naw Tar Lu, aged 2 years old, Naw Htoo Phaw, aged 5 years old, Naw Tin Nilar Win, aged 14 years old, Saw Day Poe, aged 19 years old, Naw Eal Moo, aged 22 years old, Naw Phaw Wah, aged 32 years old, and Saw Kay, aged 40 year old. Four other civilians were also severely injured.
On the morning of March 4, the armed wing of the Junta raided Min Swe Hnit Village, in Sagaing Region’s Tabayin Township, and killed nine locals, who were guarding the village. Five of the victims, Aung Thu, Phoe Mae, Chan Myae Zaw, Bhone Naing and Pyae Phyo Aung were from Min Swe Hnit Village. The other four victims were from Myin Thu Gyi Village, Kyar Khet Village, and other village.pdated 7 March 2022
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses. 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: [email protected] [email protected]..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-07
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf pdf
Size:
2.59 MB 8.1 MB 1.09 MB
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Description:
"According to AAPP documentation, at least (440) houses and buildings have been sealed off by the Junta since the 2021 coup up until February 2022.
As of March 4, (1603) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (6) fallen heroes today. These (6) fallen heroes from Gangaw Township in Magway Region and Ye-U Township 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 March 4, a total of (9507) people are currently under detention. (827) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On February 28, three local PDF personnel, named Aung Win, Kalar Lay and Htaw Gyi, and a civilian named Naing Oo, were arrested and then burned alive by the armed wing of the Junta after the military entered Oakpho Village in Ye-U Township, Sagaing Region.
On the evening of February 28, a designer named Soe Su Myat Lwin, living in Inntaw Town in Southern Shan State, was arrested by junta police for posting political content on Facebook.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses. 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: [email protected] [email protected]..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-04
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf pdf
Size:
2.56 MB 7.94 MB 1.08 MB
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Description:
"As of March 3, (1597) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (7) fallen heroes today. These (7) fallen heroes from Gangaw Township in Magway Region were killed on February 28 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 March 3, a total of (9478) people are currently under detention. (810) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On February 28, the armed wing of the Junta and Pyu Saw Htee personnel assaulted villages in Gangaw Township, Magway Region. Seven locals from Shwebo Village were killed. Their names are Thar Nyi, Wai Yan Oo, Zin Min Htut a.k.a Pyar Tar Maung, Nyein Chan Maung, Latt Soe, Win Soe and Tun Zaw. Five of the villagers were arrested, hands tied and burned alive, and two others were shot dead.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Anti-coup protesters, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
Format :
pdf pdf pdf
Size:
2.49 MB 7.93 MB 1.05 MB
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Description:
"As of March 2, (1590) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (1) fallen hero today. This (1) fallen hero from Shwebo Township in Sagaing Region was killed on February 25 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 March 2, a total of (9443) people are currently under detention. (782) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On March 1, Htet Aung, vice-chairman of All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) and former chairman of Pyay University Students’ Union, was sentenced to four years imprisonment with hard labour under Section 52(d) of the Counter-Terrorism Law. He was arrested on September 6, 2021 for protesting against the military coup. He is a third-year student majoring in geology at the University of Pyay in Bago Region.
A former chairman of the Basic Education Students’ Union named Aung Min Khaing a.k.a Mae Gyi, detained since May 17, 2021, was sentenced to three years imprisonment under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code by the special court in Insein Prison.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
Language:
Format :
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Size:
2.54 MB 7.99 MB 1.01 MB
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Description:
"During 1–25 Feb, there were at least 741 armed clashes and attacks on civilians (or 29.64 per day), compared to 23.69/day over the prior twelve months. UNHCR said that 810,000 IDPs in Burma, likely a significant underestimate. As of 28 Feb, the junta had arrested at least 12,417 civilians, including politicians, activists, and journalists, and killed at least 1,869 civilians. COVID-19 cases spiked dramatically. The EU placed sanctions on Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). As new ASEAN Chair, Cambodia prevented the junta from attending the first ASEAN meeting of 2022, but conceded that it could do little to improve the situation..."
Source/publisher:
Asia Democracy Network, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, Burma Human Rights Network, Initiatives for International Dialogue, International Federation for Human Rights, Progressive Voice, and US Campaign for Burma
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Burma: Internal displacement/forced migration of several ethnic groups., Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Anti-coup protesters, National Unity Government (NUG)
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
757.82 KB
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Description:
"The junta has threatened the Myanmar political parties of potential disbandment if they do not comply with its order to submit their financial accounts for inspection by 9 March 2022. The junta-appointed Union Election Commission (UEC) has said that if the parties do not comply with the instruction, they would face legal action under Section 24 (c), (d) and (e) of the Registration of Political Parties Law. These provisions of the law carry potential punishments of a three-year suspension, having their operations halted and disbandment. The UEC has instructed the National League for Democracy (NLD), the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) and two other parties to appear before 14 February to verify their financial accounts and expenses. Both the NLD and SNLD have not appeared yet the junta UEC has issued its warning on 23 February 2022.
The EU announced its fourth round of sanctions against the junta, affecting 22 individuals and 4 entities including government ministers, a member of the State Administrative Council and members of the Union Election Commission, as well as high-ranking members of the junta Forces. Along with Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), the Htoo Group, the International Group of Entrepreneurs, and Mining Enterprise 1 are among the list of those sanctioned. As regards the sanctioned entities, these are either state-owned companies providing substantive resources to the Tatmadaw, or private companies closely connected to the Tatmadaw's top leadership. The rights groups and the Myanmar civil society have been advocating for sanctions against MOGE in particular. Justice for Myanmar (JFM) welcomed the EU sanctions in a statement and said MOGE is the junta’s biggest single source of revenue, responsible for financing its terror campaign.
Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob met with Cambodian Prime Minister and current Chair of ASEAN Hun Sen on a two-day visit to Cambodia that extended support to the visit of the ASEAN Envoy to Myanmar and stressed the importance of the implementation of the ASEAN five-point consensus that junta leader agreed in April 2021 in Jakarta. Malaysia has been very critical of Hun Sen’s visit to Myanmar in January without proper consultation of ASEAN leaders which led to the postponement of the ASEAN Foreign ministers meeting in Cambodia from January to February 2022.
The Gambia’s case against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice in The Hague has started with the first preliminary objections being heard. The Gambia has accused Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya in violation of the UN’s Genocide Convention. The junta’s legal team was led by the junta’s minister for international cooperation Ko Ko Hlaing and attorney general Thida Oo. The junta’s legal team delivered its preliminary objections and The Gambia responded.
The junta also got attention in the past week for expressing its support to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. "No. 1 is that Russia has worked to consolidate its sovereignty”, Junta spokesman General Zaw Min Tun said, citing the reasons for the junta to support the action by Russia.
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights situation in Myanmar Tom Andrews said that UN Security Council members China and Russia, as well as Serbia, have continued to supply the junta with weapons used to attack civilians since the coup. He further urged the Security Council to convene an emergency session "to debate and vote on a resolution to, at a minimum, ban those arms transfers that the Myanmar military is known to use to attack and kill Myanmar civilians".
India for Myanmar Movement sent an open letter to the organizers of the 5th Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Summit in Sri Lanka, urging them not to invite coup leader Min Aung Hlaing to the summit. The open letter says that in December 2021 the Myanmar military was invited to take part in military exercises of BIMSTEC countries in India and there are records that Myanmar military representatives attended many of BIMSTEC meetings as country representatives. The summit is scheduled to be held on 30 March 2022.
The latest UNHCR report on Myanmar revealed that the number of IDPs across Myanmar has reached a high of 453,000 since the coup. It also said there were an estimated 46,000 refugee movements to neighbouring countries and 980,000 refugees and asylum-seekers from Myanmar fled to neighbouring countries as of 31 December 2020.
As of 25 February 2022, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) recorded that 1,582 people have been killed by the junta. 9,378 people are currently under detention. 84 have been sentenced to death and 1,973 are evading arrest warrants..."
Source/publisher:
Asian Network for Free Elections (Bangkok)
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-02
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Business and the Military, Sanctions
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
476.38 KB
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Description:
"As of March 1, (1589) people are now confirmed killed by this junta coup. AAPP compiled and documented (4) fallen heroes today. These (4) fallen heroes from Yinmarbin Township in Sagaing Region and Dawei Township in Tanintharyi 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 March 1, a total of (9437) people are currently under detention. (778) people have been sentenced in person, of them 45 have been sentenced to death (incl. 2 children). 1973 are evading arrest warrants. 118 people have been sentenced in absentia, of them 39 sentenced to death in absentia. In total 84 sentenced to death, in person and absentia. The exact identities and total figure remains to be verified, but we will continue to confirm the recently released.
On the midnight of February 25, Thein Htike Oo, living in Maung Mae Shaung Village in Tanintharyi Region’s Dawei Township, was shot dead by Junta soldiers at the checkpoint in Eain Shae Pyin Village, while he was crossing by motorbike. Thein Htike Oo suffers from mental illness. His body was not returned to his family and was cremated by the military.
From February 26 for three days, the armed wing of the Junta has been stationed at, and raiding Chin Pone Village, in Sagaing Region’s Yinmarbin Township. They killed nine villagers, including Aung Maung, from Chin Pone Village, and Tun Tun and Myo Nyunt, from Pan Pa Htone Village.
AAPP will continue to inform on verified daily arrests, charges, sentences and fatalities in relation to the attempted coup, and update the lists with details of these alleged offenses. 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: [email protected] [email protected] ..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-03-01
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders
Language:
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Size:
2.5 MB 7.98 MB 1.01 MB
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Description:
"Attacks to press freedom and democracy continue to escalate in Myanmar, with two prominent writers and a student activist sentenced under an amendment to the Myanmar’s Penal code. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) strongly condemn the junta’s continued censorship and quashing of critical reportage and calls on the international community to do more to protect the livelihoods and safety of journalists in Myanmar.
On February 22, Maung Tha Cho and Htin Lin Oo, two anti-junta writers, were sentenced to two and three years in prison respectively under Section 505(a) of the Myanmar Penal Code. Section 5050(A), an amendment introduced by the military junta, criminalises the circulation of any information with the intent to defame government employees.
Maung Tha Cho was sentenced to two years for an article he wrote eight years ago, while Htin Lin Oo was charged after sharing an anti-junta video on his social media page.
The writers were arrested on February 1, 2021, the day of Myanmar’s military coup and were placed in Insein Prison, where they have been detained for more than a year.
This is not the first time a journalist has been charged under Section 505(A). In June 2022, the IFJ reported the sentencing of Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) reporter Aung Kyaw, and freelance reporter Ko Zaw Zaw, who were the first journalists to be sentenced to two years in prison under Section 505(a).
Student activist Yin Myat Noe Oo was also given a three-year prison sentence for incitement at a court inside Insein Prison last week. The student was arrested in Yangon in April 2021 after putting up posters that criticised the junta.
According to the University Students’ Union Alumni Force (USUAF) who are in contact with detainees inside Insein Prison, inmates facing political charges have been tortured by prison authorities and denied medical treatment for their injuries.
On February 22, the United Nations human rights expert on Myanmar, Thomas Andrews, said that Russia, China and Serbia were providing arms assistance, including fighter jets, to the military junta. These weapons were supplied with “full knowledge that they would be used to attack civilians”, said Andrews.
The three sentencings come during a period of increasing restrictions on press freedom in Myanmar, one year on from the military takeover. According to Reporting ASEAN, at least 121 journalists and media workers have been arrested since the beginning of the military coup, with 47 currently detained as of February 9, 2022. At least 40 of the arrested journalists were charged with violating Section 505(a) of the Penal Code.
In December 2021, Ko Soe Naing, a freelance photojournalist, died in custody after being arrested by military forces for covering silent protests by opponents of the coup. Naing was the first journalist confirmed to have died in custody since the coup.
The IFJ said: “Journalists and media workers have suffered intensely throughout the first year of Myanmar’s military coup, actively persecuted and silenced for doing their jobs. The IFJ calls for the release of all detained media workers, including Maung Tha Cho and Htin Lin Oo, and strongly condemns the junta’s continued censorship and suppression of press and civilian freedoms. The IFJ urges the international community to heighten efforts to protect and support media workers and journalists working under the coup.”..."
Source/publisher:
International Federation of Journalists
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-25
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
Language:
Local URL:
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Source/publisher:
Online Burma/Myanmar Library (obl)
Date of entry/update:
2022-02-16
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Language:
more
Sub-title:
The defendants were facing a range of charges, from incitement to violations of weapons and anti-terror laws
Description:
"Thirty-one opponents of Myanmar’s military junta received lengthy prison sentences in Dawei in the final week of last year, a prison source in the Tanintharyi Region capital has disclosed.
A list provided by the source shows that a special court inside Dawei Prison handed down the sentences, ranging from two years to 19 years, between December 28 and 30.
According to the list, 14 of the convicted defendants were student activists who had been charged with incitement under Section 505a of the Penal Code.
This group included Soe Pyae Aung, 22, a spokesperson for the Dawei University Student Union, who was arrested in late September, and two female students, Soe Mi Mi Kyaw, 22, and Shar Pyae Khin, 24, who were taken into custody at the same time.
Four of the 14 students—all of whom were given two-year sentences for their political activities—were women, the list showed.
The remaining defendants were given sentences of at least seven years in prison, based on offenses that included incitement and violations of Section 19f of the Weapons and Explosives Law, Section 51 of the Anti-Terrorism Law, and Section 52 of the Logistics Law.
The longest sentence was given to 38-year-old Tun Tun Oo, who was given an 18-year prison term after being found guilty on all four charges.
Nyan Win, 24, was sentenced to a total of 11 years in prison on all but the terrorism charge, while the others each received seven or eight years.
All 17 are also facing additional charges of homicide under Section 307 of the Penal Code, the source said, adding that this charge has been laid against a total of 77 Dawei Prison inmates.
According to the source, none of the defendants were represented by lawyers.
A lawyer living in Dawei and two local activists confirmed that prisoners detained for anti-regime activities were having difficulty getting legal representation.
“No lawyer in Dawei dares to take these cases. Some offered their services free of charge at first, but then they started to be targeted with arrest warrants,” said one activist.
A Yangon-based lawyer who frequently travels to Dawei said that colleagues in the city were coming under heavy pressure from the regime.
“A very close lawyer friend of mine said that they had been warned not to take political cases, and also not to speak of the threats against them,” he said.
Local media outlets reported recently that warrants were issued against several lawyers in Dawei and Launglon townships in November. Four of these lawyers have since been arrested, according to the reports.
Myanmar Now was unable to reach the families of the defendants or local authorities for confirmation of the sentences..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-06
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Over eleven months since an illegitimate coup, the entire Burma struggles in the face of the military’s inhumanity. The armed wing of the junta is systematically stealing civilian properties, carrying out violent military operations, and committing widespread murder. This war of terror, perpetrated by the junta against civilians, is only getting worse.
On December 5, the armed wing of the Junta rammed a vehicle into a peaceful protest on Pan Pin Gyi Road in Kyeemyindaing Township, Yangon. Thereafter, opening fire and aggressively detaining demonstrators and bystanders, leading to several reported casualties. The military junta shamelessly claimed that they were simply dispersing unauthorized protests.
In Sagaing Region, there is strong opposition to the coup d’état. As a result, locals in the region are the victims of heinous junta crimes. In December, at least (18) locals were arrested and burnt to death. (2) of these victims were children, under 18 years old. Similarly, on December 25, in Moso village, Hpurso Township, Kayah State, over (30) bodies of innocent civilians, including children, were found dead in a vehicle. They had been burnt to death. Before the victims were killed, four members of the Karenni National People’s Liberation Front (Kalalata) met with junta troops to negotiate the release of these detained civilians. The four members were tied up and shot dead in the head. Moreover, several innocents are still missing in the incident of Moso village, Hpruso Township.
In December, the armed wing of the Junta deliberately committed arson attacks on civilians’ houses, buildings, and properties. There were at least (56) arson attacks and more than (650) houses were burnt down. This comes from data collection and monitoring by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, the true number is likely higher.
In December, (127) civilians across the country, were killed in junta’s targeted attacks. According to data collected by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), this includes (61) victims were tortured to death, (5) women and (7) children, under 18 years old.
(309) civilians were detained by the junta between December 1 and 31. Of these, (68) were women, (15) children under the age of 18 and (18) hostages.
Across the country, the junta coup is targeting members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and ordinary civilians’ homes and properties are being sealed and unlawfully taken, if they are accused of being related to the National Unity Government or in connection with alleged PDF. In December, a total of (33) houses were seized.
Those who are unlawfully and arbitrarily detained, are also facing inhumane torture. On December 10, International Human Rights Day, civilians across the country staged a silent strike. Political prisoners held at Insein Prison partook. (89) prisoners who participated, were beaten with rubber batons and wire cables and kept in solitary confinement. Wai Yan Phyo Moe, one of those tortured following the silent strike, the Vice-Chairman of the All-Burma Federation of Student’ Unions, was sentenced on December 29 and also severely beaten again by criminal prisoners with support of prison authorities while he was being sent to prison cell. He is now in critical condition but is not receive proper medical care.
As with all our monthly chronology’s since the coup, it is but a summary of the numerous human rights violations committed by the armed wing of the Junta in its bid to induce a climate of fear across the country..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-05
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Racial or ethnic discrimination in Burma: reports of violations against several groups, Human Rights Defenders, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
2.18 MB
Local URL:
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Description:
"အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု၏ မတရားအာဏာသိမ်းမှု (၁၁) လ ကျော်လာသည့်အချိန်တွင် တနိုင်ငံလုံးအနှံ့ လူမဆန်စွာရက်စက်မှုများ၊ ဘေးဒုက္ခများ၊ စစ်ရေးအရှိန်မြင့်တက်လာမှုများနှင့်အတူ အရပ်သား ပြည်သူလူထု ၏ အသက်အိုးအိမ်စည်းစိမ် ပျက်စီးဆုံးရှုံးရမှုများနှင့် နစ်နာခံစားရမှုများမှာ ဆထက်တိုး၍ ဆိုးရွားလာနေဆဲ ပင် ဖြစ်သည်။
ဒီဇင်ဘာ (၅) ရက်နေ့က ရန်ကုန်မြို့၊ ကြည့်မြင်တိုင်မြို့နယ်၊ ပန်းပင်ကြီးလမ်း၌ ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာဆန္ဒပြနေသည့် လူအုပ်ထဲသို့ စစ်အုပ်စုလက်ပါးစေများက ကားကိုအရှိန်ပြင်းပြင်းမောင်းနှင်၍ ဝင်တိုက်ကာ သေနတ်ဖြင့် ပစ်ခတ်၍ ဆန္ဒပြပွဲကို ဖြိုခွင်းခဲ့သည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် ဒဏ်ရာရရှိသူများ၊ အသက်အန္တရာယ်ထိခိုက်သူများနှင့် ဖမ်းဆီးခံခဲ့ရသူများရှိခဲ့သော်လည်း စစ်အုပ်စုကမူ ၎င်းတို့အနေဖြင့် တရားမဝင် ခွင့်ပြုချက်မဲ့ ဆူပူဆန္ဒပြမှုအား လူစုခွဲ ထိန်းသိမ်းခဲ့ခြင်းသာဖြစ်ကြောင်း တာဝန်ယူမှု၊ တာဝန်ခံမှုကင်းမဲ့စွာ ငြင်းဆိုခဲ့သည်။
အာဏာသိမ်းမှုကို ပြင်းပြင်းထန်ထန်ဆန့်ကျင်တော်လှန်ခဲ့ကြသည့် ဒေသများထဲမှ စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းမှာ အာဏာ သိမ်းအကြမ်းဖက်စစ်တပ်၏ ပစ်မှတ်ထားတိုက်ခိုက်မှုကို ဆိုးဆိုးရွားရွားရင်ဆိုင်ရလျက်ရှိရာ ဒီဇင်ဘာလ အတွင်း၌ စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းကျေးရွာများရှိ ဒေသခံ (၁၈) ဦးထက်မနည်းမှာ စစ်အုပ်စုလက်ပါးစေများ၏ ဖမ်းဆီး မီးရှို့သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းကို ခံခဲ့ရပြီး ထိုအထဲတွင် အသက် (၁၈) နှစ်အောက် ကလေးနှစ်ဦး ပါဝင်သည်။ အလားတူ ပင် ဒီဇင်ဘာ (၂၅) ရက်နေ့က ကယားပြည်နယ်၊ ဖရူဆိုမြို့နယ်၊ မိုဆိုကျေးရွာအနီးတွင် မော်တော်ယာဉ်ပေါ်၌ ကလေးငယ်များပါ ပါဝင်သည်ဟု အတည်ပြုထားသည့် မီးရှို့ခံထားရသော အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူ ရုပ်အလောင်း ၃၀ ကျော်ကို ရှာဖွေတွေ့ရှိခဲ့ကြသည်။ ထိုအပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူများကို မီးရှို့မသတ်ဖြတ်ခင် ဖမ်းဆီးထားစဉ်အတွင်း ၎င်းတို့လွတ်မြောက်ရေးအတွက် သွားရောက်ညှိနှိုင်းခဲ့သော ကရင်နီပြည်နယ် လူမျိုးပေါင်းစုံလွတ်မြောက်ရေး တပ်ဦး (ကလလတ) ပြည်သူ့စစ်အသွင်ပြောင်း မှ တပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင် ၄ ဦးအား စစ်တပ်မှ လက်ပြန်ကြိုးများတုတ်၍ ဦးခေါင်းကို ပစ်ကာ ရက်ရက်စက်စက် သတ်ဖြတ်ခဲ့ကြောင်း ကလလတ မှ ထုတ်ပြန်ထားသည်။ ထို့အပြင် ဖရူဆိုမြို့နယ်၊ မိုဆိုကျေးရွာဖြစ်စဉ်တွင် အချို့သော အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူများ ပျောက်ဆုံးလျက်ရှိသည်။
အရပ်သားပြည်သူများ၏ နေအိမ်၊ အဆောက်အအုံနှင့် ပိုင်ဆိုင်မှုများကို စစ်အုပ်စုမှ မီးရှို့ ဖျက်ဆီးမှုခြင်းများ အား ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ရှိရှိ ကျယ်ကျယ်ပြန့်ပြန့်လုပ်ဆောင်လျက်ရှိရာ ဒီဇင်ဘာလအတွင်း၌ ကျေးရွာများ၊ လူနေ ရပ်ကွက်များ မီးရှို့ခံရမှုမှာ အနည်းဆုံး (၅၆) ကြိမ် ရှိခဲ့ပြီး အဆောက်အဦပေါင်း (၆၅၀) ထက်မနည်း ပျက်စီး ဆုံးရှုံးခဲ့ရသည်။ အဆိုပါ အချက်အလက်မှာ မိမိတို့နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်းမှ စောင့်ကြည့်မှတ်တမ်းတင်ထားချက်များအရဖြစ်ပြီး လက်တွေ့မြေပြင်တွင် ယခုထက်ပိုမိုများပြားနိုင်ဖွယ်ရှိ သည်။
ဒီဇင်ဘာလအတွင်း စစ်အုပ်စု၏ လူမဆန်စွာ ပစ်ခတ်သတ်ဖြတ်မှုများကြောင့် နိုင်ငံတဝှမ်းရှိ ပြည်သူ (၁၂၇) ဦးကျဆုံးခဲ့ရပါသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ ကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း (AAPP) ၏ ကောက်ယူ စုဆောင်းရရှိသည့် မှတ်တမ်းများအရ ဒီဇင်ဘာလ၌ ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုကြောင့် ကျဆုံးခဲ့ရသူ (၆၁) ဦး၊ အမျိုးသမီး (၅) ဦးနှင့် အသက် ၁၈ နှစ်အောက် ကလေးသူငယ် (၇) ဦး ရှိခဲ့သည်။
AAPP မှ လက်လှမ်းမီသမျှ ကောက်ယူရရှိထားသည့် အချက်အလက်များအရ ဒီဇင်ဘာ ၁ မှ ၃၁ ရက်နေ့အထိ စစ်အုပ်စု၏ တရားလက်လွတ်ဖမ်းဆီးမှုကြောင့် ထိန်းသိမ်းခံခဲ့ရသူပေါင်း (၃၀၉) ဦး ရှိခဲ့သည်။ ထိုအထဲတွင် အမျိုးသမီးဦးရေ (၆၈) ဦး၊ အသက် ၁၈ နှစ်အောက် ကလေးသူငယ်ဦးရေ (၁၅) ဦး နှင့် ဓားစာခံအဖြစ် ဖမ်းဆီးခံရသူ (၁၈) ဦး ပါဝင်သည်။
အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်အုပ်စုသည် နိုင်ငံအဝှမ်း၌ အမျိုးသားဒီမိုကရေစီအဖွဲ့ချုပ်ပါတီဝင်များ၊ အရပ်သားပြည်သူ လူထု၏ နေအိမ်များ၊ ပိုင်ဆိုင်မှုများကို အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ PDF စသည်တို့နှင့်ဆက်သွယ်သည်ဟု ဆိုကာ မတရားချိပ်ပိတ်သိမ်းဆည်းမှုများကိုလည်း ပြုလုပ်လျက်ရှိရာ ဒီဇင်ဘာလအတွင်း၌ ချိပ်ပိတ်သိမ်း ဆည်း ခံခဲ့ရသော နေအိမ်အဆောက်အအုံပေါင်း (၃၃) ခု ရှိခဲ့သည်။
တရားလက်လွတ်ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းမှုများကြောင့် အကျဉ်းထောင်များ၌ ချုပ်နှောင်ခံနေကြရသည့် မတရား ဖမ်းဆီးခံများ၏ အကျဉ်းထောင်တွင်းအခြေအနေမှာလည်း လူမဆန်သော နှိပ်စက်ညှဉ်းပန်းမှုများနှင့် ရင်ဆိုင် ကြုံတွေ့နေကြရသည်။ ဒီဇင်ဘာလ (၁၀) ရက်နေ့၊ အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးနေ့၌ မြန်မာ တနိုင်ငံလုံး အသံတိတ်သပိတ် (Silent Strike) ကို ဆင်နွှဲခဲ့ကြချိန် အင်းစိန်အကျဉ်းထောင်၌ ချုပ်နှောင်ခံထားရသည့် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကလည်း သပိတ်တွင်ပါဝင်ခဲ့ကြသည်။ ထို့အတွက်ကြောင့် ထောင်တွင်းဆန္ဒပြပွဲတွင် ပါဝင်ခဲ့သူ (၈၉) ဦးမှာ နံပါတ်တုတ်၊ ရာဘာကြိုးတို့ဖြင့် ပြင်းထန်စွာ ရိုက်နှက်ခံရပြီး တိုက်ပိတ်ခံခဲ့ရသည်။ ထို့အပြင် ဒီဇင်ဘာ (၂၉) ရက်နေ့က ပြစ်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံခဲ့ရသည့် ဗမာနိုင်ငံလုံးဆိုင်ရာ ကျောင်း သားသမဂ္ဂများ အဖွဲ့ချုပ် ဒုဥက္ကဋ္ဌဖြစ်သူ ကိုဝေယံဖြိုးမိုးကို အင်းစိန်ထောင် အတွင်းမှာ ထောင် အာဏာပိုင် များနှင့် အကျဉ်းသားတချို့က အကြမ်းဖက်ရိုက်နှက်ခဲ့ခြင်းကြောင့် အသက်အန္တရာယ် စိုးရိမ်ရသည့် အခြေအနေမှာရှိနေပြီး လုံလောက်သော ကျန်းမာရေးစောင့်ရှောက်မှုကိုလည်း မရရှိ ပေ။
အထက်ပါဖေါ်ပြချက်များသည် အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်အုပ်၏ ဒီဇင်ဘာလအတွင်း၌ ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သော တရားမဲ့ အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများအား အကျဉ်းချုပ်ဖေါ်ပြချက်မျှသာဖြစ်ပြီး အခြားသော တိုင်းနှင့်ပြည်နယ်များတွင်လည်း ထိုကဲ့သို့ လူမဆန်သော အကြမ်းဖက်ကျူးလွန်မှုများ များစွာရှိခဲ့သည်။..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
Date of entry/update:
2022-01-05
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
2.18 MB
Local URL:
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Description:
"1. Insein Prison’s guards violently tortured the political activists and civilians
due to their participation in the silent strike against the military dictatorship
on Human Rights Day, December 10, 2021, according to evidences we have
received.
2. Additionally, the ministry also received the evidence along with information
about the perpetrators of the hillings and violent tortures that happened
inside the prions in September, November, and December.
3. The unjustly detained civilians have been violently beaten and locked up in
the cell blocks for 20-40 days without access to medical treatment. And the
political detainees are forced to perform hard labor.
4. The Ministry of Human Rights of the National Unity Government is
documenting the human rights violations with the aim of holding
perpetrators accountable. The ministry continues to beep a close monitoring
on the violence directed at unjustly detained civilians inside prisons across
the country. The documents on human rights violations are being submitted
to the respective UN organizations and the international investigation
mechanisms as the ministry strives to bring about justice through
international mechanisms. The perpetrators, who have committed human
rights violations must be punished according to the law. The culture of
impunity for perpetrators who committed human rights violations must end.
5. The Ministry of Human Rights strongly urges the cessation of violence
against unjustly arrested civilians who have been detained for exercising
their political rights, including freedom of expression, and thus calls for the
exceptional release of all political detainees.
6. The ministry calls on the International Committee of the Red Cross-ICRC for
the utmost protection and assistance of unjustly arrested civilians inside the
prison and victims of human rights violations inside the prison. And the
ministry urges the international community to call for an independent
investigation into the human rights violations and other violence inside the
prisons, and to hold the perpetrators who committed the human rights
violations accountable. The Ministry of Human Rights continues to
document the human rights violations by close monitoring in order to hold
perpetrators accountable..."
Source/publisher:
Ministry of Human Rights
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-21
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
National Unity Government (NUG), 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Human Rights Defenders, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
Language:
Format :
pdf
Size:
32.52 KB
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Sub-title:
COUNTRIES OF CONCERN: MYANMAR AND AFGHANISTAN
Description:
"Myanmar saw a rapid decline in fundamental freedoms following the February 2021 coup, with the arrest, detention and criminalisation of hundreds of activists, including HRDs, trade unionists, journalists, political and student activists, doctors, poets, people from ethnic minorities, LGBTQI+ groups and artists. The junta used excessive force and firearms against protesters and disrupted the internet. Journalists were hunted down and dozens were arrested and charged. A number of political prisoners were allegedly tortured and ill-treated and there have been reports of sexual violence against women in detention centres. At the time of writing, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, 1,244 people had been killed and 7,122 people are currently in detention.
Another country of concern is Afghanistan, following the Taliban takeover in August 2021. There have been reports of activists facing systematic intimidation throughout the country. The Taliban are carrying out house-to-house searches for activists and journalists, particularly women, and interrogating them and their families. This has created a climate of significant fear and many have gone into hiding or have fled the country. The Taliban have also conducted raids on women-led CSOs across Afghanistan. Anti-Taliban protests, especially by women, in Kabul and other cities have been met with excessive force, gunfire and beatings to disperse crowds, leading to deaths and injuries of peaceful protesters. Journalists are at increased risk for covering the situation on the ground. Some covering the protests have been arbitrarily detained, tortured or ill-treated with impunity..."
Source/publisher:
Civicus (Johannesburg)
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Women's rights, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma
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"Waiyan Phyoe Moe, Vice President of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions, and Laypyay Soe Moe, Responsible Person of Student Rights of the University of Yangon Students' Union, have been reported to be severely beaten and tortured owing to their participation in the Silent Strike along with 89 other political prisoners. They have also been said to be moved from the Special Ward to the Main Jail to be isolated in solitary confinement.
With regards to this situation, we humbly request the public to help with the:
I. Unexceptional release of all political detainees, and
II. The rights of the detainees such as healthcare and security.
The current conditions of our comrades inside the prison is extremely distressing. We hereby implore the masses and the revolutionary forces fighting for the annihilation of the military dictatorship to stand in solidarity with our comrades and help them as best we can as per the updates on the situation..."
Source/publisher:
All Burma Federation of Student Unions and University of Yangon Students' Union
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"Two journalists were injured at an anti-regime protest in Yangon when a military vehicle drove through the crowd on December 5. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) strongly condemns the brutal attack and demands that the junta immediately cease its increasingly extreme violence against journalists.
Journalists with the independent Myanmar Pressphoto agency, Ma Hmu Yandanar Khet Moh Moh Tun and Ko Kaung Sett Lin, were on assignment when junta forces drove through a peaceful anti-regime protest in Yangon and opened fire on those attempting to flee. The attack killed five people and left dozens wounded, drawing international condemnation.
Hmu Yandanar sustained serious injuries when the military vehicle rammed into the back of the protest. She remains in a critical condition at a military hospital in Yangon following surgery. Kaung Sett Lin was also injured and received medical treatment at the same hospital before being taken into custody.
Coverage of the event by state-endorsed media made no mention of the military vehicle or the deaths, stating that its forces disbanded an “unlawful riot”. While the regime claimed that 11 demonstrators were arrested, witnesses suggest that over 15 people were taken into custody.
Myanmar’s junta has antagonised journalists since it assumed control in the military coup on February 1, with over 100 journalists arrested during its administration and more than 20 remaining in custody. After its exclusion at a regional summit in October, the junta released dozens of journalists in an amnesty on humanitarian grounds, an action largely met with distrust.
The IFJ said: “The IFJ condemns the junta’s ongoing violence towards journalists and demands that the journalists enduring detainment are released. This incident shows that, despite recent attempts to remedy its image, Myanmar’s junta continues to contravene international human rights standards and subjugate freedom of expression.”..."
Source/publisher:
International Federation of Journalists
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-09
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma
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" Myanmar authorities must immediately and unconditionally release journalists Kaung Sett Lin and Hmu Yadanar Khet Moh Moh Tun, who were arrested after sustaining injuries covering anti-military protests, and ensure that those responsible for injuring the journalists are brought to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
Authorities arrested photojournalist Kaung Sett Lin and videographer Hmu Yadanar, both with the independent Myanmar Pressphoto Agency, on December 5 while they were covering a flash mob protest on Pan Pin Gyi Road in the commercial capital Yangon, according to local news reports and MPA chief editor JPaing, who goes by one name. Both were in a military hospital due to injuries sustained at the event, he said.
“Myanmar must immediately release journalists Kaung Sett Lin and Hmu Yadanar Khet Moh Moh Tun and bring the perpetrators of the violence that injured them to account,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar’s junta must cease and desist from treating journalists like enemies of the state.”
Hmu Yadanar suffered injuries to her head after being hit by a truck allegedly driven by military forces into the back of the protest, The Irrawaddy reported. Security forces then opened fire on the protesters, killing at least five people in the melee, the same report said.
JPaing told CPJ by email that Hmu Yadanar has since undergone surgery for her head injuries at Military Hospital No. 2 in Yangon. Kaung Sett Lin was being held at the same hospital and recuperating from injuries, he said. CPJ was not able to immediately determine the nature of those injuries or how they were sustained. It was not immediately clear under what charges they were being held, JPaing said.
CPJ emailed Myanmar’s Ministry of Information for comment on Kaung Sett Lin and Hmu Yadanar’s arrests and The Irrawaddy’s account of violence by security forces, but did not receive an immediate response.
A CPJ special report in July documented the situation of journalists jailed in the wake of the military’s democracy-suspending February 1 coup, and found that at least 32 journalists were imprisoned due to their work as of July 1. Several journalists have been released and arrested since the mid-year census was conducted, according to CPJ reporting.
Many have been held on charges under Article 505(a) of the penal code, a broad and vaguely worded provision that penalizes incitement and the spreading of “false news” with maximum three-year prison penalties, CPJ research shows.
In April, CPJ called on coup maker Senior General Min Aung Hlaing to release all of the journalists jailed by his military regime..."
Source/publisher:
Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-08
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders
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Sub-title:
In one case, soldiers repeatedly beat a farmer in front of villagers and splashed water on his face to wake him when he passed out
Description:
"Two men were murdered by soldiers after being detained in Mandalay Region this week in seperate incidents, locals have told Myanmar Now.
Than Tun Aung, a 25-year-old farmer, was detained and severely beaten on Monday after soldiers stationed in his village of Khine, Myingyan Township, started firing their guns at random, several locals there said.
He was among 11 men at the village bar at the time who were accused of an “unauthorised gathering” and taken to the local school.
Than Tun Aung fainted from the beatings on his way to the school, but the soldiers splashed him with water to wake him up and kept beating him as they continued on their way, said a local who spoke to eyewitnesses.
“The kid died while they splashed water on him and kicked him repeatedly,” the local said. “They were beating him for ‘not answering’ their questions but the truth is he just couldn’t speak anymore because of his injuries.”
Five hours after his arrest, villagers found his body between the market and the local clinic covered with a blanket. Soldiers told villagers he died of a cold, said another local, who has now fled Khine.
Than Tun Aung’s funeral was held at the village cemetery on Tuesday, but soldiers disrupted the ceremony by blocking the way for people who were carrying his body to be cremated, said the second local.
“The main road to the cemetery is the road near the school where the soldiers are stationed,” he said. “The soldiers came out of the school and told us that they couldn’t let us pass, so we had to go through the woods to get to the cemetery.”
Than Tun Aung leaves behind a 22-year-old wife and a one-year-old son.
Around 30 soldiers have been stationed at the school for about a month and more than 1,500 residents have fled to nearby villages.
The 10 other people detained with Than Tun Aung have been released but are not allowed to leave the village, locals said. “Those who were arrested didn’t dare to flee because the military threatened to harm their families if they did,” said one resident.
Than Tun Aung’s family did not want to speak with the media because soldiers were still in the village, the locals added.
Soldiers have been checking villagers’ mobile phones and social media pages, they said.
There have also been incidents of soldiers detaining villagers and forcing them to sing the Myanmar national anthem while they beat them, the locals said, adding that in other cases soldiers have forced villagers to fight each other.
Junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun could not be reached for comment.
In a similar case on Wednesday, Phyo Maung Ye, the 30-year-old owner of the Today teashop in Sintgaing Township’s Kathe village, was shot in the leg three times as he was detained by junta forces and died in custody at the Hpalanbo police station the same day.
Twelve police and soldiers detained Phyo Maung Ye along with his wife and two-year-old son, who were also taken to the police station but released hours later, according to locals.
Phyo Maung Ye was arrested on suspicion of helping to fund the People’s Defence Force (PDF), said one local.
“A Facebook account wrote that Phyo Maung Ye was financially supporting the PDF and he posted a status to refute that claim, but he was arrested at his shop the next day,” said the local. “He was shot three times in his leg during his arrest. We heard he had his arm broken during interrogation as well.”
The police station claimed that Phyo Maung Ye died when he tripped and fell during an escape attempt. They did not allow his family to take his body and said they had cremated it themselves.
“It’s impossible that he tripped and fell and died. He died because they tortured him. He had already been shot when he was arrested,” said another local.
“He was a good person doing honest work. He was not affiliated with the PDF either,” he added. “He did not give them any financial support. It saddens me a lot that our own villager had to experience this.”
The Sintgaing chapter of the PDF said Phyo Maung Ye’s killing was an act of terrorism by the military. “He was not a member and he was not a supporter. They took out their anger on an innocent civilian,” said a member of the group.
Myanmar Now tried to contact the military council and the Hpalanbo police station about Phyo Ye Maung’s death but all calls went unanswered.
In July junta forces arrested and tortured another teashop owner in Sintgaing. Min Thu Tun was detained along with his wife and child in Ohn Pin Chan and reportedly lost his hearing and some of his eyesight while being interrogated.
At least 1,302 civilians have been killed by the junta since it seized power in February and 7,687 remain in junta custody, according to recent figures from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-12-03
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
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Local URL:
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Sub-title:
The troops took Htoo Myat Lwin and three others during an early morning raid on a house in Dawei
Description:
"Soldiers arrested a prominent protest leader in the southeastern coastal town of Dawei on Tuesday along with three members of the family living in the house where he was hiding, according to a fellow anti-coup activist.
About 30 troops burst into the house at 6:30am and detained 22-year-old Htoo Myat Lwin, an organiser with the Coalition Strike Committee - Dawei. The soldiers also took Hla Pe, 50, along with his 28-year-old son Sai Ko Ko Tun and 18-year-old daughter La Pyae Pyae Tun.
“The house was raided while they were sleeping,” said a member of the strike committee, requesting anonymity. “We heard that they surrounded the house before arresting the victims. The neighbours said that they could hear people being beaten and cursing.”
“It was Htoo Myat Lwin that the military wanted but the hosts were also taken along with him,” he said, adding that a fifth person in the house, who suffers from a cognitive disability, was left behind by the soldiers.
Htoo Myat Lwin is a student at Dawei University. Soldiers found out about his whereabouts after arresting and interrogating nine members of the strike committee in recent days; Htoo Myat Lwin is the tenth member to be arrested since November 25.
“The majority of Htoo Myat Lwin’s friends are in detention now,” the activist said. “He was also called from the phone numbers of his friends who were detained and asked where he was.”
The soldiers took mobile phones, two computers, a motorcycle and books from the house. The strike committee member said the four detainees were taken to an interrogation center, but Myanmar Now was unable to verify this.
Dawei is a stronghold of the anti-coup movement in Tanintharyi Region, where the junta has raided the houses of several National League for Democracy officials. The military has deployed armed troops at security checkpoints across the township, according to locals.
The junta banned the use of motorbikes by two or men at the same time in Dawei and elsewhere in a bid to curb guerrilla forces’ hit-and-run attacks against soldiers. Locals said the ban is causing hardship to people who rely on the vehicles for their livelihoods..."
Source/publisher:
"Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-30
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
Language:
Local URL:
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Description:
"Burma Campaign UK today called on European Union member states to urgently impose a new round of targeted economic sanctions on the Burmese military, and to agree to impose regular new rounds of sanctions from now on.
It is now five months since the European Union brought in any new sanctions against the Burmese military. In that time:
Another 418 people have been killed by the military, bringing the total to 1,291.
Another 4,221 people have been arrested by the military, bringing the total to 10,452. 7,548 political prisoners are in jail today, many facing torture.
The number of people who have fled their homes since the coup because of threats and attacks by the military has grown to a quarter of a million people.
There is much more that the European Union can do to cut the flow of money to the Burmese military, but while hundreds die and thousands are arrested, the European Union is dithering.
The European Union has sanctioned some military companies and state-owned companies involved in timber and gems, but there is much more that they can do.
The recent failure to keep imposing new rounds of sanctions is all the more disappointing because it had at first appeared that the EU had learnt from past mistakes in imposing sanctions on Burma, when one off rounds of sanctions were introduced only every few years after an atrocity was committed.
Following the military coup on February 1st, there were three rounds of sanctions brought in by the EU. This was a much more systematic and effective way of imposing sanctions. It ensured that the military understood that the European Union would be relentless in identifying and sanctioning sources of revenue to the military.
This is more effective both in reducing revenue, and the psychological impact on the military and the nepotistic business crony cartel which provides vital economic support to the military.
Sanctions which should be considered by the EU include:
Sanction gas revenue to help cut one of the main sources of international money flowing to the military.
Sanctions on the Office of the Quartermaster General and other military bodies responsible for the purchase and manufacturing of arms.
Sanctions on state-owned entities and banks which now provide revenue to the military.
Targeted sanctions on revenue from extractive industries.
Sanctions on Burmese companies and individuals financing the military or which are supplying the military with arms and equipment or facilitating the purchase of arms and other equipment.
“The military has not stopped the killings and arrests and the European Union must not stop doing everything it can to stop money reaching the military,” said Mark Farmaner, Director of Burma Campaign UK. “The EU needs to keep identifying and sanctioning sources of revenue for the military, relentlessly tightening sanctions month after month.”..."
Source/publisher:
"Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-26
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Human Rights and international relations, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
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Local URL:
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Description:
"Karen Human Rights Group (KHRG) is pleased to announce the release of its latest report, Military Atrocities and Civilian Resilience: Testimonies of injustice, insecurity and violence in Southeast Myanmar during the 2021 coup. This report highlights the serious crimes committed by the Myanmar military and the deteriorating human rights, humanitarian, and human security crisis as a result of the brutal violence inflicted upon civilians in Southeast Myanmar and throughout Myanmar since the military coup in February 2021. This report also presents the hopes and struggles of rural villagers and civilians, demonstrating that, despite the increased insecurity they face, they continue to seek ways to counter a military regime that is illegal and unjust.
Through interviews conducted with rural villagers as well as with participants in the protests and Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), this report exposes the violence that the military-led State Administration Council (SAC) has used against protesters, and the ways in which protesters have vehemently continued to voice their opposition to the coup in the face of increasing brutality and repression by the military. Interviewees recounted stories of fear and insecurity as they encountered the ruthless response of the SAC to their efforts to defend their rights and the future of their country. And yet, they also expressed a strong sense of hope and an unwavering commitment to upholding the fight for federal democracy and freedom from oppression to the very end.
This report also presents the increased insecurity in rural ethnic areas, where the Myanmar military has long used violence against civilian villagers as a key strategy in waging war against ethnic armed actors. This escalation of violence by the Myanmar military has led to the widespread displacement of villagers in Southeast Myanmar. It is estimated that, as of June 23rd, close to 177,000 villagers in Southeast Myanmar, including 50,000 in Karen State, have been displaced since the February 1st coup (with over 140,000 still experiencing displacement as of August 23rd, 2021).
Also explored in this report are the wider impacts of the coup, like the breakdown of the healthcare system since the military coup and the SAC's restrictions on access to information and healthcare services vital to combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.
KHRG hopes this report will allow national and international stakeholders to understand better the impact the military coup has had on ethnic minorities in Southeast Myanmar. Included in the report are several recommendations for national and international stakeholders. These recommendations state how stakeholders can develop and implement policies that limit the power of the SAC; facilitate humanitarian access without working with the SAC; protect human rights; and promote accountability for international crimes..."
Source/publisher:
Karen Human Rights Group
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar
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Format :
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"For Immediate Release
DATE: 24 November 2021
Civilians in Myanmar have unjustly been subjected to systematic human rights violations perpetrated by the military junta for decades. A new briefing paper by the Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma (ND-Burma), “Democracy Derailed in Myanmar,” details how the junta has curtailed attempts for democratic reform in Myanmar.
A failed attempt at seizing control of the country by the Myanmar military on 1 February 2021 has left the country in desperate need of humanitarian assistance alongside worsening economic and social crises. With over 3 million civilians lacking critical life-saving materials including food, water and shelter in the midst of raging internal conflict, the Myanmar Generals have effectively left the most vulnerable in oblivion. Villages under martial-law, amid sweeping restrictions on movement and access to information, has made basic survival a daily challenge.
Among ND-Burma’s findings, ongoing conflict in urban and rural areas, as well as the suppression of fundamental freedoms, including that of the press, and the mishandled COVID-19 response has led to the conclusion that the junta is on a war-path which includes the destruction and annihilation of anyone or anything that stands in their way. Using evidence collected by ND-Burma members including the Chin Human Rights Organization and the Human Rights Foundation of Monland, and desk-research, it is abundantly clear that long held impunity is emboldening the junta to commit state-wide atrocities.
Any government which uses violence to suppress basic rights and freedoms must be condemned in the harshest possible terms. It is unacceptable that civilians are fearing for their lives in the midst of a brutal, militarized civil war. Longstanding calls for their protection must be heard, and freedom of expression must not be used to derail civilian rights.
Source/publisher:
Network for Human Rights Documentation - Burma
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-24
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Human Rights Defenders, Armed conflict in Burma - attacks on civilians, Women's rights, Children's rights: reports of violations in Burma against more than one ethnic group
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Format :
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Size:
1.83 MB
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Description:
"၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် နိုဝင်ဘာလ ၂၄ ရက်နေ့
ဆယ်စုနှစ်များနှင့်ချီ၍ မြန်မာစစ်တပ်မှ စနစ်တကျ ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သည့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုများ ကို မြန်မာပြည်သူများသည် လက်မခံဘဲ ဆန့်ကျင်ခဲ့ကြသည်။ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးမှတ်တမ်းကွန်ရက် (မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ) (ND-Burma) မှ ထုတ်ပြန်သည့် “ဒီမိုကရေစီလမ်းကြောင်းပေါ်မှ လမ်းချော်ခဲ့သောမြန် မာ” အစီရင်ခံစာတွင် အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်အုပ်စုက မြန်မာ့ဒီမိုကရေစီ အကူးအပြောင်းအား မည်သို့ ဟန့် တားနှောင့်ယှက်နေသည်ကို တင်ပြထားသည်။
မြန်မာစစ်တပ်မှ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ ၁ရက်တွင် အာဏာသိမ်း၍ တိုင်းပြည်အာဏာကို မတ ရား ရယူပြီးနောက် အလွန်စိုးရိမ်ဖွယ် လူသားချင်းစာနာသည့် အရေးပေါ်အကူအညီများ လိုအပ်ခြင်း နှင့်အတူ လူမှုရေး စီးပွားရေး ချွတ်ခြုံချ ဆိုးရွားလာသည်။ ပြင်းထန်သည့် ပြည်တွင်းစစ်ကြောင့် ပြည်သူ ၃ သန်းခန့်မှာ စားရေ ရိက္ခာ၊ ရေနှင့် နေထိုင်စရာ အပါအဝင် လူ့ဘဝအသက်ရှင်သန်ရေး အ တွက် လိုအပ်သည့်အထောက်အကူပစ္စည်းများ ကင်းမဲ့ ချို့တဲ့လျှက်ရှိပြီး စစ်ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ကြီးများသည် ထိခိုက်နစ်နာ အလွယ်ဆုံးသူများအားလည်း မေ့လျော့ပစ်ထားကြသည်။
စစ်အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးဥပဒေအောက်ရှိ ရွာသားများမှာ ခရီးသွားလာခွင့်နှင့် သတင်းအချက်အလက်ရရှိမှု အပေါ် တင်းကြပ် ကန့်သတ်ခံရခြင်းကြောင့် နေ့စဥ် အသက်ဆက် ရှင်သန်ရေးအတွက် အခက်အခဲ များနှင့် ကြုံတွေ့ရသည်။
ND-Burma မှ တွေ့ရှိချက်အရက် ကျေးလက်နှင့် မြို့ပြများတွင် ဖြစ်ပေါ်နေသည့် တိုက်ပွဲများ၊ သတင်းလွတ်လပ်မှုအပါအဝင် အခြေခံလွတ်လွပ်ခွင့်များကို ဖိနှိပ်ခြင်းနှင့် ကိုဗစ်-၁၉ ကပ်ရောဂါကို ထိရောက်စွာ မကိုင်တွယ် မဖြေရှင်းနိုင်တို့က စစ်အာဏာရှင်တို့သည် ကြမ်းကြုတ် ရက်စက်ပြီး ၄င်းတို့ရပ်တည်မှုကို ဆန့်ကျင်သည့် မည်သူ့ကိုမဆို သုတ်သင်ချေမှုန်း ဖျက်ဆီးမည်ကို ပြသ နေသည်။ မွန်ပြည်လူ့အခွင့်အရေးဖောင်ဒေးရှင်းနှင့် ချင်းလူ့အခွင့်အရေးအဖွဲ့အပါအဝင် ND-Burma အဖွဲ့ဝင်များမှ သက်သေအထောက်အထားများ မှတ်တမ်းတင် စုဆောင်းမှုအရ စစ်တပ်သည် ကာလကြာရှည် အသုံးပြုနေသည့် အပြစ်ရှိသူများအပေါ် အပြစ်ပေး အရေးယူခြင်းမရှိမှုကြောင့် နိုင်ငံနှင့်ချီ၍ ကျယ်ပြန့်သည့် ကြမ်းကြုတ်ရက်စက်မှုများကို ဆက်လက်ကျူးလွန်နေသည်မှာ ထင်ရှားသည်။
မည်သည့်အစိုးရမဆို အခြေခံအခွင့်အရေးနှင့် လွတ်လပ်ခွင့်များအပေါ် အကြမ်းဖက် ချိုးဖောက် လာပါက အပြင်းထန်ဆုံး စကားလုံးများဖြင့် ပစ်တင်ရှုံ့ချရမည်ဖြစ်သည်။ ကြမ်းကြုတ် ရက်စက်ပြီး စစ်အင်အား တိုးချဲ့ချထား တပ်လွှမ်းမိုးသည့် ပြည်တွင်းစစ်ကြောင့် ပြည်သူများသည် ၄င်းတို့ဘဝ ဘေးကင်း လုံခြုံစိတ်ချရရေးအတွက် စိုးရိမ်ပူပန်နေရသည်မှာ လက်ခံနိုင်စရာ အကြောင်းမရှိပေ။ ၄င်းတို့ဘဝ လုံခြုံစိတ်ချရရေးအတွက် ကာလကြာရှည် တောင်းဆိုနေမှုကို မဖြစ်မနေ နားထောင်ရ မည်ဖြစ်ပြီး လွတ်လပ်စွာထုတ်ဖော်ပြောဆိုခွင့်မှာလည်း နိုင်ငံသားအခွင့်အရေးမှ လမ်းချော်သွားရမည် မဟုတ်ပေ။..."
Source/publisher:
Network for Human Rights Documentation - Burma
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-24
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Individual Documents
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2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Human Rights Defenders, Women's rights, Armed conflict in Burma - attacks on civilians, Children's rights: reports of violations in Burma against more than one ethnic group
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"The bodies of a 23-year-old female medic and two male members of the Kale People’s Defense Force (PDF) were found at a camp which was raided by junta troops last Tuesday in Kale Township, Sagaing Region.
The civilian resistance group said victims were Biak Rem Chin, Cher Thang Puia and Ram Mawia.
Biak Rem Chin, also known as Chin Chin, was providing medical training at the camp. She had been shot in the forehead while Cher Thang Puia and Ram Mawia showed signs of torture on their faces.
During the raid, the junta captured nine female medics at the base and their condition remains unknown.
The three deaths mean the numbers killed by the military regime is at least 1,281, reported the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which records killings and arrests by the junta. The group estimated that the actual number of victims is much higher.
According to the AAPP’s latest report, junta forces have killed around 50 civilians so far this month, including five teenagers, bystanders, villagers, a striking teacher and a hostage.
High-school teacher U Zaw Min Aung, 40, who joined the civil disobedience movement by refusing to work under the regime, was tortured to death in interrogation hours after being detained in Myin Thar village, Thabeikkyin Township, Mandalay Region.
He was seized with another civilian on the night of Nov. 17 and accused of having links to PDFs.
Ko Ye Aung, who was seized as a hostage in Kyauktada village in Mandalay Region was tortured to death during interrogation, the AAPP said.
On Nov. 12, Ko Myint Naing and Ko Ye Aung, the father and uncle of a young activist who faced an arrest warrant for incitement, were detained. The next day, Ko Ye Aung’s family was told to retrieve his body, which was apparently covered in torture injuries.
Junta forces have detained more than 10,000 people, while nearly 2,000 people face arrest warrants.
Numerous relatives of wanted activists have been taken hostage by the junta.
The AAPP said the 13-year-old son of National League for Democracy member U Htay Aung was seized when junta forces could not find him.
On Nov. 13 morning, the junta seized the wife of U Thein Naing Tun and a young philanthropist named Ko Thein Zaw as hostages in Taung Tha Township, Mandalay Region, when troops failed to find former village administrator U Thein Naing Tun and two other wanted people..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-22
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political History, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma
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"Former National League for Democracy lawmaker U Phyo Zeya Thaw, who has been accused of masterminding deadly attacks on regime targets in Yangon, was arrested by junta forces during a raid on the outskirts of the city on Thursday.
The arrest came after a monthlong manhunt for the 40-year-old former parliamentarian, whom the regime accuses of supporting local civilian resistance forces and orchestrating several fatal hit-and-run attacks on junta troops in Yangon in recent months. The regime claimed the covert attacks include incidents in which soldiers manning security checkpoints in the city have been sprayed with bullets, and the deadly shooting of four police officers on board a Yangon Circular Rail train in August, among others.
Prior to his arrest, the regime charged U Phyo Zeya Thaw under the Counter-Terrorism Law and the Public Property Protection Act.
There has not yet been any official announcement about the arrest, which comes as the regime steps up its hunt for members of the People’s Defence Force (PDF)—a network of local civilian resistance groups—in Yangon. Late last month, the regime arrested veteran Myanmar democracy activist Ko Kyaw Min Yu, better known as Ko Jimmy, one of the leaders of the 88 Generation Students Group. It claimed that he was the leader of Operation Moonlight, which it said was a series of planned attacks in the city to be carried out by a PDF group.
Another 47 suspects were also arrested in Yangon this month. The junta’s mouthpiece Myawady News said they were involved in the attacks in Yangon masterminded by the ex-lawmaker and others.
Sources close to the matter confirmed the raid and U Phyo Zeya Thaw’s arrest, saying “his laptop was also seized.” That means information about the resistance forces opposing the regime, and their supporters, has potentially been exposed, raising the likelihood of more arrests.
Following the junta’s brutal crackdowns on anti-coup protesters, Myanmar has seen deadly attacks by civilian resistance fighters on regime targets including administration offices, police stations and army convoys. The junta has accused ousted NLD lawmakers and party members of masterminding most of the attacks.
U Phyo Zeya Thaw served as an NLD MP in the Lower House of Parliament from 2012 to 2020.
Prior to that, he made his name as a member of Acid, Myanmar’s first hip-hop band. Acid emerged in 2000, when the young Myanmar audience was growing bored of the country’s mainstream rock music and looking for something new. Their debut release—Beginning—was the first rap album by local musicians and propelled the band to nationwide stardom, as well as paving the way for other Myanmar hip-hop artists.
After the junta’s Feb. 1 coup and its subsequent crackdowns on peaceful anti-regime protesters, U Phyo Zeya Thaw went into hiding but appears to have been active against the junta. As he didn’t stand for Parliament in the 2020 poll, he is unlikely to be a member of the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, a group of ousted elected NLD lawmakers that the military regime has branded a terrorist organization..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-19
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Articles on the NLD, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory
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"Being unbowed, defiant and outspoken are trademarks of Nan Khin Htwe Myint, the detained Karen State chief minister of the ousted National League for Democracy government.
When the military staged a coup on Feb. 1, the 67-year-old was detained, like other NLD government officials. She told The Irrawaddy in February that during her house arrest, the Karen woman challenged the commander who detained her, saying, “If the military thinks there is vote fraud, I am ready to contest with you via an open ballot system anytime, rather than a secret ballot.” That was her response after the commander read her the regime’s official notice announcing the coup, which said the military seized power due to electoral fraud. The commander responded with an uneasy laugh.
Even under house arrest, she urged the people to continue their anti-regime strike in whatever ways possible, whether by raising three-finger salutes—a symbol of defiance against military rule—banging on pots and pans, or joining the civil disobedience movement (CDM).
She herself engaged in all these different means of anti-regime protest. As she still had access to her phone, Nan Khin Htwe Myint gave interviews to the media, urging public support for “final efforts” to strike against the regime and to speak up for the release of detained leaders, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
She even posted a video online calling on people to unite to fight against military rule and urging soldiers to defend the people and unite with the general public.
On Feb. 8, two days after tens of thousands of Myanmar people took to the streets rejecting the military coup, she was taken to Hpa-an Prison in the Karen State capital.
In May, she was sentenced to two years in prison for comments she made following the Feb. 1 coup calling for people to show unity in striking against the regime, which were deemed by the junta to be incitement.
Then on Nov. 9, the NLD Central Executive Committee member was sentenced to 75 years in prison on four corruption charges—which she denied—by the junta court inside Hpa-an Prison. She is now serving a total of 77 years in prison, a move by which the junta hopes to ensure that the core NLD member stays behind bars.
Her family and people close to her say it shows the depth of the military’s grudge against her for her outspokenness and defiance.
Dedicated democracy activist
Nan Khin Htwe Myint has made many sacrifices due to her activism and family history of opposing military rule.
Her father was the Karen State head of the AFPFL (Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League) in the years shortly before and after independence from the British. Through family discussions Nan Khin Htwe Myint gained a homegrown knowledge of federalism, as well as political and ethnic history. Under Myanmar’s military rulers, her family was targeted for persecution for their political ties.
She has inherited her father’s commitment to working for ethnic rights and equality. She told The Irrawaddy in 2016 that she “is dedicated to establishing my country as a federal-based democratic nation.”
She was detained for the first time in 1975 for taking part in the student movement and imprisoned for six years. She continued to be imprisoned; she was jailed for two years in 1997, and then arbitrarily detained multiple times throughout the 1990s, without any charges.
She became a dedicated member of the NLD upon its formation in 1988, following the nationwide uprising that year. She contested and won a seat in the 1990 general election, in Hpa-an Constituency, the same constituency she represented in the 2015 and 2020 general elections.
The military regime’s targeted acts of oppression against her include prison sentences and numerous arbitrary detentions. Now, she is being defamed by the junta with corruption charges. The allegation is ironic given that as chief minister of Karen State, Nan Khin Htwe Myint was known for her anti-graft stance.
“We are really surprised by the charges and the verdicts,” said her younger brother Saw Than Htut, who won election to an Upper House constituency in the 2020 election.
“We, ourselves, loathe committing graft. She has never committed any corruption. The charges are a complete swindle,” said the brother. “The junta’s charges against her are totally based on grudges as she is a decisive, outspoken and courageous politician.”
Those who know her well speak of her as leading a very simple and far from luxurious life, even though she was the chief minister. She didn’t even own a car.
A senior NLD leader who has known her for more than 30 years, and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she is loyal to both the party and the country and “a role-model” in the NLD after chairperson Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Trumped-up charges
After they were detained in prison in the second week of February, the regime filed complaints against Nan Khin Htwe Myint and U Than Naing, Karen State’s municipal minister under the NLD government, accusing them of violating tender and financial regulations related to infrastructure development projects in Karen State. She was given 75 years while her colleague got a total of 92 years for corruption and sedition.
The pair told the court that they “didn’t commit the offenses,” according to their lawyer U Aung Thein.
A source close to the court said that “the rulings were unjust” because they were entirely based on the prosecutors’ arguments, neglecting the defense lawyers’ arguments. The judge just read out a prepared ruling, the source said.
Some lawyers said such cases could be solved through departmental inquiries and did not need to be brought to trial.
“These cases are simply based on grudges,” said a lawyer who is familiar with the cases.
Knowing her integrity, a judge reportedly apologized to her during one proceeding, according to the source close to the court.
Junta’s grudges against NLD
Reflecting their desire for NLD members to stay behind bars, the Myanmar junta’s grudges against the party’s leaders become more obvious by the day. Nan Khin Htwe Myint’s cases are just the latest examples.
Similar charges have been brought against other senior leaders including detained State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other chief ministers.
The junta has filed 11 charges against Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD party chairperson, including for sedition, alleged breach of COVID-19 restrictions, violating the Official Secrets Act and corruption, which are also widely believed to be trumped-up charges.
The 76-year-old Nobel Laureate faces up to 102 years in prison if found guilty.
In the 10 months since the military coup, the junta’s courts across the nation have handed jail sentences to 286 people including NLD members, former lawmakers, students and civilians participating in the peaceful anti-regime movement, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which documents rights abuses and killings.
Civilian courts have sentenced them to terms ranging from at least two years to life imprisonment, while fewer than a dozen civilians have been sentenced to death by a military court.
Among them, 80-year-old NLD patron U Win Htein was sentenced to 20 years in prison for high treason by a court inside Naypyitaw Prison for criticizing the coup on Oct. 29.
Rakhine State Chief Minister U Nyi Pu was sentenced to two years in prison for incitement by Sittwe Court on Oct. 8. Magwe Region Chief Minister Dr. Aung Moe Nyo was sentenced to the same term on June 8. Mandalay Region Chief Minister Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, who is also the NLD’s vice chair, is also accused of sedition and corruption, and awaits trial..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-19
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Anti-coup protesters, Articles on the NLD, Human Rights Defenders
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"Civilian resistance groups are still trying to rescue nine female civilian fighters captured by the junta earlier this week in Sagaing Region’s Kale Township.
With tensions rising in the township, local People’s Defense Forces (PDF) have warned residents not to travel on the Gangaw-Kale Road, which is used by junta soldiers and Pyu Saw Htee, a militia group trained and armed by the military regime.
On Tuesday, junta soldiers raided a base where over 20 civilian resistance fighters from the Kale PDF Battalion 3 were staying. Two male fighters and ten female members of the PDF’s medical team were at the base at the time of the raid.
Kale PDF confirmed that those captured were medics from the resistance group. The Kale PDF said that it found the bodies of two male members and a 23-year-old female medic at the site on Thursday.
Combined forces from the Kale PDF, Chin Nationalities Defense Force (CNDF), Chinland Defense Force, Ranger Kale Defense Force (RKDF) and other community-based resistance groups have been battling regime troops to rescue the captured PDF members.
“We are very sorry that some of those captured from Battalion 3 are our former colleagues. We will fight tooth and nail to rescue the captured members,” said the RKDF in a statement.
CNDF said at least 20 junta soldiers were killed in Tuesday’s fighting. A civilian resistance fighter was slightly injured by an artillery strike.
A combined force of local resistance groups also attacked junta soldiers on Tuesday in the southwest of Kale Township. They also attacked the police station in Tar Han Ward on Tuesday, and an explosion took place near the runway of Kale airport on Wednesday. Despite the fighting, anti-regime protests are continuing in Kale.
In response to the attacks, junta soldiers torched at least 15 houses in two villages on the Kale-Gangaw road on Thursday..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-19
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"American journalist Danny Fenster has been freed from prison in Myanmar, according to a Myanmar military official and former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, who had been on a private humanitarian visit to the country.
Fenster's release comes just days after the former managing editor of Frontier Myanmar — an independent news outlet that covered current affairs, business and politics — was sentenced to 11 years in prison by a military court in Myanmar.
Myanmar's military spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told CNN Business that the journalist "has been released and deported. We will release details why he was released later."
According to a statement released by Richardson on Monday, Fenster will be making his way back to the United States "through Qatar, over the next day and a half."
A former US ambassador to the United Nations, Richardson said he had conducted face-to-face negotiations with Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of Myanmar's military junta.
Fenster's family said they were "overjoyed" at his release.
"We cannot wait to hold him in our arms,' they said in a statement. " We are tremendously grateful to all the people who have helped secure his release, especially Ambassador Richardson, as well as our friends and the public who have expressed their support and stood by our sides as we endured these long and difficult months."
Fenster, a 37-year-old from Detroit, Michigan, was arrested at Yangon International Airport on May 24 while he was trying to leave the country to visit his family in the United States. He had been denied bail and was held in Insein Prison in Yangon. On Friday, he was found guilty of three charges brought against him by the Myanmar military, which seized control of the country in a coup on February 1.
Those charges included visa breaches, unlawful association with an illegal group and incitement under section 505a of Myanmar's Penal Code, which makes it a crime to publish or circulate comments that "cause fear" or spread "false news."
Sonny Swe, Publisher, CEO and co-founder of Frontier Myanmar, Fenster's former employer in Myanmar, told CNN Business on the phone that Fenster was already on a plane having left Insein prison earlier in the day.
"I'm very, very pleased to hear about the news. Not only our happiness, I've been there before, I know how Danny and the family will be feeling right now," Swe said. "From this point onwards, it's all positive. He deserves to be reunited with his family."
Fenster was one of about 126 journalists or media workers detained since the coup, according to the UN. About 47 remain behind bars..."
Source/publisher:
CNN Business
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-15
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"The Burmese military regime’s sentencing of U.S. journalist Danny Fenster is an unjust conviction of an innocent person. The United States condemns this decision. We are closely monitoring Danny’s situation and will continue to work for his immediate release. We will do so until Danny returns home safely to his family..."
Source/publisher:
U.S. Department of State
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-14
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Human Rights and international relations
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"A military court in Myanmar has sentenced American journalist Danny Fenster to 11 years in prison, his lawyer said on Friday.
Fenster, a 37-year-old from Detroit, Michigan, has been detained in Myanmar for more than five months. He has been denied bail and held in Insein Prison, in the country's biggest city, Yangon, since his May 24 arrest.
At a court hearing on Friday, his lawyer Than Zaw Aung said Fenster was found guilty of three charges brought against him by the Myanmar military, which seized control of the country in a coup on February 1.
Those charges include visa breaches, unlawful association with an illegal group and incitement under section 505a of Myanmar's Penal Code, which makes it a crime to publish or circulate comments that "cause fear" or spread "false news." Fenster was also given a fine in local currency equivalent to $50.
The trial was conducted in a military court inside Insein Prison with proceedings closed to the public.
Fenster is one of about 126 journalists or media workers detained since the coup, according to the UN. About 47 remain behind bars.
Earlier this week he was hit with two new criminal charges under the country's sedition and terrorism laws, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison, his lawyer said.
They include charges under Section 124a of Myanmar's Penal Code, which mandates seven to 20 years imprisonment for attempting to bring hatred, contempt or disaffection toward the government and military.
The other charge is under Section 50a of the Counter Terrorism Law, which makes it a crime to have contact with officially designated "terrorist" groups. Under the terrorism charge, Fenster could face a minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum of life in prison if convicted, according to his lawyer and Myanmar's sentencing guidelines.
These charges will be heard separately.
It was unclear why the charges have been brought against the former managing editor of Frontier Myanmar, an independent news outlet that covered current affairs, business and politics in Myanmar. Fenster was arrested at Yangon International Airport while trying to leave the country to see his family in the United States.
CNN Business has reached out to Myanmar's military for comment.
'Travesty of justice'
Frontier Myanmar said in a statement posted on Facebook it was "deeply disappointed" at the sentencing.
"Everyone at Frontier is disappointed and frustrated at this decision. We just want to see Danny released as soon as possible so he can go home to his family," said Thomas Keen, Frontier's Editor-in-Chief.
Frontier Myanmar said the charges were based on the allegation that Fenster was working for banned media outlet Myanmar Now in the aftermath of the military coup. But Frontier said Fenster had resigned from Myanmar Now in July 2020, and at the time of his arrest in May 2021 had been working with Frontier for more than nine months.
Fenster received a three-year sentence for the incitement charge, three years for the unlawful association charge and five years for the immigration charge, Frontier said, adding the sentences imposed were the harshest possible under the law.
"There is absolutely no basis to convict Danny of these charges. His legal team clearly demonstrated to the court that he had resigned from Myanmar Now and was working for Frontier from the middle of last year," said Kean.
Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said the sentence was a "travesty of justice executed by a kangaroo court operating at the beck and call of the Myanmar military junta."
"The rationale for this outrageous, rights abusing sentence is really twofold: To intimidate all remaining journalists inside Myanmar by punishing Fenster this way, while at the same time sending a message to the US that the Tatmadaw generals don't appreciate being hit with economic sanctions and can bite back with hostage diplomacy," Robertson said.
"Journalism is not a crime, and it shouldn't be treated that way — meaning that Danny Fenster and the many Burmese journalists still behind bars should urgently be freed."
A US State Department spokesperson condemned the sentence, saying "the ruling today represents an unjust conviction of an innocent person."
"We are closely monitoring Danny's situation and will continue to work for his immediate release," the spokesperson said Friday. "We will do so until Danny returns home safely to his family."..."
Source/publisher:
CNN Business
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Human Rights and international relations, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état
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"Responding to the sentencing of American journalist Danny Fenster to a combined 11 years in prison, Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns, said:
“This is a reprehensible outcome in a case that has been deeply flawed from the start. Danny should have never been arrested in the first place and to sentence him to a combined 11 years shows how far Myanmar authorities are willing to go to signal that they do not respect independent media in the country or the impact on family members of those wrongly imprisoned.”
“Danny has done nothing wrong, but has somehow been charged with multiple alleged offences that are completely out of touch with reality and his work as an independent journalist. The court also ignored reams of evidence showing where he worked and records of his time in the country. He should be immediately and unconditionally freed and all charges dropped.”
“Danny is a prisoner of conscience. His liberty was taken away from him cruelly and unjustly, solely for doing his work as a journalist and exercising his right to freedom of speech.”
“His case has illustrated the enormous increase in risks and challenges faced by journalists in Myanmar since the military seized power on February 1. But despite internet blackouts, legal threats and detentions, they continue to courageously report on the dire situation in Myanmar.”
Background
A court in Yangon sentenced 37-year-old Danny Fenster to 11 years in prison on Friday, according to his employer Frontier Myanmar, where he is the managing editor.
He was arrested on 24 May as he tried to board a flight out of the country, which has been in turmoil since the military coup earlier this year.
The three charges for which he was sentenced on 12 November relate to an alleged immigration offence, incitement, and unlawful association with an illegal group. He was given the maximum sentence under each charge, according to his employer, which said there was no basis for the allegations.
Since the coup the military authorities have arrested, detained, prosecuted and imprisoned dozens of journalists, stripped media outlets of their licenses, and erased years of press freedom gains.
Amnesty International calls on the authorities in Myanmar to release journalists imprisoned simply for their work and the peaceful exercise of their human rights..."
Source/publisher:
Amnesty International (UK)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-13
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
Amnesty International reports on Burma/Myanmar, 2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"This morning AAPP documented the detention of 10,000 civilians by the military Junta in its crackdown on the pro-democracy struggle. These are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends, and other loved ones who chose to resist an illegitimate 1 February coup attempt.
Yet, these are only 10,000 individuals documented by AAPP. Our organization knows there are many more. On April 24, the military told an ASEAN leaders’ summit 9,948 had been detained and 4,511 were already released.
But the so-called SAC tries deception with unconditional releases. On June 30, the military said they would release 2,342 protestors, although only 370 have been identified. Again, on October 18, announcing 5,636 would be released. However, AAPP has confirmed 4,075, with only 1,199 identified.
All of those released were forced to sign 401(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, threatening them with harsher sentences in any future arrest. According to these past announcements by the Junta, 12,489 political detainees have been released since the coup. But there is a crater sized gap between reality and what this Junta tells the world.
As of November 11, at least 150 have been killed in custody, some within 24 hours through brutal interrogation methods, others locked in an overcrowded jail and denied necessary medical treatment during a pandemic.
Yet all the detained will be mentally and physically tortured. Even those they take hostage when their relatives cannot be found. 244 people have been arrested as hostages since the coup, 194 of them remain detained. The youngest is an infant under 1-years-old.
As of our sources, prison conditions are ruthless, with corruption everywhere. There is not enough quality food to eat or space to sleep. Detainees need to pay bribes to avoid degrading or harsh labor, denied even the most basic human dignity.
Fundamentally, the 10,000 civilians arrested were not criminals, they are students, doctors, journalists, teachers, striking workers, politicians, lawyers, civil servants. People who do not want a return to harsh authoritarian rule.
ASEAN’s ‘Five-Point Consensus’ to deal with the [military inflicted] political, economic, and social crisis ignored the escalating numbers of political prisoners. The first talking point must be the unconditional release of all political prisoners, including State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint.
Arbitrary detentions began this illegitimate coup, the continued existence of political prisoners is the barometer of democracy in Burma. As long as there are political prisoners there can be no national reconciliation..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-11
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory
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"During the past two weeks, SAC troops have scaled up military operations in Pekhon and
Demawso townships, in an attempt to secure control of the main access roads from southern
Shan State to Loikaw, and from Loikaw to southern Karenni State. SAC troops have shelled
directly into towns and villages, killing and injuring civilians and damaging numerous buildings.
Hundreds more SAC troops have been deployed from Naypyidaw to try and sweep out
resistance forces in the hills west of Pekhon town.
On October 25, SAC troops fired artillery shells and shot guns at Lud Mae Taw Catholic church
in San Pya 6 mile, Demawso township. They also indiscriminately shelled into Mar Ner Plaw
quarter in Demawso township, damaging a house there.
On October 26, combined KA and KNDF troops clashed with SAC troops travelling between
Htu Lwi Belar village and Ngwe Taung Ywa Thit village in Demawso township. 10 SAC
soldiers were killed and 2 military trucks damaged.
On October 26, Pekhon PDF troops and other Karenni forces clashed with SAC troops camped
near Katheh village in Gone Hsone village tract, Pekhon township, causing one of the PDF
soldiers to be injured. The SAC then indiscriminately shelled into Katheh village, injuring 3
villagers.
On October 27, the SAC again indiscriminately shelled into Katheh village in Pekhon township
damaging five houses and a local clinic.
On October 29, Moe Bye-based LIB 422 battalion indiscriminately shelled into and around Moe
Bye town, killing a woman from Sigan 2 quarter and injuring a man from Pau Oo 2 quarter; and
also killed a villager in his farm near the town.
On October 30, SAC troops carrying out operations between Loikaw town and Moe Bye town
set fire to stacks of harvested paddy along the roadsides.
On October 31, SAC troops shot at two villagers from an IDP camp in Demawso township while
they were returning to their village to get rations, luckily causing no injury. SAC troops also
burned down several houses in Ngu Plau quarter in Demawso township, according to a
Demawso PDF statement. Moreover, SAC troops fired shells into Daw Tama Nge village in
Demawso township, injuring one villager and damaging some houses.
On November 1, SAC troops patrolling from Shwe Yauk quarter in Demawso township
indiscriminately shelled into Daw Nga Khan quarter 2 in Demawso township, damaging a
community-owned store and 3 houses..."
Source/publisher:
Karenni Civil Society Network
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-10
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, Anti-coup protesters, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Human Rights Defenders
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"Myanmar’s military regime has announced five charges against a detained veteran student activist—including high treason and violating the counter-terrorism law—for allegedly masterminding a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the junta in the country’s biggest city, Yangon.
U Kyaw Min Yu, a member of the ’88 Generation Students Group and popularly known as Ko Jimmy, was arrested late last month when regime soldiers raided his hideout in northern Yangon. He was seriously injured during the arrest.
Regime mouthpiece Myawady TV did not announce the arrest until Sunday night, about two weeks after it happened, showing Ko Jimmy with his hands tied behind his back and kneeling before a haul of seized firearms and ammunitions.
It said he will be charged with high treason; violating the Counter-Terrorism Law; violating the Unlawful Association Act; violating the Arms Act and Explosive Substances Act; and incitement. If found guilty, the veteran student leader faces at least 30 years’ imprisonment. He could face the death penalty, as Myanmar’s terrorism law allows the death sentence in some cases.
In its announcement, the junta said Ko Jimmy was the political and security adviser of the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) and the shadow National Unity Government (NUG). The CRPH was formed by elected lawmakers from Myanmar’s formerly ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) in the wake of the February military coup, and the NUG is its offshoot. The regime has branded both as terrorist organizations.
The junta said Ko Jimmy was the leader of Operation Moonlight, under which eight “huge” missions were to be carried out in Yangon in the wake of the NUG’s nationwide call on Sept. 7 to revolt against the regime. Since the NUG’s war declaration, Myanmar has seen growing armed resistance against the regime across the country, causing serious casualties to the junta. Yangon has been no exception with deadly hit-and-run attacks on regime soldiers.
The Sunday statement said Operation Moonlight had completed three missions as of last month in Twantay, Insein and Hlegu townships.
“The remaining Mission 4, Mission 5, Mission 6, Mission 7 and Mission 8 were planned to be conducted in Yinkin, Mingaladon, Dala, Thakayta, Dagon Myothit (South) and Hlinethaya townships,” it said.
In collaboration with other resistance groups in the city, the regime said, those involved in the operation had launched separate attacks in Yangon since May, targeting schools, killing administrators and regime collaborators, and attacking state-owned buildings and private banks..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-09
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Politics and Government - global and regional - general studies, strategies, theory, National Unity Government (NUG), Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports
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"Over 20 years ago in exile, I co-founded the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) to monitor political prisoner numbers in Myanmar, so we can advocate and lobby the outside world to apply pressure on the Myanmar military, which once again seized power on February 1.
On October 18, I saw the success of that political pressure when the junta announced a mass prison release days after coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing was rightfully excluded from the October 26-28 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.
This is not the first so-called amnesty since the coup and it must not be the last. Yet, the outside world must continue to pay close attention. The junta will use so-called prisoner releases to deceive. On June 30, the regime announced the release of 2,342 prisoners. But AAPP has identified only 371 prisoners who were actually freed. Most remained in detention and their torture continued.
It has been over two weeks since the junta announced on October 18 the supposed release of another 5,636 political prisoners. Only 4,072 of those detainees have had their releases confirmed by AAPP, but just 949 of them have been properly identified because the military refuses to be transparent.
Our democratically-elected leaders remain in prison, as do many others as hostages. Arrests and killings by the junta have not slowed down. On October 23, the 1988 generation activist Ko Jimmy was violently arrested at a home in the Panglong housing complex in Yangon’s North Dagon Township. Another bargaining chip for the military regime in any future “concessions”.
Thousands of less well-known political prisoners are at risk of being forgotten by the outside world. This is what the Myanmar military wants. Therefore, they arrest people in the middle of the night, refuse to acknowledge the location of detainees or to allow independent observers inside prisons. This corrupt and power-hungry institution wants to make it as difficult as possible for ASEAN and others to know how many people they arrest, and whether any amnesty is authentic.
Actually, the stories of re-arrests outside prison gates and at homes soon after release demonstrate the reality of the junta’s tactics. Kyaw Naing Tun was one of those released from Magwe Central Prison on October 19, but the former political prisoner was re-arrested just eight days later. He was taken to an interrogation center and tortured to death, His body, and in particular the back of his head, had been violently smashed.
At least 127 detainees supposedly released on October 18 have been re-arrested since then. Among them were 11 democratically-elected politicians who were taken to the gates of Meiktila Prison, only to be cynically re-arrested by the police and charged under the Counter-Terrorism Law.
This is a pattern from before the February coup. Min Ko Naing, another 1988 generation activist, was released on two separate occasions during the time of the previous military regime, and both times was soon re-imprisoned.
It was the same story for leading National League for Democracy (NLD) member U Win Htein, who on October 29 was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in a Naypyitaw detention center under Section 124(a) of the Penal Code. Back in 2008, U Win Htein was waiting in a guesthouse to be reunited with his daughter after being released from prison. It was less than 24 hours later when military intelligence sent him back to Katha Prison and charged him under the State Protection Act, a repressive piece of legislation subsequently repealed by the now ousted NLD government. Such re-arrests are motivated by the desire of the military to psychologically intimidate others.
Treating political prisoners like pawns, the military re-arrests them just when they think they are free. AAPP released a statement on this tactic after October 18, highlighting the impact on the mental health of political prisoners and families. In fact, this is a type of psychological warfare, a torment which does not end with conditional release. Forced to sign pledges, all can be re-arrested at any time, for any reason, under Section 401 of the Penal Code.
This is how it was in the past when persecution continued long after detention ended. Former political prisoners were always the first target if something went wrong in a community and they were continually harassed as a type of social punishment. When I was released for the first time in 1993, businesses felt intimidated to hire me and military intelligence followed my every move. It was not long before I was arrested again and sentenced to a longer, harsher term.
While in prison, protestors detained for practicing fundamental human rights are forced to hold stress positions for hours, sticks are used to repeatedly hit their shins and backs, they are refused anything to drink, and made to hear the screams of fellow inmates. Even if they are spared brutal interrogation, political prisoners are housed in overcrowded cells and need to bribe guards just to get enough space to sleep, enough food to eat and water to drink. Every day is a struggle to survive. These are experiences that AAPP staff understand intimately.
The scars of torture linger long after detention. A young man from Taunggyi, the capital of Shan State, was arrested on August 8 on unfounded suspicion of links with a People’s Defense Force. He was released the next day with wounds across his body consistent with severe torture. The man could barely speak, traumatized through vicious interrogation by the junta. Photos circulated of another detainee from North Dagon in Yangon, showing his neck tattoo burned off by cigarettes. The tattoo read “we will never forgive”, a reference to the Myanmar peoples’ hatred of the coup and desire for justice.
Nowadays, people in Myanmar know that the coup leader’s greed and brutality will impoverish entire generations. We’d seen the prospect of a better future. Political prisoners and the entire population profoundly hate Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing for destroying that possibility and will never subject themselves to his rule, whatever the level of repression. Brutal interrogations, however, will create long-term mental health implications. Former political prisoners and their families need urgent support. Fundamentally, Myanmar is a deeply traumatized society. Just being released is not enough; we need accountability to tackle the loss of dignity.
Families embracing loved ones after being released is one of the reasons I really appreciate what ASEAN did on October 15 by excluding the coup leader from its October summit, as well as the support of the United States and other like-minded governments since the coup. It was political pressure which allowed the possibility of rehabilitation to happen. Nowadays, the junta does not have legitimacy from its own people, its neighbors or the international community.
Before the coup, the military’s spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said torture survivors and families could make complaints to the military. People in Myanmar understand, then and now, that you cannot submit a complaint of torture to the torturer, when that same torturer continues to hold a gun to your head on release. People in Myanmar need a civilian government, with no role for the military in politics or government.
This why ASEAN’s decision to deny the coup leader the legitimacy he craves was so significant. Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews powerful statement said of the subsequent prisoner ‘amnesty’, “their release is clearly not because the junta has had a change of heart”. The October 18 releases happened because of pressure from inside and outside Myanmar. But I want to advocate for the international community to do more. The international community’s demand now must be for the release of detained State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint, all other political prisoners, and a return to civilian rule.
For this purpose, United Nations (UN) member states need to implement the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar’s ‘Three Cuts” policy. The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spoke for civilians in Chin State and Magwe and Sagaing regions earlier this month. It noted the junta’s “established pattern of attacks… against unarmed individuals using lethal force, destruction of residential properties, mass arbitrary detention and deaths in military custody”. As long as the Myanmar military has cash and weapons, atrocities will continue..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-05
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders
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"In the nine months since the coup, we have seen an intensification of inhumane acts committed by the terrorist-like junta.
The military are violently raiding towns and villages, causing civilian casualties across all states and regions. Children have not been spared. After being arbitrarily arrested, civilians are often forced to pay a ransom for their release. Those in refugee camps face threats and harassment, and torture is systematically committed against innocents. These acts of terror are perpetrated by the junta, to instill fear in the population.
On October 18, the terrorist group announced they would release (1316) people who had been sentenced and (4320) people who were facing trial, a total (5636) arbitrary detainees. The releases were achieved because of political pressure by ASEAN and the international community, but this was never an absolute amnesty, they were conditional releases. According to AAPP documentation, as of October 31, only (4072) were released, (122) of whom have been re-arrested. The number of re-arrests is likely to be higher, as some releases have not yet been identified by AAPP.
In October, a church and at least 400 houses in Thantlang, Falam and Mindat Townships in Chin State were set on fire by the junta. The military denied responsibility for the arson that occured in Thantlang Township, on October 29. However, a spokesman for the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) threatened the public on social media, “to see the Thantlang incident as an example of what is to come”.
In fact, the junta is also targeting National League for Democracy MP’s, officials, and supporters. The NLD Party which won the largest number of votes in the November 2020 election. In October, at least 10 NLD offices were attacked. The junta has also broken into NLD offices, looting items, committing arson and setting off bombs. At least 25 properties owned by Hluttaw representatives, NLD members, and ordinary civilians such as hotels, hospitals, houses and shops, were illegally seized by the junta in October.
Arrests
According to AAPP documentation, (319) civilians were detained by the terrorist junta between October 1 and 31. (80) women were detained, and (27) were taken as hostages, including (9) children, under the age of 18.
In Mandalay, the Monk Union has been protesting daily against the military coup. On October 2, at around 1:30 pm, some 10 junta soldiers, armed and in plain clothes, arrived at Mya Taung Monastery in two cars. The military troops used a car to crack down on the protesting monks. During the crackdown, five monks were forced to change into normal clothes and were beaten, held at gunpoint and arrested. The same night, three other civilians were searched and arrested by the junta.
Families continue to be held as hostages on a daily basis. At the beginning of this attempted coup, the wife and nine-year-old daughter of a Naypyidaw-based police superintendent, who was involved in CDM, were arrested. Still, no one knows where they are being detained. When a father was not found in Thayet Chaung Township, Tanintharyi Region, his wife and two children, aged two and six-years-old, were arrested and detained on October 9.
Killings
In October, at least (79) civilians were killed in the junta’s targeted attacks. This includes (6) women and (3) children, under the age of 18. Of those, (17) died as a result of torture.
On the morning of October 1, around 100 terrorist junta soldiers raided Pyindaung village in Khin Oo Township, Sagaing Region, and chased the fleeing villagers. Five villagers, including a five-year-old boy, were shot dead in a field in the village. Houses were destroyed. Tractors, five cars, 40 motorbikes, rice and oil, were also stolen by the junta.
Ko Kyaw Naing Tun a.k.a Ah Nge Lay, who was released from Magway Central Prison on October 19, was re-arrested at his home in Magway on October 27, on suspicion of killing the Aung Metta ward administrator. The family was notified to retrieve his dead body on October 28. Police say he died due to COVID, but his body and head (especially his back), were covered with injuries consistent with torture.
This is but a summary of human rights violations committed by the terrorist junta group in October. In this climate of fear, similar atrocities have been widely perpetrated across the country, amounting to crimes against humanity..."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-04
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma
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"အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်အုပ်စု၏ လူမဆန်စွာ ရက်စက်မှုများမှာ မတရားအာဏာလုယူမှု လပေါင်း (၉) လ ကြာလာသည့်အချိန်ထိ ဆထက်တိုး၍ ပိုမိုဆိုးရွားလာနေသည်။
မြို့ရွာများအတွင်း အကြမ်းဖက်ဝင်ရောက်စီးနင်းမှုများ၊ လက်နက်ဖြင့်ပစ်ခတ်မှုများကြောင့် ကလေးသူငယ် များအပါအဝင် အရပ်သားထိခိုက်နစ်နာခံစားရမှုများမှာ တိုင်းနှင့်ပြည်နယ်အနှံ့ ရင်ဆိုင်နေရလျက်ရှိသည်။ ထို့အပြင် မတရားဖမ်းဆီးပြီးနောက် အခကြေးငွေဖြင့် ပြန်လည်ရွေးခိုင်းမှုများ၊ စစ်ဘေးရှောင်များ၏ နေရာ များထိ လိုက်လံခြိမ်းခြောက်နှောင့်ယှက်မှုများ၊ ညှဉ်းပန်း နှိပ်စက်မှုများကိုလည်း စနစ်တကျကျူးလွန် လျက်ရှိရာ ပြည်သူများအား အကြောက်တရားလွှမ်းမိုးနေစေရန် အလို့ငှာ ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ရှိရှိဖြင့် အကောင် အထည်ဖော်လျက်ရှိသည်။
အောက်တိုဘာလ ၁၈ ရက်နေ့မှစတင်၍ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုမှ နိုင်ငံရေးနှင့်ဆက်နွယ်သော ပြစ်ဒဏ် ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံရသူ (၁၃၁၆)ဦး၊ တရားရင်ဆိုင်နေရသူ (၄၃၂၀)ဦး၊ စုစုပေါင်း (၅၆၃၆) ကို လွှတ်ပေးမည်ဟု ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာခဲ့သည်။ မတရားဖမ်း ဆီးခံခဲ့ရသူများကို ယခုကဲ့သို့ ပြန်လည်လွှတ်ပေးမည်ဟု ကြေညာ ခြင်းမှာ နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုက်အဝန်း၌ မျက်နှာပန်းလှစေရန် နိုင်ငံရေးရည်ရွယ်ချက်အရ လွှတ်ပေးခဲ့ခြင်းသာ ဖြစ်သည်။ ထိုကဲ့သို့ လွှတ်ပေးခဲ့သည်ဟု ကြေညာခဲ့သော်လည်း နိုင်ငံရေး အကျဉ်းသားများ ကူညီ စောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း (AAPP) မှ မှတ်တမ်းပြုချက်များအရ အောက်တိုဘာ ၃၁ အထိ အရေအတွက် အားဖြင့် (၄၀၇၂) ဦးမှာ လွတ်မြောက်လာခဲ့ပြီး ထိုအထဲမှ ပြန်လည်ဖမ်းဆီးခံရသူ အရေအတွက်မှာ (၁၂၂) ဦး ရှိသည်။ ထို့ပြင် ပြန်လည်ဖမ်းဆီးမှုများကြောင့် တိမ်းရှောင်နေရသူများလည်းရှိနေသလို ပြန်လည်အဖမ်းခံရ သော အရေအတွက်မှာ မြေပြင်တွင် ထိုထက်ပိုများမည်ဖြစ်သည်။
အောက်တိုဘာလအတွင်း ချင်းပြည်နယ် ထန်တလန်မြို့၊ ဖလမ်းမြို့နယ်နှင့် မင်းတပ်မြို့နယ်အတွင်းရှိ ကျေးရွာများမှ ဘုရားကျောင်းတစ်လုံးနှင့် အိမ်ခြေ (၄၀၀) လုံးထက်မနည်း မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခံခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရှိရ သည်။ အောက်တိုဘာ ၂၉ ရက်နေ့က ထန်တလန်မြို့ မီးလောင်မှု ဖြစ်စဉ်ကို စစ်အုပ်စုဘက်က ငြင်းဆန်ထား သော်လည်း စစ်အုပ်စုအမာခံ ပြည်ထောင်စု ကြံ့ခိုင်ရေးနှင့်ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးပါတီ၏ ပြောရေးဆိုခွင့်ရှိသူက လူမှု ကွန်ရက်စာမျက်နှာထက်မှတစ်ဆင့် ထန်တလန်ဖြစ်စဉ်ကို နမူနာယူကြရန် ပြည်သူလူထုကို ခြိမ်းခြောက်မှု ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သည်။
၂၀၂၀ ရွေးကောက်ပွဲတွင် ပြည်သူ့ထောက်ခံမဲအများဆုံးရရှိခဲ့သော အမျိုးသားဒီမိုကရေစီအဖွဲ့ချုပ်ပါတီ၏ ပါတီရုံးများ၊ အဖွဲ့ဝင်များ၊ ထောက်ခံသူများကို စစ်အုပ်စုက ပစ်မှတ်ထားတိုက်ခိုက်လျက်ရှိရာ အောက်တိုဘာ အတွင်း ပါတီရုံး အနည်းဆုံး (၁၀) ရုံးထက်မနည်း တိုက်ခိုက်ခံရမှုဖြစ်ပေါ်ခဲ့သည်။ ပါတီရုံး၏ ခြံစည်းရိုး၊ တံခါး၊ ဆိုင်းဘုတ်၊ ဗီနိုင်းနှင့် အလံများ ရိုက်ချိုးဖျက်ဆီးပစ်ခြင်းများအပြင် ရုံးခန်းအတွင်း ဝင်ရောက်ကာ ပစ္စည်းများ ဖျက်ဆီးယူငင်ခြင်း၊ မီးကွင်းပစ်ခြင်း၊ ဗုံးပစ်ထည့်ခြင်းနှင့် ဖောက်ခွဲဖျက်ဆီးခြင်း စသည့်ပုံစံများ ဖြင့် တိုက်ခိုက်ခဲ့သည်။
ထို့အပြင် လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ်များ၊ NLD ပါတီအဖွဲ့ဝင်များနှင့် အရပ်သားများ ပိုင်ဆိုင်သော ဟိုတယ်၊ ဆေးရုံ၊ နေအိမ်နှင့် ဆိုင်ခန်းများအား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုက မတရားသိမ်းဆည်းချိတ်ပိတ်မှုများကို အောက်တိုဘာလအတွင်း အနည်းဆုံး (၂၅) ခုထက်မနည်း ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သည်။
ဖမ်းဆီးမှု
AAPP မှ လက်လှမ်းမီသမျှ ကောက်ယူရရှိထားသည့် အချက်အလက်များအရ အောက်တိုဘာ ၁ ကနေ ၃၁ ရက်နေ့အထိ စစ်အုပ်စု ၏ တရားလက်လွတ်ဖမ်းဆီးမှုကြောင့် ထိန်းသိမ်းခံခဲ့ရသူပေါင်း (၃၁၉) ရှိခဲ့သည်။ အမျိုးသမီးဦးရေ (၈၀)ဦး၊ အသက် ၁၈ နှစ်အောက် ကလေးသူငယ်ဦးရေ (၉)ဦးနှင့် ဓားစာခံအဖြစ် ဖမ်းဆီးခံရသူ (၂၇) ဦး ပါဝင်သည်။
စစ်အာဏာရှင်ကို နေ့စဉ်ဆန္ဒပြနေသည့် မန္တလေးမြို့မှ သံဃသမဂ္ဂစစ်ကြောင်းသည် အောက်တိုဘာလ ၂ ရက်နေ့၊ မွန်းလွဲ ၁ နာရီခွဲခန့်တွင် လမ်းပေါ်၌ ချီတက်ဆန္ဒထုတ်ဖော်နေစဉ် အရပ်ဝတ်များ ဝတ်ဆင်ထားသော စစ်အုပ်စု၏ လက်နက်ကိုင် ၁၀ ဦးခန့်က အိမ်စီးကား နှစ်စီးဖြင့် ရောက်ရှိလာပြီး ကားဖြင့်တိုက်၍ ဖြိုခွင်းခဲ့သည်။ အဆိုပါဖြိုခွင်းမှုတွင် သံဃာ(၅)ပါးကို လူဝတ်လဲကာ သေနတ်ဖြင့်ချိန်၍ ရိုက်နှက် ဖမ်းဆီးသွားခဲ့သည့်အပြင် လူပုဂ္ဂိုလ် (၃)ဦးကိုလည်း ဖမ်းဆီးသွားခဲ့ကြပြီး ယင်းနေ့ ညပိုင်းတွင် မြတောင်ကျောင်းတိုက်ကို ဝင်ရောက်စီးနင်း၍ ရှာဖွေခဲ့ကြပြန်သည်။
အလိုရှိသူကို ဖမ်းမမိ၍ မိသားစုကို ဓားစာခံအဖြစ် ဖမ်းဆီးမှုများမှာ နေ့စဉ်ရက်ဆက် ဆက်လက်ဖြစ်ပေါ်နေဆဲဖြစ်ရာ စစ်တပ် အာဏာသိမ်းအပြီး ပြည်သူ့ဘက်ရပ်တည်၍ အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေး လှုပ်ရှားမှုတွင် ပါဝင်ခဲ့သူ နေပြည်တော်အခြေစိုက် ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့မှ ရဲအုပ်၏ဇနီးနှင့် အသက် (၉) နှစ်အရွယ် သမီးတို့မှာ ဖမ်းဆီးခံရပြီးနောက် လက်ရှိအချိန်တွင် မည်သည့်နေရာတွင် ချုပ်နှောင်ခံထားရသလဲဆိုသည်ကို မသိရှိရသေးပေ။ ထို့အပြင် အောက်တိုဘာ ၉ ရက်နေ့တွင် တနင်္သာရီတိုင်း၊ သရက်ချောင်းမြို့နယ်၌လည်း ဖခင်ဖြစ်သူကို ဖမ်းမမိ၍ ဇနီးသည်နှင့်အတူ နှစ်နှစ်နှင့် ခြောက်နှစ်အရွယ် ကလေးငယ်နှစ်ဦးကိုပါ ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းခဲ့မှု ဖြစ်ပေါ်ခဲ့သည်။
သတ်ဖြတ်မှု
စစ်အုပ်စု၏ အညှိုးထားတိုက်ခိုက်မှုများကြောင့် အောက်တိုဘာလအတွင်း အရပ်သားပြည်သူ (၇၉) ဦး အသက်ဆုံးရှုံးခဲ့ရသည်။ ထိုအထဲတွင် ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုကြောင့် သေဆုံးခဲ့ရသူ (၁၇) ဦး၊ အမျိုးသမီး (၆) ဦးနှင့် အသက် ၁၈ နှစ်အောက် ကလေးသူငယ် (၃) ဦး ပါဝင်သည်။
ခင်ဦးမြို့နယ်အတွင်းရှိ ပျဉ်ထောင် ကျေးရွာကို အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု၏တပ်သား (၁၀၀) ခန့်မှ အောက်တိုဘာလ ၁ ရက်နေ့ နံနက်ပိုင်းတွင် ဝင်ရောက်စီးနင်းခဲ့ပြီး ထွက်ပြေးသော ဒေသခံရွာသားများကို လိုက်လံပစ်ခတ်ခဲ့သောကြောင့် အသက် ၅ နှစ်အရွယ် ကလေးတစ်ဦး အပါအဝင် ဒေသခံရွာသား (၅) ဦးမှာ လယ်တောအတွင်း ကျည်ထိမှန်၍ အသက်သေဆုံးခဲ့ကြ ရသည်။ ထို့ပြင် နေအိမ်များကို ဖျက်ဆီးသွားခဲ့ပြီး ဒေသခံများ၏ ကား ငါးစီး၊ ထော်လာဂျီနှင့် ဆိုင်ကယ် အစီး ၄၀ နှင့် ဆန်၊ဆီ စသည့် ရိက္ခာများကိုပါ ယူဆောင်သွားခဲ့သည်။
မကွေးဗဟိုအကျဉ်းထောင်မှ အောက်တိုဘာလ ၁၉ ရက်နေ့က ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်လာသူ ကိုကျော်နိုင်ထွန်း (ခ) အသေးလေးကို အောက်တိုဘာလ ၂၇ ရက်နေ့က မကွေးမြို့၊ အောင်မေတ္တာရပ်ကွက် အုပ်ချုပ်ရေးမှူး သတ်ဖြတ်ခံရမှုနှင့် ပက်သတ်ပြီး မသင်္ကာမှုဖြင့် နေအိမ်တွင် စစ်တပ်က ထပ်မံလာရောက်ဖမ်းဆီးပြီးနောက် နောက်တစ်ရက်အကြာ အောက်တိုဘာ လ ၂၈ ရက်နေ့တွင် အလောင်း လာထုတ်ရန် မိသားစုကို အကြောင်းကြားခဲ့သည်။ ကိုဗစ်ရောဂါကြောင့် သေဆုံးသွားသည်ဟု ရဲက ပြောဆိုသော်လည်း သေဆုံးသူ၏ ခန္ဓာကိုယ်နှင့် ဦးခေါင်းတခုလုံး (အထူးသဖြင့် နောက်စေ့) ပျက်စီးကျေမွနေကြောင်း သိရှိ ရသည်။
အထက်ပါဖေါ်ပြချက်များသည် အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်အုပ်၏ အောက်တိုဘာလအတွင်း၌ ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သော တရားမဲ့ အကြမ်းဖက်မှု များအား အကျဉ်းချုပ်ဖေါ်ပြချက်မျှသာဖြစ်ပြီး အခြားသော တိုင်းနှင့်ပြည်နယ်များတွင်လည်း ထိုကဲ့သို့ လူမဆန်သော အကြမ်းဖက်ကျူးလွန်မှုများ များစွာရှိခဲ့သည်။
နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ ကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း.."
Source/publisher:
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-04
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Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Freedom of Movement, violations of in Burma/Myanmar, Freedom of opinion and expression: - the situation in Burma/Myanmar - reports, analyses, recommendations, Human Rights Defenders, Right to Life: reports of violations in Burma
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"Myanmar’s junta atrocities are continuing with the murder of more than 10 civilians, including a Buddhist monk and National League for Democracy (NLD) supporters, over the past five days.
Regime forces have looted houses, destroyed property, bombarded civilians with artillery, burned down homes and arbitrarily killed civilians during operations against civilian resistance forces, especially in Magwe and Sagaing regions and Chin, Shan and Kayah states.
By Saturday, 1,222 people had been killed by junta forces since the February coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which records deaths and arrests.
Last Thursday, the bodies of two NLD supporters, U San Lwin, 60, and U Kyaw Htay Aung, 50, were reportedly dumped by junta forces near the NLD office in Chanayethazan Township, Mandalay.
A photo was released of two bloody bodies lying beside a road in Mandalay.
The two victims were arrested with another NLD supporter, U Moe Gyi, 50, on Wednesday night, according to the AAPP.
The police retrieved the bodies and then reportedly asked family members to retrieve the corpses, according to the media.
Many torture injuries, including knife wounds, were found on the bodies, according to the AAPP.
A 25-year-old NLD member Ko Min Min Thu, also known as Mohammad Har Ni, from East Mawtone village in Tanintharyi Region, on Wednesday was tortured to death two days after being detained. He was seized at his home by regime forces last Monday.
On Thursday night, regime forces detained a married couple, U Myo Lwin and Daw San San Lwin, after failing to find their son who has been accused of being a People’s Defense Force (PDF) member.
U Myo Lwin was reportedly tortured to death during interrogation after the couple were accused of supplying the PDF, according to the media.
The AAPP said a Buddhist monk, U Kuthala, an assistant head of the monastery in Yinshae village, Yegyi Township in Ayeyarwady Region, was shot dead by regime forces last Tuesday while returning from shopping in Ngathaingchaung near Yegyi.
A novice monk was also injured in his ear during the junta shooting, the AAPP said.
On Thursday, former political prisoner Ko Kyaw Naing Tun, who was released from prison in Magwe Region in mid-October, was reportedly tortured to death by the regime after being detained again on Wednesday.
Another three civilians were shot dead by junta forces during raids on villages in Myaung, Budalin, and Khin-U townships in Sagaing Region on Sunday and Monday.
One or two displaced villagers were shot dead by the regime forces while returning home to fetch food at a village in Demoso Township, Shan State, on Sunday.
The Demoso PDF said junta forces burned down houses and randomly attacked villages and residential areas of Demoso on Sunday and Monday.
Troops burned harvested rice in Demoso on Saturday while advancing on neighboring Pekon Township in Shan State, the PDF said.
On Friday, troops bombarded the mountaintop town of Thantlang in Chin State. More than 160 houses, including two churches, burned down in junta artillery fire.
Except for Rakhine State, regime forces nationwide are facing increasingly intense attacks by civilian resistance forces and ethnic armed forces..."
Source/publisher:
"The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
Date of entry/update:
2021-11-01
[field_licence]
Type:
Individual Documents
Category:
2021 Burma/Myanmar coup d'état, Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports, Anti-coup protesters, Human Rights Defenders
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