Political prisoners and other violations in Burma - reports

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Websites/Multiple Documents

Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2020-04-17
Date of entry/update: 2020-04-18
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
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Description: Along with the Online Burma Library?s Human Rights > Detention section, this is the most comprehensive Internet collection of documents on political prisoners in Burma. This site contains regularly updated lists of: all political prisoners; imprisoned MPs; women prisoners; imprisoned writers and journalists; prisoners held under Article 10(A) though their sentences have been completed; political prisoners who have died while in custody; Members of Parliament elected in 1990. Map of prisons; list of prisons; list of labour camps. It also houses more than 100 documents related to political prisoners in Burma -- articles, books, reports, letters, statements by AAPPB, NLD, Aung San Suu Kyi and others. News items and updates on particular prisoners. Statement on the establishment of the Free Political Prisoners Campaign Committee (FPPCC) and more.
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: Monthly report of the number of political prisoners in Burma - releases, new detentions, those awaiting trial...Archive from September 2008
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) - AAPPB
Date of entry/update: 2014-12-11
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: "In this section you will find photographs of political prisoners currently serving sentences in Burmese prisons, photographs of prisons and prisoners working in Labour Camps or on constuction projects throughout Burma. We have also included illustrations of poun-zan, which are the positions used by the Burmese prison system to de-humanize prisoners... Learning Behind Bars: Political prisoners are not allowed to read or write while in prison. Despite their jailers? efforts to shackle their minds, Burmese political prisoners remain determined to learn even under the worst of circumstances. View Photographs - Read Article 1 - Read Article 2... There are 38 major prisons currently in Burma. Over 20 house political prisoners, even a number of Monks included. View Photos... If you are a photographer with images that you may think will be of value to AAPP, please send them as jpeg attachments to AAPP...
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) - AAPPB
Date of entry/update: 2003-07-07
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: Several hundred reports and urgent appeals on legal events in Burma/Myanmar, including restrictions on lawyers and unjust conduct of legal proceedings.
Source/publisher: Asian Human Rights Commission
Date of entry/update: 2012-02-22
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: "James Mackay, a documentary photographer based in South East Asia and the UK specialises in Burma, both in-country and around political and human rights issues along it?s borders and those in exile around the world. Below are a selection of photo-stories providing a glimpse at life in the darkness of the Golden Land. In 1962 a military coup saw Burma, an isolated Buddhist country in South-East Asia, come under the power of one of the world?s most brutal regimes. For the past five decades, the country has been ruled through fear and oppression that has seen thousands of people arrested, tortured and given long prison sentences for openly expressing their beliefs as well as crimes against humanity being committed in the country?s ethnic regions. More than a million people have been left internally displaced and over 150,000 now live as stateless refugees on Burma?s numerous borders. Whilst the democracy movement once again gathers pace under the renewed leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi, the people of Burma remain shackled by an authoritarian regime and are left to suffer silently in the hope that one day true freedom will be theirs.".....Special focus on Burma?s political prisoners.....Galleries include: AUNG SAN SUU KYI: AT HOME WITH... THE DARKNESS WE SEE... ABHAYA: BURMA?S FEARLESSNESS... BURMA?S DEFIANCE... THE PRISON WITHOUT BARS... BURMA VJ: INSIDE THE SECRET NETWORK... THIS IS ANOTHER PLACE... NO DISTANCE LEFT TO RUN... BURMA?S POLITICAL PRISONERS... SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN... ORDINARY PLACES: EXTRAORDINARY LIVES... FLEEING THE FRONTLINE... KNLA: A REVOLUTION TO THE END
Creator/author: James Mackay,
Source/publisher: Enigma Images
Date of entry/update: 2011-11-23
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: JOIN THE CAMPAIGN: There are over 2,100 political prisoners languishing in prisons all over Burma. Free Burma?s Political Prisoners Now aims to collect 888,888 signatures before 24 May 2009, the legal date that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi should be released from house arrest. This is a united global campaign working with over a hundred groups from around the globe. The petition calls on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to make it his personal priority to secure the release of all political prisoners in Burma, as the essential first step towards democracy in the country... HERE?S WHAT YOU CAN DO! 1. Sign the Petition... 2. Get your friends, families, and colleagues to sign. (Join our pages on Facebook and Youtube as well)... 3. Download the campaign kit (to the left) and get those in your community involved. Tell them about the situation in Burma and the courageous actions of Burma?s political prisoners... 4. Tell the FBPPN Campaign Committee what you are doing so that we can share with others about the global movement for Burma?s political prisoners. Email [email protected]... WHY THIS CAMPAIGN IS SO IMPORTANT: Daw Aung Suu Kyi says, ?We are all prisoners in our own country.” Political prisoners are not criminals. They have courageously spoken out on behalf of those who have been silenced. The release of all political prisoners is the essential first step towards freedom and democracy in Burma. There can be no democratic transition without them. They must be allowed to freely participate in any future democratic political process.
Source/publisher: Free Burma
2009-03-13
Date of entry/update: 2009-03-13
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: Archive from September 2008
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma)
Date of entry/update: 2012-11-08
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" Research Pages
Date of entry/update: 2003-06-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: Articles on political prisoners in Burma from April 2011
Source/publisher: Mizzima
Date of entry/update: 2011-09-08
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Individual Documents

Sub-title: But high-profile prisoners such as Aung San Suu Kyi , and many of those serving long terms, were not part of the release.
Description: "UPDATED on January 4, 2024 at 4:08 p.m. ET Myanmar’s junta granted amnesty to 9,652 prisoners on Thursday, according to a statement released by the junta’s State Administration Council said. The prisoner release took place on the 76th anniversary of the country’s independence from the United Kingdom. The amnesty was conditioned on the agreement that, should they reoffend, they would be required to serve both the remaining sentence and any new punishment. About 114 foreign prisoners were included in the amnesty, according to a separate statement from the junta. It said they were released to maintain friendly relations with other countries. Among those released is Kaung Set Lin, a photojournalist from the Myanmar Press Photo Agency in Yangon, who had been sentenced to three years on charges of damaging public interest. Kaung Set Lin was arrested while injured when police and soldiers, using a vehicle, charged into an anti-coup protest he was covering on Pan Pin Gyi Street in Yangon's Kyimyindaing township. “Yes, he is freed. My son is among the released. Now we are about to go home. Needless to say, I am so happy. I wanted to see my son’s face before I died. Now my wish has come true,” Myo Myint, the father of the journalist, told RFA Burmese. Kaung Set Lin's mother died while he was incarcerated. “My mother died of cancer. I didn’t get a chance to see her at the last moment. But as a son, I was dutiful," he told RFA Burmese. "Until now, I never made my mother feel she had a low prestige. I want all my remaining [political prisoner] brothers to be released as well.” 'Nothing but pray' Another six of Kaung Set Lin's co-accused were released today. However, Hmu Yadana Khet Moh Moh Tun, a reporter from the Myanmar Press Photo Agency, who was arrested the same day remains imprisoned. Her mother Myint Myint Maw said that she wanted her daughter to be released, though she could do nothing but pray. “Anyway, I'm expecting her release. But since she has been sentenced for two more charges, I don’t expect much," she said. "When the others were released, I just sent prayers and love for her. "[The authorities] have to release her, so I can do nothing but pray. She will be free only when they release her, so I feel bad.” However, another journalist, Hmu Yadanar Khat Moh Moh Tun from the Myanmar Press Photo Agency, who was arrested alongside him, has not been released. Actress Thin Zar Wint Kyaw and model Nan Mwe San, who faced criticism from the junta and were sentenced to several years in prison on charges of undermining Myanmar culture and sexual orientation, were also released, according to media reports. But RFA has not been able to independently verify this information. More than 1,000 prisoners were released from Mandalay’s Obo Prison on Thursday, and among them were Dr. Ye Lwin, former Mandalay mayor, and Kyaw Zeya, a member of the Mandalay City Development Committee, both served under the National League for Democracy-led government, lawyers said. While a few political prisoners were released today, detained former political leader Aung San Suu Kyi and former President Win Myint, who have received lengthy prison sentences under various charges, along with members of the NLD government, lawmakers, university students and democracy activists remain incarcerated. 'No hope' for those given long terms A family member of Tun Tun Hein, NLD-led government’s deputy speaker, said he has not heard any news about his release yet. Tun Tun Hein, the 72-year-old deputy speaker who also served as the chairman of the country’s lower house in the parliament, had been sentenced to more than 30 years. “I wished he would be released because he is old. I hope he comes out with amnesty and I am praying for it. I haven't heard any news yet,” said the family member. A lawyer, who is handling the cases of political prisoners and requested anonymity for security reasons, informed RFA Burmese that none of the political prisoners serving long-term sentences were among those released on Thursday. Only those who had been sentenced to terms between two and three years and were close to their scheduled release dates were freed, the lawyer added. A family member of a political prisoner who was sentenced to a long jail term in Thayet Prison in Magway region said that there was no hope for those who have been given long prison terms. “There is no expectation for their release. They [the authorities] released the inmates who have just two, three or four, five more months to serve. They don’t release people who have to serve for four, five or six more years," he said. Based on the junta statements, there have been 14 amnesties granted since the coup, including the one on Thursday. In total, more than 92,000 prisoners have been released during these amnesties, but only a small number of them were political prisoners. According to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, or AAPP, in 2023 alone, the junta released more than 20,000 prisoners, but only 2,400 political prisoners were among them..."
Source/publisher: "Radio Free Asia" (USA)
2024-01-04
Date of entry/update: 2024-01-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar junta’s Supreme Court says it has rejected appeals by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s lawyers to overturn six corruption convictions. Four related to the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation, a charity named after the 78-year-old state counselor’s mother, and two cases involved the accusation of receiving US$550,000 from crony Maung Weik. On August 29, the Supreme Court declined to hear five special appeals for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Her team has been asking unsuccessfully since January for a meeting to discuss an appeal for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint. They have been in detention since the February 2021 coup. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi faced 19 convictions and 33 years in jail but junta chief Min Aung Hlaing pardoned her of five convictions in a national amnesty on August 1. She faces 27 years in jail and denies all the charges. The Nobel laureate has been unwell and in September suffered from a serious dental problem, was unable to eat without vomiting and suffered from dizziness. The prison authorities denied her request to see an outside dentist. She is being held in solitary confinement in a Naypyitaw prison and has been denied prison visits and access to her legal team since late last year..."
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Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2023-10-07
Date of entry/update: 2023-10-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: They were accused of having links to pro-democracy forces.
Description: "Junta troops have arrested 11 people in a raid on Myitkyina township in Myanmar’s Kachin state, locals told RFA Thursday. They said that six men and five women were detained three days ago after around 30 soldiers went to a house and accused the residents of having ties to the local People’s Defense Force, part of the pro-democracy forces created in 2021. As of Thursday, the detainees were still being questioned at the Northern Command base in Myitkyina, according to township residents. One local, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons, told RFA none of the arrested have links to anti-junta militias and had just gathered for a celebration. “I heard people chanting ‘Happy Birthday’ at around 8:00 p.m. I think it was a birthday party, with people gathered for food and drinks,” the local said. “Some employees of phone shops were among those detained. I have no idea who informed the junta soldiers about them.” The local added that the arrests may have been prompted by an attack on the Northern Command in which five bombs exploded close to the base. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack and the junta has not released any statement about it. Win Ye Tun, the junta’s spokesperson for Kachin state, declined to provide comments. According to figures exclusively compiled by RFA, the junta arrested at least 700 people between June 2023 and August 2023, and among them, only 500 were released. More than 24,000 people, including pro-democracy activists, have been arrested since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup, according to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma)..."
Source/publisher: "Radio Free Asia" (USA)
2023-08-31
Date of entry/update: 2023-08-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "In her dreams at least, Phyu Nyo hoped to see all the colors of the outside world and experience freedom, even though she was in prison. But it never happened. “I thought I could exist only in my dreams,” she said over the phone, recalling her 19 months locked up in two notorious junta prisons. “But I never escaped from the prisons, even in my dreams. [The dreams] were all about prison, about running away and being recaptured. It was like my mind was also jailed,” the now 30-year-old said in a low voice. The number of female political prisoners in Myanmar is at a record high under the military junta led by coup leader Min Aung Hlaing. According to rights group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), at least 4,883 women were arrested for anti-regime activities between Feb. 1, 2021 and Aug. 23 this year. Another 602 were killed, including 114 girls. Of those arrested, more than 3,770 are still in custody, 15 of whom face the death penalty. The women arrested include political leaders, elected lawmakers, activists, striking civil servants, medics, resistance fighters, students, journalists, businesswomen and those from all walks of life. Before the military staged a coup and overthrew Myanmar’s elected civilian government in February 2021, Phyu Nyo was a fashion designer and trainer from Yangon, living a decent life with her husband, who had a livestock farm and agribusiness. But the pair were forced to become fugitives after participating in anti-coup protests and supporting striking civil servants who took part in the civil disobedience movement (CDM). The two left their house in Yangon and fled to Mandalay to evade arrest, but were detained after being discovered in their hideout in the city in October 2021. The junta also sealed off Phyu Nyo’s fashion shop in Yangon and seized everything inside including clothes, bags and shoes. She and her husband were sent to the junta’s notorious Mandalay Palace interrogation center, where Phyu Nyo was threatened with rape. “They [the junta forces] yelled at me and said ‘We could rape and kill you!’” Phyu Nyo recalled. Since the coup, women in Myanmar have been tortured, sexually harassed and threatened with rape in custody. The National Unity Government’s Ministry of Women, Youth and Children’s Affairs said in March that junta troops have sexually assaulted at least 122 women since the beginning of the coup. Another form of sexual harassment that female political prisoners increasingly face is humiliating mass strip searches by prison staff. Phyu Nyo said she had heard in June from female political inmates still held in Yangon’s Insein Prison that such searches had become worse this year. Female inmates in Insein Prison are being forced to submit to thorough checks of their intimate body parts after court appearances. Told that it is necessary to ensure that the detainees don’t smuggle papers, female political prisoners are required to lift their breasts and expose their vulva. And prison staff wearing gloves touch and rub all of the inmates’ private parts and even use their hand to forcefully penetrate into the vagina during the searches. In addition to the usual strip search humiliations, women who are menstruating are ordered to remove their sanitary pads in order to be strip-searched. Supposedly done in order to search for smuggled “papers”, all such activities are violations not only of the detainees’ human rights but also their dignity, Phyu Nyo said. Phyu Nyo was held in Mandalay’s Obo Prison and Myingyan Prison. During her imprisonment, she didn’t experience the most invasive searches into the vagina but did endure occasional body searches. “Human rights abuses were common and the prison staff would swear at all of us, including women old enough to be their mothers and grandmothers, every day,” Phyu Nyo said, sobbing as she described the encounters. “In prison you can’t do anything the way you wish, from speaking to taking a bath,” she said. For bathing, prisoners are limited to 15 regular cups or 30 small cups of water a day. Phyu Nyo said that while she would prefer not to think about those days in the military interrogation center and the prisons, as the memories are suffocating and painful, she felt a responsibility to speak up for her sisters who continue to languish in jails across the country, and to let others know their stories and what is happening behind bars. “Sometimes, I have even thought of suicide. But the mindset that I will not give up on these guys, and that we will be free if we win, keeps me alive.” Alinn, another former political prisoner who was also jailed in Obo Prison and Myingyan Prison for two years, similarly recalled that the prison authorities, especially in Obo Prison, treated political prisoners with hostility, adding that non-political inmates were encouraged to take part in abuses against political prisoners, and to monitor their activities. A first year student at a nursing training school at the time of the coup, Alinn took part in peaceful protest rallies in Mandalay to demand the return of democracy in the country. During a dawn protest on May 12, 2021 in Mandalay’s Pyigyidagon Township, she was violently arrested together with 30 other protesters. She was beaten on the head, back and arm, and collapsed during the arrest. Almost all of the detained protesters were later sentenced to two years’ imprisonment on incitement charges. Alinn said many political prisoners suffer from health problems inside due to the lack of proper healthcare provisions. “In prison, whatever your illness, they just give you para [paracetamol],” Alinn said. According to accounts from media and rights groups, some political prisoners have died because of inadequate medical treatment and health care, including denial of emergency care at public hospitals. The lack of adequate health care and medical treatment is only compounded by the growing number of female political prisoners that continue to be crammed into Myanmar’s overcrowded prisons across the country. Khin Waddy, a 27-year-old former female political prisoner and student activist from Monywa, Sagaing Region, said she was forced to share a space, including while sleeping, with 100 to 150 inmates in one single dormitory in Monywa Prison. Around 60 percent of the inmates there were political prisoners, she said. Being locked up with more than 100 people makes it difficult for prisoners to even change position from one side to another or turn around while sleeping, and inmates were forced to sleep face to face due to the lack of space. Hygiene is another problem; those positioned near the septic tank were directly exposed to the smell, with liquid leaking from the tank passing near their heads. To avoid being positioned near the septic tank, prisoners must pay the head of the dormitory for a sleeping space farther away, Khin Waddy said. The former student activist and human rights advocate was arrested in May 2021 for providing support to 1,500 striking civil servants who joined the CDM following the military takeover. Khin Waddy recalled that while she was being interrogated in the military interrogation center in Monywa, she was forced to kneel down while holding her hands up for 24 hours, and was beaten if she lowered her hands. She was also denied food and water. After two-and-a-half days of interrogation, she began experiencing stomach pains and vomiting and had to be sent to a military hospital. While there she met Daw Khin Mawe Lwin, National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker for Sagaing Region’s Mingin Township, who was also hospitalized while undergoing military interrogation. The 56-year-old was twice elected a lawmaker for her constituency, in both the 2015 and 2020 elections. The results of the latter were annulled by the military following the coup. Khin Waddy said Daw Khin Mawe Lwin, despite her frail outer appearance, stood firm and served as a mother figure for all of the female detainees in the prison. Later, Khin Waddy and Daw Khin Mawe Lwin were both transferred to Myingyan Prison. In prison, the two engaged in activities together including political talks and discussions during which prisoners could exchange political views, and organizing strikes mirroring those taking place outside, such as silent strikes, Thanakha (traditional cosmetic paste) strikes and flower strikes, and strikes to mark occasions such as Martyrs’ Day, the anniversary of the 1988 uprising, and detained leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s birthday. In prison, staging such activities can have repercussions ranging from the imposition of stricter rules or a reduction in the water allotted for showering, to a beating. There have been many reports of female political prisoners being brutally beaten and seriously injured, or being transferred to a remote prison, simply for asking that their rights be observed. Khin Waddy was released in November last year. But instead of releasing Daw Khin Mawe Lwin, the junta hit the NLD lawmaker with another charge and transferred her to Kalay Prison. Daw Khin Mawe Lwin suffered facial paralysis due to a stroke while in Monywa Prison. Denied timely medical care, she did not fully recover and later suffered another stroke in Kalay Prison, Khin Waddy said. “If people like Amay [mother] Mawe were outside, they could do much more than us,” Khin Waddy said, adding that her wish is for Amay Mawe [Daw Khin Mawe Lwin] and all political prisoners to be released soon. Despite the horrific, traumatizing experiences they have endured, female former political prisoners like Khin Waddy, Alinn and Phyu Nyo are not disheartened, and refuse to abandon their activism. Instead, they have joined other women who are at the forefront of the revolution. Women from all walks of life have bravely participated in Myanmar’s democracy struggle under successive military regimes, including the current junta, to restore democracy in the country. Similarly, women civil servants in the education, health and other sectors have joined the CDM, refusing to work under military rule—to date, their strike continues. This is to say nothing of the many women resistance fighters who are fighting alongside their male comrades in the armed struggle against the junta. Phyu Nyo, who was released together with her husband in May this year, said she has continued to dream of her days of imprisonment over the past three months. “In my dreams, we are both still on the run and being caught, again and again,” she said with frustration. “Only when I wake up without seeing any [prison] bars, and recognize that I am now outside, do I feel relief,” she said. However, Phyu Nyo hasn’t let her traumatizing experiences stop her from resuming her contributions to the political movement. She has joined the Political Prisoners Network-Myanmar, which was founded by her husband and other former detainees to help political prisoners still being detained by the junta. Alinn, the former political prisoner from Mandalay, also joined the network with the same aim as Phyu Nyo. “I couldn’t feel happy on the day of my release. Though I was free, people who had become like family members to me remained behind,” Alinn said. Through the network, both Phyu Nyo and Alinn now help to send parcels containing medicines and cash to female political prisoners. Khin Waddy is also working on raising funds for displaced people in Sagaing Region who were forced to flee their homes amid the junta’s raids and arson attacks. “We want this revolution to end quickly. Only if we win will all the political prisoners be released, and thus we are determined to contribute in all ways we can. The same mindset we had while inside [prison], we now have on the outside,” Khin Waddy said. Phyu Nyo said that some of the female political prisoners still locked up are serving terms as long as 30 to 40 years. “I want all of them to escape quickly and return home. That can only happen if the revolution succeeds at the earliest possible time. And thus I will devote myself to the revolution,” she said. With the exception of Daw Khin Mawe Lwin, the names of the women mentioned in this story were changed to protect their safety..."
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Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2023-08-30
Date of entry/update: 2023-08-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Byu Har, the son of a prominent musician, also called the junta’s leader an ‘incompetent fool’ in a Facebook video.
Description: "Myanmar’s junta has sentenced a hip-hop singer to 20 years in prison for a video published on social media in which he complained about electricity shortages and criticized the junta’s leadership. Prison authorities informed the family of Byu Har that the Insein Prison Court on Wednesday sentenced him to 20 years in prison under section 124 of the Penal Code for incitement to destroy the state, his wife told Radio Free Asia. Byu Har, the son of prominent musician Naing Myanmar, posted a video on Facebook earlier this year where he called out the “minister of electricity” and called the holder of the office “a fool.” He was arrested on May 23. The ministry’s proper name is the Ministry of Electric Power and the minister of electric power is Thaung Han. The country has experienced power shortages, and residents told RFA’s Burmese Service earlier this year that many areas of Yangon – including where Byu Har lived – received power for only five hours in the morning and another five hours in the afternoon and evening. Some areas of the city, such as the area where retired military officers live, were supplied with full power, though. “You can’t supply enough electricity to us,” Byu Har said in the video. “You can barely supply us every five hours. Even that is not certain.” He also criticized the junta’s leader, Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, calling him “a stupid incompetent fool.” “I am cursing at you because I don’t have the electricity,” he said in the video. “Got it? If you want to arrest me, just come.” Before he was arrested, Byu Har lived with his 31-year-old wife, 10-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son in North Dagon township in eastern Yangon..."
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Source/publisher: "Radio Free Asia" (USA)
2023-08-23
Date of entry/update: 2023-08-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Junta soldiers stole food and set fire to houses.
Description: "Junta troops arrested around 100 villagers in Myanmar’s Magway region, killing one man, locals told RFA Tuesday. Around 100 soldiers raided Shwe Lin Swea in Myaing township on Sunday after bombarding the village with heavy artillery. They arrested 40 men and around 60 women, setting most free the following day. Locals said they held onto four men and tortured them, killing one 50-year-old man. “There were four arrested including Htay Win but he was killed,” said a local who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “One man escaped … When he was asked to drive a bullock cart by the soldiers he released the bullocks, pretended to chase them and ran away.” The local said two men were still being held by the troops but he didn’t know their names. The troops took rice, oil, beans and cooking utensils from the villagers before heading to another village, according to another local who also requested anonymity for safety reasons. “The troops moved on to Let Htoke Taw village in the afternoon and grabbed things from the village and even from the monastery [and put them in] three trucks,” the local said. “There is no one left in the village. The village was set on fire without anyone to defend [the houses].” Another local said troops burned around 40 houses in Myaing township. He said nearly 1,700 residents of Shwe Lin Swea and Let Htoke villages fled ahead of the junta raids. Aung Zeya, leader of the Myaing Villages Revolutionary Front, told RFA local defense forces clashed with the troops on Sunday as they moved the stolen food to another village in the township but he didn’t say how many casualties there were on either side. The junta spokesperson for Magway region, Than Swe Win, said that he was not aware of the incident because he was on medical leave. More than 10,000 homes in Magway region have been burned down by the junta and affiliated militias since the Feb. 2021 coup, according to the independent research group Data for Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: "Radio Free Asia" (USA)
2023-08-23
Date of entry/update: 2023-08-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: One film, posted on YouTube last month, emphasized the importance of Buddha’s teachings over images and pagodas.
Description: "Myanmar junta officials arrested a Swiss filmmaker and 13 cast members, accusing them of defaming Buddhism in informational videos posted on YouTube, according to a statement published by junta-controlled state media. The Swiss Embassy in Yangon told Radio Free Asia on Monday that it has asked Myanmar authorities to clarify the current status of filmmaker Didier Nusbaumer. Junta Capt. Than Naing Kyaw and other military security members arrested Nusbaumer and 13 others – including a 12-year-old girl – on Aug. 7, two weeks after a video they produced appeared on YouTube. It was first reported in state media last week. Nusbaumer, 52, is associated with the Phaung Daw Oo Integrated Monastic Education School in Mandalay, authorities said. He wrote the screenplay while the 12-year-old girl played the main character in the story. The other cast members also came from the school. They are accused of insulting Buddhist cultural traditions and the morals of Buddhist monks, according to state media. Authorities haven’t specified under which law they would be prosecuted. Sensitive subject The film, titled “Don’t Expect Anything,” portrays the message that it is meaningless to worship Buddha images or pagodas, and instead it’s important to follow Buddha’s teachings. The 12-year-old main character uses harsh words in the film to describe how the monks enjoy the food donated by lay people every day. The film portrays her as a reincarnation of a hermit who practiced Buddhist teaching in a previous life. The film was posted on YouTube and other social media on July 24. On Aug. 15, after the 14 people were arrested, the school and charity group wrote to junta officials and the Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee – established by the government in 1980 to oversee the Buddhist clergy – asking for their release. The school wrote that Nusbaumer is a former Buddhist monk at the Phaung Daw Oo monastery, a true believer in Buddhism and did not intend to offend the religion. About 90 percent of people in Myanmar follow Buddhism. Junta-controlled newspapers first reported the arrests on Aug. 18. When contacted by telephone by RFA, a monk at the monastery answered that all the monks have been saddened by the arrests and cannot respond at the moment. Because of how sensitive religion can be, it’s best to avoid any kind of filming that might mislead people, said Ashin Thabarwa Nadi, the secretary of the Arakan Monks' Association. “In this country, such a thing could easily cause religious or ethnic riots as a political trick,” he said. The junta as Buddhism protector A Mandalay resident who has watched the film said on the condition of anonymity that arresting multiple people for criticizing Buddhism should not happen. “In the film, he gave the message that we should live according to the teachings of Buddha,” the resident said. “The little girl sending alms to the monastery in the film said some words to the monks, but that is nothing more than just a scene in the movie. “But the authorities just pinpointed that scene and arrested and detained all of them under the pretext that they have defamed Buddhism,” the resident said. “I think that should not have happened.” When RFA contacted Aung San Win, director of the junta’s Ministry of Religion and Culture, he said he was unaware of the case. RFA attempted to contact the junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun and the junta’s spokesman for the Mandalay region, Thein Htay, but they could not be reached. It’s possible that the junta made the arrests to make itself appear to be the protector of the people and religion, said Min Thae, a political author. “The military leaders have always tried to appear to be protecting Buddhism, trying to imply that it should be in the political arena in Myanmar,” he said. “The junta wants to create a public opinion that it is protecting the national religion, especially among its pro-military people."..."
Source/publisher: "Radio Free Asia" (USA)
2023-08-21
Date of entry/update: 2023-08-21
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Sub-title: Dr Yanghee Lee, the former United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, told CNA’s Asia Tonight on Tuesday (Aug 1) the move signals that the military-controlled government, led by junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, is “really out of ideas and really at the end of the rope” in managing the country.
Description: "Reducing the jail term of Myanmar's former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is part of the military junta’s attempt to seek international recognition as the country's legitimate government, said Dr Yanghee Lee, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar. The move signals that the military-controlled government led by junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is “really out of ideas and really at the end of the rope”, she told CNA’s Asia Tonight on Tuesday (Aug 1). Reducing the jail term of Myanmar's former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is part of the military junta’s attempt to seek international recognition as the country's legitimate government, said Dr Yanghee Lee, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Myanmar. The move signals that the military-controlled government led by junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is “really out of ideas and really at the end of the rope”, she told CNA’s Asia Tonight on Tuesday (Aug 1). “Reducing the sentence of a 78-year-old lady who had been locked up on bogus charges should not be seen as an act of contrition or a conciliatory gesture by the brutal generals,” said Dr Lee, who took on the UN role from 2014 to 2020. Her comments came hours after Ms Aung San Suu Kyi was pardoned on five of the 19 offences for which she was convicted and jailed a total of 33 years, reducing her jail term by six years. Former president Win Myint, who was also arrested at the same time as Ms Aung San Suu Kyi after the 2021 coup, was also pardoned on some of the charges for which he was convicted. The military junta has struggled for control in Myanmar, as conflict continues to break out across the country and its economy grapples with rising inflation. On Monday, the military-controlled government had extended the country’s state of emergency by another six months, delaying elections that were promised. SEEKING INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION Dr Lee said the pardon was “just another one of the schizophrenic behaviours of Min Aung Hlaing”, as the military resorted to its decades-old playbook. “They think that reducing sentences for Aung San Suu Kyi and the president U Win Myint will first of all get some of the support of the people, and more importantly, get them international recognition,” she said. “It’s like a coating, a veneer, so that the international community can recognise them as a legitimate government of Myanmar.” She noted that the military junta does not have control over the country, with over 50 per cent of the country under the control of the local ethnic groups. Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing had acknowledged that much of the nation is not under full military control, with fighting continuing in Sagaing, Magway, Bago and Tanintharyi regions, as well as Karen, Kayah and Chin states. The military junta will be aiming to be recognised as the country’s legitimate government, especially with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit and the UN General Assembly session coming up later this year. INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY RESPONSE “I think it's time that the international community really wakes up and sees that what he (Min Aung Hlaing) is doing has been a decades-old trick, and will not get him far enough because he will never have the support of the people,” said Dr Lee. Dr Lee added that she has been surprised by the international community’s response to the Myanmar crisis as compared to the war in Ukraine. She said the international community has been generous with aid for Ukraine, as it is seen as a “country-to-country invasion … and it's in the backyard of the European continent”. “But when it comes to Myanmar, it's the same thing. Min Aung Hlaing and the military have invaded its own people. It's not just a coup,” said Dr Lee. “There has been an average of 30 airstrikes per month recently. 85 per cent of the casualties are civilian, and millions of people have been displaced.” She noted that the junta is employing the same tactics it had used against the Rohingya in 2016 and 2017 when driving them away, which is to burn their villages, schools and places of worship. DOES IT MATTER TO THE MYANMAR PEOPLE? Dr Lee said that Ms Aung San Suu Kyi’s pardon will not affect the Myanmar people’s fight against the junta. “I think the people of Myanmar have moved on. Aung San Suu Kyi is still very much respected. However, the fight now is the people's fight (and) the young generation’s,” she said. “The people have now been united. They are built on solid consolidation and solidarity across ethnic lines and across generation lines. The Bamar people cannot fight this war by themselves without the ethnic communities, and the ethnic communities are now joining hands with the Bamar and the young generation.” The Bamar is Myanmar's largest ethnic group, accounting for 68 per cent of the country's population. Dr Lee said that the young generation are fighting for a dream that has existed since their parents’ time, which is for a “free democratic federal Myanmar”. “Aung San Suu Kyi’s pardon may not and definitely will not affect the young people's minds, because they are fighting for their lives, to defend their family and their country and their hope and their aspirations,” she said..."
Source/publisher: "Channel NewsAsia" (Singapore)
2023-08-02
Date of entry/update: 2023-08-02
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Sub-title: Locals say the group has been held for 5 days.
Description: "Junta troops have detained 17 civilians from a village in Myanmar’s southernmost Tanintharyi region, locals told RFA Wednesday. They said the 12 women, two men and three children were arrested five days ago as they returned to the village in Kyunsu township and accused of supporting a local People’s Defense Force (PDF). RFA has been unable to confirm the names and ages of those detained because phone and internet links are unreliable in the region. The villagers were in a motor boat, returning from market, when they were stopped by junta troops, locals told RFA on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. A Kyunsu resident said the 17 are being held in the township’s police station and denied access to their families. “They were arrested on the way home after buying rice, cooking oil and salt from Bait [Myeik city], and were accused of supporting PDFs near Tha Zin village by the police,” the local said. “It is said they were arrested because they allegedly bought the rice and cooking oil to support the PDFs.” Another local resident told RFA that troops and police have been patrolling in speedboats near the coastal city of Myeik to check passengers in other vessels. “They are collecting information like names, registration numbers and where people are heading from the jetty,” he said. “Every single boat from Myeik and Kyunsu heading to villages has to report to the junta security forces.” On July 25, a local People’s Defense Force attacked a police station in Kyunsu township and exchanged fire with the police, according to a Kyunsu township PDF statement. The military junta has not released any statement about the situation. RFA called the junta spokesperson for Tanintharyi region, Yin Htwe, but he said he was in a meeting and turned off the phone..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
2023-08-02
Date of entry/update: 2023-08-02
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Description: " August 2, 2023 On the Full Moon of Waso, the junta made 7 announcements in regards to the release of sentenced prisoners and prisoners facing trial. The announcements in question covered: (1) President U Win Myint (2) State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (3) 22 political prisoners from Ethnic Resistance Organizations (4) 72 members of Ethnic Resistance Organizations who were facing trials had their cases dismissed (5) 7,749 prisoners (6) 125 foreign prisoners were released (7) Several prisoners on death row had sentences commuted to life imprisonment Two of the five charges against President U Win Myint, and five of the 19 charges against Daw Aung San Suu Kyi were removed. U Win Myint’s prison sentence was commuted by 2 years for the two removed charges, he still has to serve 10 years in prison. In a similar vein, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s prison sentence was only commuted by 6 years for the five removed charges, she still has to serve 27 years in prison. 22 people who were imprisoned for their relations with 4 Ethnic Resistance Organizations (EROs), MNDAA, TNLA, SSPP/SSA, and AA, were released. Only a handful of political prisoners were released out of 7,749 prisoners across the country. As of 10 a.m. at the time of writing this report, AAPP has confirmed over (120) prisoners but further verification of prisoners is ongoing. The junta continues to deny its criminal detention of (24,130) innocent civilians since the coup. The political prisoners released were unjustly arrested and should never have been detained in the first place. The military refuses to be transparent about the identities of the political prisoners to impede independent verification of accurate numbers released, and whether political prisoners are included among them. Political prisoners released will have had less than 6-months of their sentences remaining. AAPP Secretary U Tate Naing, said Releasing people after forcibly arresting them arbitrarily in the first place does not signal a relaxation in repression. The military uses these announcements to deceive international opinion on a regular basis. The military wants the outside world to think they are compromising. But the Burma military is not interested in dialogue, that much is clear from its 2021 coup and its decades of atrocities against ethnic people seeking autonomy. AAPP Joint-Secretary U Bo Kyi said that The junta is using political prisoners for its hostage diplomacy, these releases are not acts of good will. On the same day of this so-called amnesty, the military junta continued its violent oppression of an entire country. In this past month, junta soldiers and supporters continued to terrorize the population, as evident in their detainment and killing of (144) and (101) people respectively. [AAPP data July 1, 2023 – July 31, 2023]..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2023-08-02
Date of entry/update: 2023-08-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Sky News understands the clemency will not fully pardon ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi - and that five charges against her have been dropped, while 14 remain.
Description: "Myanmar's junta says it has pardoned ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi for some of the offences she denies - more than two years after she was detained as part of a military coup. Sky News understands the clemency will not fully pardon her and that five charges have been dropped, while 14 remain. The Nobel laureate, who last week moved from prison to house arrest in the capital, Naypyitaw, has been in detention since the military seized power in a coup in early 2021. According to local media, Ms Suu Kyi was taken to a government building last Monday. She had spent a year in solitary confinement. However, speaking on Tuesday morning, her youngest son Kim Aris told Sky News: "It's important to take any news with a healthy level of scepticism. "Few days ago it was rumoured she was moved to home arrest. Sources suggest to me that she's still in prison." He added: "Also, given that all the charges against my mother are without any substance, any reduction in her sentence is completely meaningless. Ms Suu Kyi is appealing against the convictions for various offences ranging from incitement and election fraud to corruption. The 78-year-old denies all of the charges. Myanmar Radio and Television reported the pardons on Tuesday but an informed source said she would remain in detention. "She won't be free from house arrest," said the source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue, according to Reuters news agency. Read more from Stuart Ramsay for Sky News: Getting inside Myanmar was a risk worth taking Former President Win Myint also had his sentence reduced as part of the clemency granted to more than 7,000 prisoners, which reportedly saw prison terms reduced in a religious ceremony. The head of Myanmar's military council, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, granted the clemency order to reduce the sentences in five cases against Ms Suu Kyi in which she was convicted for violating coronavirus restrictions, illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies and sedition, according to a report on state MRTV. The clemency was announced a day after Myanmar's military extended the state of emergency it imposed when it seized power from Ms Suu Kyi's elected government, forcing a further delay in elections it promised when it took over. Ms Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero, was first put under house arrest in 1989 after huge protests against decades of military rule. In 1991, she won the Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning for democracy but was only fully released from house arrest in 2010. She won the 2015 election, held as part of tentative military reforms that were brought to a halt by the 2021 coup..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Sky News" (London)
2023-08-01
Date of entry/update: 2023-08-01
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Sub-title: The leaders of the deposed democratic government shouldn’t be in jail at all.
Description: "Myanmar’s generals have long demonstrated an extraordinary capacity to remember everything, and to learn nothing. Sometimes this serves them well. Much of the world, when it thinks of Myanmar at all, neither remembers nor learns. So on Tuesday we see an announcement by Myanmar’s ruling junta that it is to reduce the prison sentences of some key officials of the democratic government it overthrew in February 2021. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, State Counsellor of the government elected in a landslide in November 2020, had six years shaved off her 33-year sentence. Myanmar’s deposed President, U Win Myint, saw his sentence reduced by four years. Reductions in the sentences of other political prisoners are also likely in the offing. The sentence reductions come one day after the military junta extended the state of emergency under which it claims to rule, by a further six months. This was the fourth such extension, and in breach of its own constitution that limits such extensions to two. The junta is weakened by its inability to surmount the opposition to its rule, and even the extreme brutality it has resorted to has done little to consolidate control. Cynics, the ignorant, the gullible, and various vested interests in military rule in Myanmar will loudly exclaim this news as a positive development signifying real change. It is not. Neither Daw Suu, President Win Myint, nor any of the other political prisoners being ill-treated in Myanmar’s awful jails should be there at all. The charges they were convicted on are absurd, the judicial processes under which they were reached a travesty. This is all out of an old playbook in Myanmar. The junta is weakened by its inability to surmount the opposition to its rule, and even the extreme brutality it has resorted to has done little to consolidate control. Beyond Russia and (sometimes) China, the junta is without friends. Running out of foreign exchange, of troops to sacrifice, and of ideas beyond base instincts, the junta is attempting an old public relations game and hoping an exhausted and distracted world might fall for it. The past two-and-a-half-years of military rule in Myanmar has brought about unprecedented destruction, the death of thousands and the displacement of three million. Neighbouring countries once more host desperate refugees from Myanmar. Myanmar’s economy is in a state of collapse, with most people (in rural areas especially) reduced to little more than subsistence. The country has become a base for criminality – partly via the dramatic reinvigoration of the country as a producer of narcotics, partly via new cyber-crime hubs that constitute surely the one and only area of innovation in the country. Myanmar’s problems will not be solved by reducing the prison sentences on people who should never have been sentenced in the first place. Real change is possible in Myanmar, but it will not come from applauding meaningless gestures, as attractive as they might be as “click-bait”. As with such online temptations broadly, best not to hit the like button until there is truly something to be happy about..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Interpreter"
2023-08-01
Date of entry/update: 2023-08-01
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Description: "(CNN )— Myanmar’s ruling military junta has pardoned Aung San Suu Kyi on five charges for which she was previously convicted, reducing the lengthy sentences handed down to the deposed, democratically elected leader after generals seized control of the Southeast Asian nation. The pardon was announced by Aung Lin Dwe, the secretary of the regime’s governing body, and further details were confirmed by a source with direct knowledge of the case. The five charges pardoned include offenses against defamation, natural disaster laws, export and import laws and the country’s telecommunication law, the source told CNN. Myanmar’s military spokesperson Zaw Min Tun said Suu Kyi’s jail sentence would be reduced by six years, he said speaking to the media on camera on Tuesday. It’s unclear how many years Suu Kyi now faces in prison. The source CNN earlier spoke to with direct knowledge of the case said her sentence had been reduced by 9 years on Tuesday, and that there were prior reductions already made to the amount of time she would have to serve. Nonetheless Suu Kyi still faces the prospect of decades without liberty, an outcome that has permeated her long political career trying to bring democracy to Myanmar. As of the end of 2022, the 78-year-old faced a total of 33 years in jail, including three years of hard labor, for multiple convictions including electoral fraud and receiving bribes. Suu Kyi led Myanmar for five years before being forced from power and detained after her party was re-elected in a landslide election against military-backed opposition. Army general Min Aung Hlaing seized power at that time in February 2021, ending Myanmar’s brief experiment with democracy, imprisoning multiple opposition figures and plunging the impoverished Southeast Asian nation into a raging civil conflict that continues to this day. Battles between the military and resistance groups unfold daily across the country. Airstrikes and ground attacks on what the military calls “terrorist” targets occur regularly and have killed thousands of civilians, often including children, according to monitoring groups. Whole villages have been burned down by junta soldiers and schools, clinics and hospitals destroyed as a result of the attacks, according to local monitoring groups. Suu Kyi, who spent decades under house arrest during a previous military junta and has been a symbol of opposition to decades of military rule, has denied all of the charges levied against her – and rights groups and international observers say her convictions are politically motivated. As of Tuesday, Suu Kyi still faces sentences for 14 other offenses of which she was convicted, the source said. The announcement comes as Myanmar’s Supreme Court is set to hear appeals by Suu Kyi against multiple convictions over the next two weeks. The source told CNN those appeals will still go ahead. The United Nations Security Council last year called on the junta to release all political prisoners, including Suu Kyi and former President Win Myint..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "CNN" (USA)
2023-08-01
Date of entry/update: 2023-08-01
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Description: "France takes note of the announcement regarding the partial pardon granted to State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint. France renews its call for the release of all of the individuals being arbitrarily detained, in keeping with UN Security Council Resolution 2669. The ongoing detention of nearly 20,000 political prisoners does not allow the will of the Myanmar people to be sincerely, freely expressed, nor does it allow for a good-faith political process that includes all of the stakeholders, in line with ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus, for which France once again offers its support. This process must include the National Unity Government; the historic leaders of the National League for Democracy, including State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi; and the ethnic organizations..."
Source/publisher: French Ministry of Foreign Affairs
2023-08-01
Date of entry/update: 2023-08-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Family members believe that transfers are an excuse to execute the prisoners without accountability.
Description: "At least 13 political prisoners in Myanmar have been killed by the junta while transferring from one detention facility to another, family members and rights organizations told Radio Free Asia. During the month of June alone, 37 political prisoners transferred from Daik-U prison, in the Bago region north of Yangon, went missing before reaching their destinations. At least eight of these have been killed, the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, or AAPP, announced on July 19. Several family members have suggested that the junta is transferring the prisoners as a pretext to execute them away from surveillance, and they doubt the official explanations of how the prisoners died. In one such explanation seen by RFA’s Burmese Service, in a letter from prison authorities, a family was informed that the prisoner was shot while trying to escape after the prison transfer vehicle carrying him overturned in a road accident. In another case, prison authorities notified the family of 31-year-old Nay Aye that he had died in a strikingly similar way, one of Nay Aye’s friends told RFA. “The mail arrived after 3 p.m on the 14th. It was the notification letter from the Daik-U prison department signed by Kyaw Zay Ya,” Nay Aye’s friend said. “The letter said that he was shot dead while he and other prisoners were attempting to escape when the prison transfer vehicle transporting them from Daik-U to Tharyarwaddy Prison almost overturned on a road accident.” He said that the report was not believable and that he considered it to be a deliberate and premeditated murder. Nay Aye was arrested in Yangon on Nov. 24, 2021, sentenced to life imprisonment by the secret tribunal in Insein Prison under the Anti-Terrorism Act, and then sent to Daik-U Prison by the junta. While at Daik-U, he was praised by the prisoners for trying to open an in-prison clinic, get access to clean water and secure the right for political prisoners to read. Zin Win Htut, 27, is another prisoner who was killed in a transfer. He had been incarcerated since December 2021 and was serving a 15-year sentence for violating the Anti-Terrorism Act. His family was informed of his death on July 18, sources close to him told RFA. A member of the Myingyan University Student Union which Zin Win Htut once vice-chaired, said he believes it was an intentional murder. Anti-junta activities According to AAPP, the eight prisoners killed on transfers in June are Zin Win Htut alias Ta Yoke Gyi, Nay Aye alias Arkar Htet, Paing Myo, Yar Lay alias Zin Myint Tun, Pyae Phyo Hein alias Ko Pyae, Wai Yan Lwin alias Jar Gyi, Khant Lin Naing alias Ko Khant, Bo Bo Win alias Htan Taw Gyi, and Aung Myo Thu. According to a junta report issued on Dec. 12, 2021, all eight were arrested for their association with the Bago People’s Defense Force, or PDF, one of many grassroots militias formed by citizens after the Feb. 1, 2021 coup. In addition to those eight, Aung Soe Moe alias Mae Lone died in Daik-U Prison on July 16. Maung Dee, a former lawmaker who was ousted during the coup from Waw township in the Bago region, died on July 17 after being transferred to Bago Hospital due to ill health, AAPP reported. Earlier, in May, 19-year-old student activist Thant Zin Win and two other political prisoners whose names cannot be confirmed, were killed when 24 political prisoners from Daik-U Prison were taken out and interrogated again by the junta authorities, according to people close to the prison. These incidents summed up the total deaths of 13 political prisoners in Daik-U Prison alone. No bodies Whenever the families of the dead political prisoners ask to see the body, the prison authorities always refuse, a person close to one of the families told RFA. “They said that he died but we couldn’t see or know anything about the body,” the source said. “They issued notification letters to the families but we don't know what purpose they were issued for. We want to know the truth about what happened.” RFA reached out to Naing Win, the spokesman and the deputy director general of the prison department for comment, but his phone rang unanswered. An AAPP official told RFA that these killings are human rights violations. He said that AAPP urges the international community, including the United Nations, to investigate and take effective action as soon as possible. “It was evident that the junta shot and killed the inmates from Daik-U prison outside,” he said. “ It is a really horrible and brutal violation of human rights.”..."
Source/publisher: "Radio Free Asia" (USA)
2023-07-28
Date of entry/update: 2023-07-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: The 78-year-old leader is now reportedly being detained at a government building in Naypyidaw.
Description: "Myanmar’s military government has transferred deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi from prison to a government building in the capital Naypyidaw, an official from her party has confirmed, three days ahead of the expected extension of the current state of emergency. The AFP news agency cited an anonymous official from Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party that the 78-year-old Nobel laureate was “moved to a high-level venue compound on Monday night.” The NLD official confirmed earlier reports from Burmese-language media that Aung San Suu Kyi, whose government was removed by the military in February 2021, has been transferred to housing used by government officials. Rumors to this effect have swirled since the junta allowed Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai to meet Aung San Suu Kyi on July 9. The party official also confirmed to AFP that Aung San Suu Kyi had met Ti Khun Myat, the former speaker of parliament, and was likely to meet Deng Xijun, China’s special envoy for Asian Affairs, who it reported is visiting the country this week. The transfer comes ahead of the expected extension of the country’s state of emergency on Monday. Initially imposed for a period of one year following the coup, the state of emergency has since been extended twice – Monday’s extension would be the third – a testament to the level of resistance that it has since faced. Aung San Suu Kyi has been under tight control since the morning of the coup, which took place as she and other NLD lawmakers were preparing to be sworn into office at the parliament in Naypyidaw. After initially keeping her under house arrest at her residence in the capital, the junta put the 78-year-old ousted leader in solitary confinement in Naypyidaw Prison in June of last year. During that time, she has been sentenced to 33 years in prison on a number of outlandish criminal charges, including corruption, possession of illegal walkie-talkies, and the violation of COVID-19 restrictions. Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month. What this all means is hard to say. Nikkei Asia reported that there is “speculation the military could make further announcements regarding Suu Kyi next week, coinciding with the consecration of a new marble statue of Buddha in Naypyitaw on Tuesday.” The Buddha in question is the $7.6 million Maravijaya statue, purported to be the tallest marble sitting Buddha in the world, which is due to be inaugurated in the capital on August 2. It is hard to imagine that the transfer of Aung San Suu Kyi into slightly a less austere form of detention marks a sign of the junta’s genuine desire for reconciliation with forces that it has described as “terrorists” and pledged to eliminate by force. Like the military’s account of Aung San Suu Kyi’s meeting with Don Pramudwinai earlier this month, in which it claimed that she disavowed the anti-junta resistance and the National Unity Government (of which she is the titular head), this is probably best seen as an attempt to leverage Aung San Suu Kyi’s potent symbolic status in order to win over public sentiment and to ease mounting international pressure. For years, the military has been well aware of Aung San Suu Kyi’s totemic image at home and abroad, and sought to manipulate it to its own advantage. Indeed, the NLD leader’s willingness to endorse the military-led process of reform in the early 2010s was among the primary factors for Western governments going along and ultimately removing the economic sanctions and investment bans that they had erected since the 1990s. Angshuman Choudhury of India’s Centre for Policy Research today described the move as “literally a leaf out of the junta’s old, deadbeat playbook – designed to placate international audiences, quieten the resistance at home & sow divisions within the revolution.” Whether this gambit will have quite the same effect remains to be seen. In the West, Aung San Suu Kyi’s glow was tarnished considerably by her apparent collusion in the military’s vicious assaults against the Rohingya populations of western Myanmar. At home, too, the resistance to military rule, while still drawing inspiration from Aung San Suu Kyi, is no longer quite so reliant on her person and has in many ways moved above the old paradigm of political resistance with which she is inseparable. All this is to say that the shift of Myanmar’s most prominent political prisoner out of solitary confinement may represent a tactical shift on the part of the country’s military, but not a fundamental shift in its desired end goal..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Diplomat" (Japan)
2023-07-28
Date of entry/update: 2023-07-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Sunday marks the first anniversary of the deaths of veteran 88 Generation pro-democracy activist Ko Jimmy (Kyaw Min Yu) and former National League for Democracy lawmaker and hip-hop star Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, who were hanged by the regime in Yangon’s Insein Prison on this day last year. Two anti-coup protesters, Ko Hla Myo Aung and Ko Aung Thura Zaw, met the same fate. The deaths of the four marked the first executions of political prisoners since 1989 and shocked Myanmar people and the international community; many governments had appealed for their death sentences to be commuted. Ko Jimmy and Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, who were charged under the Counterterrorism Law, were allowed to meet their families on July 22, 2022 for the first time since their arrest. However, the meetings were conducted via Zoom, not in person. Their family members did not know it would be their last meeting with the pro-democracy activists, or that the two would be hanged the next morning. Their families only found out about the deaths on July 25 when the junta announced through its state-run newspapers that the executions had been carried out. Family members rushed to Insein Prison, but were not allowed to see the bodies, nor were they told when their husbands and sons were hanged. On July 27, pro-junta thugs including members of the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party and the ultranationalist Association for Protection of Race and Religion (known by its Burmese acronym Ma Ba Tha) stoned the houses of Ko Jimmy and Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw. Rallies in support of the executions were held in Yangon and Mandalay in the following days, with junta soldiers and police providing security for protesters. Prior to the executions, Captain Ohn Kyaw Myint, who plotted to assassinate the generals of the Myanmar Socialist Programme Party, and ethnic Chin student leader Salai Tin Maung Oo were the best-known cases of political dissidents being hanged in Myanmar. Ko Jimmy was 53 and Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw was 41 when the two made the ultimate sacrifice for the democracy struggle in Myanmar. According to the Assistance Association for Political prisoners, as of June 2023 more than 150 people including politicians, students and women had been sentenced to death since the putsch..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2023-07-23
Date of entry/update: 2023-07-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Hip-hop artist Byuhar, who was arrested last week after criticizing the military regime, was remanded in custody at Yangon’s North Dagon Police Station on Monday, according to a family member. A photograph of Byuhar’s badly beaten face published by pro-junta Telegram channels following his arrest had sparked rumors that he died in interrogation last week. “He has been remanded in custody until June 9 at the police station. This is all we know so far,” the family member told The Irrawaddy. Family members were notified about the remand on Sunday. They were allowed to see Byuhar on Monday and give him clothes. They said the singer was in good health, adding it was still unclear what charge the regime would file against him. According to pro-junta channels, the artist was arrested on orders from Yangon regional command. “He looks good. He told us nothing special. He only told us to take care,” said the family member. In a Facebook Live broadcast on May 23, the hip-hop artist, who is popular among youth in Myanmar, strongly criticized the military regime’s leaders and the junta-appointed Ministry of Electric Power for failing to supply enough electricity. “In the five years under the previous government led by the ‘old lady’ [ousted State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi], we enjoyed discounts on power bills and there were no power blackouts,” Byuhar said. He added that the junta had shown neither goodwill nor kindness to the people of the country. The next day, regime forces raided his apartment in Yangon’s North Dagon Township and took him into custody. Responding to his son’s arrest, Byuhar’s father, composer Naing Myanmar, told The Irrawaddy: “There are many fathers like me in Myanmar. There are also many men like my son. We are living in an age of repression.” Junta troops also raided Naing Myanmar’s house on Saturday. The composer was not at home, but the troops took his wife to the local administration office for questioning before releasing her. Since soon after the 2021 military coup, Myanmar citizens have endured the return of prolonged power outages in the country, even in the commercial capital Yangon and second-largest city, Mandalay. The situation has worsened since last year, with electricity supply reduced to three or four hours per day on a rotating basis, creating added hardship for people’s daily lives and businesses..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2023-05-30
Date of entry/update: 2023-05-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Japan has continued railway improvement projects following the Myanmar military’s illegal coup attempt, a Justice For Myanmar investigation based on public sources and leaked documents has revealed. Japanese multinational corporations have received millions in revenue from Myanma Railways under projects financed by loans from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) that were awarded before the attempted coup. Myanma Railways is a state agency unlawfully controlled by the junta. Following the coup attempt, an estimated 90% of its 30,000 workers courageously joined the Civil Disobedience Movement, refusing to work under the junta and risking their lives and livelihoods. The continuation of the railway improvement projects legitimises the junta and provides it with increased logistical capacity. The junta uses trains to move troops, arms and other supplies as it commits atrocity crimes across Myanmar with total impunity. Through the project, the Japanese government and the corporations involved risk aiding and abetting the junta’s international crimes by providing it with logistical support. JICA told Justice For Myanmar that under the bilateral agreement, which was made before the coup attempt, the projects shall not be used for military purposes. However, the Japanese government and the corporations involved are unable to prevent misuse by the junta. Recently, the junta was caught misusing boats donated by Japan for civilian use to move troops in Arakan State. Japan made a complaint to the junta about it last month, but details of any further action have not been made public. Under the railway improvement projects, work is being carried out by multinational corporations from Japan and the EU, in partnership with Myanmar military crony companies. Public sources and leaked documents, including from Distributed Denial of Secrets, show: The Spanish corporation Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) and Mitsubishi Corporation are supplying new trains to the junta. Daiwa House subsidiary Fujita Corporation, Sumitomo Corporation and Nippon Signal Co. Ltd. are doing track and station upgrades, bridgework and work on signal and communication equipment under a contract signed in 2019. Fujita received revenues of 29.7 billion kyat from Myanma Railways for work on the Yangon to Bago section of the project in 2022, equivalent to over US$15 million, according to leaked tax filings. Tekken Corporation and Rinkai Nissan Construction are working on the Bago to Nyaunglebin section of the track under a deal awarded in 2018, while Tokyu Construction is working on the Nyaunglebin to Taungoo section, with Toenec Corporation doing signalling and communications upgrades. Justice For Myanmar calls on the Japanese government and the businesses involved in the railways improvement projects to immediately suspend work until Myanmar’s transition to federal democracy. Japan should stand with the people of Myanmar and fulfil its international obligations by imposing sanctions on the junta and its business interests and suspending all official development assistance projects in Myanmar. The Spanish government should investigate CAF’s business with the military junta and take swift action if EU sanctions have been breached. Justice For Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung says: “By allowing its railway improvement projects to continue, the Japanese government is legitimising the junta and providing it with resources that will support its campaign of terror against the people of Myanmar. “Since its illegal coup attempt, the junta has killed more than 3,500 people and arbitrarily arrested over 22,700. Mass atrocities are being committed by the junta daily, including indiscriminate airstrikes, shelling, rape and torture. “By continuing the project, Japan and major multinational corporations risk complicity in these international crimes. “Japan needs to get on the right track for the people of Myanmar, suspend all official development assistance projects, and impose sanctions on the junta and its businesses. “Myanma Railways are part of the Myanmar military cartel, and the businesses working with it need to responsibly cut ties, in accordance with their international human rights obligations. “The role of CAF raises serious questions for the Spanish government and the EU over continued business links with the junta that need to be addressed.”..."
Source/publisher: Justice For Myanmar
2023-05-30
Date of entry/update: 2023-05-30
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Sub-title: The junta claims she had a document connecting her to the shadow National Unity Government
Description: "Junta troops have arrested a teacher in Myanmar’s southwestern Ayeyarwady region claiming she has links to the shadow National Unity Government, according to pro-junta Telegram messaging channels. Residents of Bogale township told RFA Tuesday that 30-year-old Theint Theint Soe was arrested on May 23. She has been working as a teacher for eight years and participated in the civil disobedience movement following the February 2021 military coup, the locals said. “Her husband was arrested a week earlier. The teacher was arrested on the same day that her husband was released,” said a resident who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “She was arrested for allegedly supporting participants in the civil disobedience movement.” Residents said Theint Theint Soen was being held at Bogale Police Station but it was not clear what laws she had been accused of breaking. Telegram channels that support the junta said she was arrested because a document certified by the shadow National Unity Government board of education was found with her. Nearly 300 civil disobedience movement teachers have been arrested since the 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
2023-05-30
Date of entry/update: 2023-05-30
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Description: "Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urges the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar to take up the case of a video reporter who has just been sentenced to an additional ten years in prison on a terrorism charge for covering a flash mob protest in Yangon. The special rapporteur should press for new sanctions against Myanmar’s generals, RSF says. The ten-year sentence was passed on 26 May on Myanmar Press Photo Agency video reporter Hmu Yadanar Khet Moh Moh Tun in the utmost secrecy inside Insein prison, a notorious jail located in a northern suburb of Yangon, Myanmar largest city. Asking not to be identified, her lawyer told RSF that Hmu Yadanar was convicted under article 50 (j) of Myanmar’s terrorism law, which penalises the “financing of terrorism.” She was already given a three-year sentence under a separate penal code charge last December. All she did was film a flash mob-style protest in Yangon on 5 December 2021 that had been organised on social media. Despite sustaining serious head and leg injuries when soldiers ran her down with a military vehicle as she filmed the protest, she has been held ever since. “By imposing this additional ten-year sentence on Hmu Yadanar, the military junta led by Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has yet again demonstrated the extraordinary scale of the tyranny to which reporters are subjected to Myanmar. We urge Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, to take up this high symbolic case in order to seek effective international sanctions against its military rulers. Daniel Bastard Head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk The three-year sentence that Hmu Yadanar already received last December was imposed on a charge of inciting rebellion under article 505 (a) of the penal code. Her lawyer said she has decided not to appeal against her latest sentence to avoid giving an appeal court any chance to lengthen it. Hmu Yadanar is one of a total of 70 journalists and media workers currently held in Myanmar’s prisons, according to RSF’s press freedom barometer..."
Source/publisher: Reporters Without Borders (Paris)
2023-05-30
Date of entry/update: 2023-05-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Key Event Details Location of Incident: Multiple villages in Sagaing Township (စစ်ကိုင်းမြို့နယ်), Sagaing Region (စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး): TheInn Sa Village (အင်းစရွာ) [22.118200, 95.694976] Taung Kyar Village (တောင်ကြားရွာ) [22.099079, 95.705261] Mu Thar Village (မူးသာရွာ) [22.106790, 95.658927] Ma Gyi Kone Village (မကျီးကုန်းရွာ) [22.108310, 95.665611] Taung Myo Village (တောင်မြို့ရွာ) [22.080650, 95.667137] Ywar Htaung Village (ရွာထောင်ရွာ)‌ [22.065469, 95.646293] Ywar Thit Village (ရွာသစ်ရွာ) [22.068687, 95.656561] Ta Pa Yin Kwe Village (တပုရင်းကွဲရွာ) [22.049150, 95.669937] Date/Time of Incident: 20 - 24 April 2023 Alleged Perpetrator(s) and/or Involvement: Light Infantry Division (LID) 99 People’s Defence Forces (PDF) Summary of Investigation: It is alleged that the Myanmar military’s LID 99 set fire to eight villages, causing the mass displacement of residents, following PDF activity in the area. Myanmar Witness verified (to varying levels) six of the eight fires through NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), satellite imagery analysis and analysis of user-generated content (UGC). They occurred in villages in close proximity to one another between 20-25 April 2023. Fires in Inn Sa and Ta Pa Yin Kwe villages were verified using FIRMS, Sentinel and UGC. Fires in Mu Thar and Taung Kyar villages allegedly destroyed 400 houses. Myanmar Witness assessed Sentinel imagery and believes that fires occurred between 20-25 April 2023. While no UGC could be geolocated of the remaining villages, FIRMS registered fire data in Ywar Thit on 23 April 2023, and Sentinel data reveals fire damage in Taung Myo and Ywar Htaung villages between 20-25 April. The fires in Ma Gyi Kone (မကျီးကုန်းရွာ) and Taung Kyar could not be verified due to a lack of UGC, FIRMS data or satellite imagery. Following these events, reports of mass displacement and a graphic beheading surfaced online. Myanmar Witness will continue to search for verifiable information. Summary On 20 April 2023, a column of around 100 military personnel entered Sagaing through Myinmu Township (မြင်းမူမြို့နယ်), according to Mandalay Free Press. Eight villages were allegedly set on fire between 20 - 24 April 2023 according to multiple media sources, reportedly causing mass displacement and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. According to Khit Thit, the systematic burning of villages by the military was retaliation for a People Defense Force (PDF) attack in Kywei Pon (ကြွယ်ပုံ) — an alleged Pyu Saw Htee aligned village — on 13 April 2023. The unnamed PDF group allegedly attacked the military’s Thingyan festival in Kywei Pon with a drone. According to a report by the Security Administration Council (SAC), eight people, including five children, were killed and 30 others were injured in the attack. Myanmar Witness has been unable to verify these claims. Myanmar Witness verified six of the eight fires through FIRMS, satellite imagery analysis and analysis of user-generated content (UGC). They occurred in villages in close proximity to one another between 20-25 April 2023. For example, Myanmar Witness geolocated UGC of the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Inn Sa (အင်းစ) and Ta Pa Yin Kwe (တပုရင်းကွဲရွာ) and chronolocated the UGC to within the time period investigated. It is claimed that another two villages, Mu Thar (မူးသာ) and Taung Kyar (တောင်ကြား), were set on fire on 21 April 2023, resulting in the destruction of 400 houses. By analysing the visible changes to the ground on Sentinel imagery, Myanmar Witness believes that it is likely that fires occurred between 20-25 April 2023. While no UGC could be geolocated of the remaining villages, FIRMS registered fire data in Ywar Thit (ရွာသစ်ရွာ) on 23 April 2023, and Sentinel data indicates fire damage in Taung Myo (တောင်မြို့ရွာ) and Ywar Htaung (ရွာထောင်ရွာ)‌ between 20-25 April. The fires in Ma Gyi Kone (မကျီးကုန်းရွာ) and Taung Kyar could not be verified due to a lack of UGC, FIRMS data or satellite imagery. Social media claims related to these fires, the displacement of civilians, and troop movements places responsibility for the fires and destruction with the Myanmar military. Myanmar Witness has collected these claims; however, has been unable to verify them. The fires occurred in villages in close proximity to one another, in an area where there was alleged PDF activity. Myanmar Witness continues to monitor information related to these events to build a picture for accountability. Myanmar Witness has been able to verify the following: Fire in Inn Sa. Geolocation of images of fire-damaged structures, including a monastery, which were likely taken on 21 April 2023. FIRMS and Sentinel data corroborates that Inn Sa was on fire on 21 April 2023. Fire in Ta Pa Yin Kwe. Geolocation of UGC showing burn damage to structures. FIRMS data indicates the fire damage occurred on 23 April 2023. Fire in Ywar Thit. FIRMS data indicates fires on 23 April 2023. Loss of vegetation consistent with fire damage in six of eight villages. Sentinel imagery shows a loss of vegetation, allegedly burned by the military, between 20 April 2023 and 25 April 2023. The investigation walkthrough Myanmar Witness has identified UGC, FIRMS data and satellite imagery which has allowed the verification of six out of eight reported fires. Additionally, Myanmar Witness has identified claims related to Myanmar military troop movements which could signal attribution for these fires; however, Myanmar Witness has been unable to verify these claims at present. The following map provides an overview of the investigated events..."
Source/publisher: Myanmar Witness
2023-05-29
Date of entry/update: 2023-05-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "24 May 2023: PEN International is dismayed at the decision of Myanmar’s military junta to sentence writer, activist, and PEN Myanmar member, Wai Moe Naing to 20 years’ imprisonment for committing high treason. Already serving a 34-year prison sentence following several convictions in retaliation for his peaceful advocacy against the military coup of 1 February 2021, this latest unjust conviction follows rushed legal proceedings that violated fair trial norms. PEN International continues to call for the immediate and unconditional release of all those unjustly detained by the military junta for their peaceful expression in Myanmar, including Wai Moe Naing. On 19 May 2023, Wai Moe Naing was convicted of high treason for his role as a protest leader and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment under Article 122 of Myanmar’s Penal Code, narrowly avoiding a potential death sentence. Already serving a sentence of 34 years’ imprisonment, this latest ruling results in a combined total of 54 years in prison. ‘From the military junta's efforts to silence Wai Moe Naing, it is obvious that the regime fears his voice. When he was first assaulted and detained in April 2021, he was engaged in non-violent advocacy, holding peaceful rallies in order to explain how the military's seizure of power violated Myanmar's undemocratic 2008 constitution. It is a cruel injustice that Wai Moe Naing has been convicted of high treason by the same regime that has so brutally betrayed the people of Myanmar. We demand his immediate and unconditional release’, said Ma Thida, Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee. A further trial on a remaining charge of murder remains. The charge is reported to relate to the killing of two police officers in the Monywa district, in central Myanmar but no evidence has emerged that links Wai Moe Naing to the crime. Wai Moe Naing’s friends and family have rejected the accusation of murder on the strongest possible terms. As reported previously, two of Wai Moe Naing’s legal representatives have been arrested, with many others now unwilling to represent him out of fear of retaliation from the military junta, raising ongoing concerns over Wai Moe Naing’s ability to defend himself according to international fair trial norms. PEN International considers that Wai Moe Naing’s long-term imprisonment represents a complete disregard of his right to a fair trial and is illustrative of the military junta’s willingness to use Myanmar’s legal system as a means to further its repression of dissenting voices. Background Wai Moe Naing is a writer, activist, and member of PEN Myanmar. He began writing as a student, with his first short story being published in Teen Magazine at the age of 13. His writing has since been published in several literary outlets, including Khit Yanantthit Magazine and Pae Tin Tharn Journal. Prior to the military coup in February 2021, Wai Moe Naing had already developed a reputation as a committed non-violent activist due to his long-standing involvement student unions and youth groups, which included his affiliation with the Peacock Generation, a satirical poetry troupe who had several of its members detained in 2019 for allegedly criticising the military during a performance. In the immediate aftermath of the military coup, Wai Moe Naing rose to prominence as a leader of the anti-coup protest movement and was among those who popularised the idea of banging pots and pans as a non-violent act of resistance to the military junta’s rule. Wai Moe Naing was arrested on 15 April 2021 by junta forces after they reportedly used an unmarked vehicle to ram Wai Moe Naing while he was driving on a moped as part of a protest rally in the Monywa district. When he tried to escape on foot, a group of armed men disembarked and attacked him and a female protestor before detaining them both. On 12 August 2022, Wai Moe Naing was found guilty of multiple counts of incitement under section 505(A) of Myanmar’s Penal Code, which has been routinely used by the military junta to target critics of the regime. Following his conviction, Wai Moe Naing was initially sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. According to reports, Wai Moe Naing did not appeal the court’s ruling, stating that the allegations were not committed by him, so there was nothing to appeal. On 20 October 2022, Wai Moe Naing was sentenced to a further four years’ imprisonment on an additional count of incitement and for violating Article 25 of Natural Disaster Management Law, a charge that has been cynically used to clamp down on public rallies following the authorities' classification of COVID-19 as a 'natural disaster'. On 5 April 2023, Wai Moe Naing was convicted of several charges, including rioting, robbery and incitement, and sentenced to a further 20 years’ imprisonment, resulting in a cumulative total of 34 years in prison. For more information about PEN International’s work on Myanmar please see Impunity Reigns – Writers resist, PEN International’s 2022 Case List, which documents 115 cases of persecuted writers worldwide, including Wai Moe Naing..."
Source/publisher: PEN International
2023-05-26
Date of entry/update: 2023-05-26
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Description: "Myanmar’s junta troops have detained more than 40 civilians within a week over alleged links to resistance groups in Tanintharyi Region. Resistance groups have stepped up attacks on regime forces in Myanmar’s southernmost region, leading to retaliation against civilians. On Tuesday Guerilla Dawei and Dawei Dragon People’s Defence Force raided Launglon Township police station, the regime’s military intelligence and immigration offices. The groups issued a statement saying the operations did not involve the Launglon community. But the junta later detained four Launglon civilians, Ko Hlaing Nay Oo, Ma Swe Zin Htet, Ma Thet Thet Aye and her husband, according to residents. On Tuesday a junta convoy was attacked with a bomb near Kyauk Ka Nyar village in Yebyu Township, injuring an officer. On Wednesday troops raided homes in the village and detained 20 residents. Arrests were also reported in Palaw, Tanintharyi, Dawei and Thayetchaung townships. Seven Kyauk Kar villagers in Palaw Township were detained on May 19 after a junta-appointed administrator was killed by a resistance bomb. At the weekend 10 owners of food and grocery stalls and tea shops in Yay Phyu village, Tanintharyi Township, were detained after junta informants reported that resistance groups bought food from them, residents said. Only five have been released. A man and couple in Tanintharyi Township were detained after at least five junta troops were killed in a resistance bomb attack, a resident said. Six Pa Nat Nge villagers were detained in the township and they remain in custody, a resident told The Irrawaddy. In Dawei, 12 people were detained as human shields after resistance groups in the township ambushed troops on their way back from burning down houses in U Yin Gyi village on Saturday. A 17-year-old was held after the others were freed when the troops reached safety. The teenager reportedly remains in detention because of what the troops found on his phone. His condition is unknown. On Sunday Maung Kyaw Htet Aung, 17, and a female 15-year-old were detained in Thayetchaung Township after their phones were inspected by junta troops at a checkpoint. “Their parents are very concerned for them. Now they are still being detained and interrogated,” said a relative of Maung Kyaw Htet Aung. Wai Yan Soe, a student activist in Dawei. said the junta was now behaving in Tanintharyi Region like it always had in Myanmar’s ethnic-minority states. “People must be careful and should stay alert to the dangers at all times,” he added. Southern Monitor, which researches the conflict in Tanintharyi Region, reported that at least 394 people have been killed and over 28,000 displaced since the 2021 coup..."
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Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2023-05-25
Date of entry/update: 2023-05-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Five resistance members accused of shooting dead four police officers on a Yangon train were sentenced to death by a junta court at Insein Prison on Monday, according to lawyers familiar with the case. Suspects Ko Kyaw Win Soe, Ko Kaung Pyae Sone Oo, Ko San Min Aung, Ko Zayar Phyoe and Ma Myat Phyo Pwint were handed death sentences under the counter-terrorism law and separately given life sentences under the Arms Act (1949). A court source confirmed the sentence, saying Monday’s verdicts were delivered by a civilian court rather than martial court, as in previous such cases. On August 14, 2021, six policemen working as guards on a Circular Railway train travelling from Yangon’s Central Station to Kyemindaing in the city’s west were shot at close range by three members of an anti-regime urban guerrilla group. Four of the police officers were killed on the spot while two were injured, and their firearms seized. The targeted attack came one week after five resistance movement members jumped to their deaths from a four-story building to evade raiding troops. Two of the five died on the spot. In September, the regime arrested five out of 16 people it suspected of being involved in the train attack. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) also verified that five men detained over the incident were sentenced to death this week. AAPP said in its daily brief issued yesterday that since the February 1, 2021, coup, a total of 3,520 people, including pro-democracy activists and civilians, have been killed in military crackdowns against the pro-democracy movement. Junta courts have sentenced a total of 158 people to death since the coup. Among those executed were four prominent pro-democracy figures including politicians U Jimmy and Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2023-05-19
Date of entry/update: 2023-05-19
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Description: "Jailed anti-junta protest leader Ko Wai Moe Naing was found guilty of high treason on Friday and sentenced to an additional 20 years by a junta court on Friday, taking his total sentence to 54 years. The 28-year-old pro-democracy activist was violently arrested on April 15, 2021, when junta troops rammed him with a car as he led a motorbike protest in Monywa, Sagaing Region. Ko Wai Moe Naing has faced 10 charges, including sedition, unlawful assembly, abduction with the intent to murder, murder and treason, for his role in Monywa’s protests after the February 1 coup. The junta sentenced him to 34 years in prison under eight charges. The Monywa Prison court on Friday used Article 122 of the Penal Code to add 20 years to his sentence for high treason. A source said Ko Wai Moe Naing saw his mother for a few minutes and was in good health. Monywa People’s Strike Committee denounced the sentence and called for the release of all political prisoners. “Regime leader Min Aung Hlaing and his fellow junta leaders are the only people to have committed high treason,” the committee said on Friday. Ko Wai Moe Naing, a former student union leader and committee member, has been held in Monywa Prison since his arrest. He also faces another murder charge in relation to the killing of two police officers. Since the 2021 coup, more than 3,500 people have been killed and over 22,400 people have been incarcerated with around 18,000 still behind bars, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2023-05-19
Date of entry/update: 2023-05-19
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Description: "On Wednesday, Myanmar’s military junta announced it would release 2,153 prisoners. These include some convicted under section 505A of the Penal Code, which the junta has used to suppress peaceful dissent in the country. Families will welcome the releases of their loved ones, but the junta’s oppressive policies and practices remain unchanged. Section 505A is a sweeping law that makes any criticism of the junta a criminal offense punishable by up to three years in prison. Many political activists arrested since the coup in February 2021 have been convicted by junta courts under section 505A. The junta stated that the releases were based on “humanitarian grounds” and “for the peace of mind of people” ahead of a Buddhist holiday. It is not clear how many of those released are political prisoners: people arrested for the peaceful exercise of their political rights. Myanmar traditionally marks Buddhist holidays by granting amnesties to prisoners, but data suggests that political prisoners make up only a small fraction of those released. In November last year, the junta released 402 political prisoners out of more than 5,000 prisoners amnestied, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). In January, another amnesty released 7,000 prisoners, including 306 political prisoners. In April, just 13 political prisoners were among 3,000 prisoners released. The junta should immediately be releasing all its political prisoners: 17,000 people who should not have been arrested in the first place. The relatively few released each amnesty really just shows that the junta still does not recognize their detentions are unlawful. Myanmar’s military juntas have long used amnesties as a tool to gain credibility and deflate international pressure ahead of global events. It is unsurprising that the latest amnesty comes ahead of an important meeting of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). ASEAN foreign ministers should not be fooled when they meet in Indonesia on May 9. They should avoid lending credibility to the military junta and instead press for the release of all political prisoners, an end to abuses against the junta’s critics, and the return of Myanmar to civilian democratic rule..."
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Source/publisher: Junta’s Gesture No Substitute for Lasting Human Rights Changes
2023-05-06
Date of entry/update: 2023-05-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Responding to news that Myanmar’s military authorities have pardoned 2,153 prisoners jailed under a law that makes it illegal to encourage dissent against the military, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns Ming Yu Hah said: “This long overdue release should mark the first step towards the immediate release of all individuals who have been arbitrarily detained for exercising their basic rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly or other human rights. Amnesty International remains deeply concerned about the further thousands of individuals who are still unjustly languishing in prisons across the country where they face torture and other ill-treatment. “Anyone imprisoned for peacefully opposing the military coup in Myanmar should never have been jailed in the first place. Upon release they should be provided with the necessary medical, psychological and social support to help them recover from their ordeal. Peaceful dissent is not a crime, it is a human right. “Prisoners released today were charged and sentenced under a law specifically used by the military to smother dissent after the coup. However, the military warned it would detain them again if they are deemed to have committed the same ‘crime’ in the future, which effectively places a chilling effect on many people wanting to exercise their basic rights and freedoms.” Background: Myanmar’s military authorities on Wednesday pardoned 2,153 prisoners serving sentences under the 505(a) section of the criminal code. The law makes it illegal to promote dissent against the military and has been widely enforced since the military coup on 1 February 2021. The military said in a statement it was pardoning the prisoners on “humanitarian” grounds to mark a Buddhist holiday, but that those who reoffended would be jailed again. It did not provide names of those released. Myanmar’s military has arrested more than 21,000 people since the coup and more than 17,000 are still detained, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The detainees include many senior leaders of the ousted civilian government as well as journalists, human rights defenders and medical workers. Since the coup on 1 February 2021, Amnesty International has documented widespread human rights violations, including war crimes and possible crimes against humanity as part of the military’s crackdown on the opposition across the country. Amnesty International’s 2022 report “15 Days Felt like 15 Years” documented the situation after the coup inside prisons and interrogation facilities. It showed that torture and other ill-treatment was routinely used to punish dissent..."
Source/publisher: Amnesty International (UK)
2023-04-03
Date of entry/update: 2023-05-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Today marks the second anniversary since ASEAN agreed on the Five Point Consensus in response to the military coup in Myanmar. The Myanmar military has ignored calls from the international community to stop the violence. Moreover, since the coup, the Myanmar military has committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. ASEAN leaders must step up and address the situation in Myanmar without further delay. Amnesty International has assessed ASEAN’s five points consensus using concrete evidence as examples where relevant, and highlights its failures: 1) First, there shall be immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar and all parties shall exercise utmost restraint. The Myanmar military authorities executed at least four people, sentenced at least 123 people to death, and arrested 21,334 people – with 17,446 people still detained, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). The security forces tortured detainees, killed at least 3,239 people, including unlawful attacks killing and injuring civilians through the use of deadly air strikes, extrajudicial executions, artillery shelling, banned landmines, and cluster munitions. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), since the coup, the fighting has displaced 1.4 million people inside the country, burned or destroyed 60,000 civilian properties and pushed 75,400 people to seek refuge in neighboring countries. The military authorities also detained and imprisoned at least 2,000 Rohingyas since the coup for ‘unauthorized travel’ outside of Rakhine State. These numbers illustrate the fact that the Myanmar military does not plan to cease violence or exercise restraint against civilians. 2) Second, constructive dialogue among all parties concerned shall commence to seek a peaceful solution in the interests of the people. In July 2022, the Myanmar military executed four people, including an activist and one member of the National League for Democracy (NLD). As of December 2022, the Myanmar military sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to 33 years in prison in grossly unfair trials, in completely untransparent procedures. In October, Magway District Court sentenced ex-NLD parliamentarian Win Myint Hlaing to 148 years in prison on terror-related charges. Around the same time, activists Aung Khant, Kyaw Thet and Hnin Maung were sentenced to prison terms of between 95 and 225 years under the Counter-Terrorism Law. Likewise, the Myanmar military continues to target and imprison politicians from the opposition groups. The Myanmar military authorities are using the justice system as an oppressive tool to silence and collectively punish any voice of dissent. On 7 April 2023, Reverend Samson, Kachin religious and community leader, was sentenced to six years in prison on charges of unlawful association, defamation and terrorism. These charges are used as a tool by the Myanmar military to silence and punish people for exercising their freedom of speech. A constructive dialogue is not possible if people are unfairly imprisoned and arbitrarily detained. The Myanmar military must release all those detained and imprisoned for their peaceful opposition to the coup and to the military’s human rights violations. 3) Third, a special envoy of the ASEAN Chair shall facilitate mediation of the dialogue process, with the assistance of the Secretary General of ASEAN. In March 2022, the ASEAN Special Envoy for Myanmar visited Myanmar for the first time. The Special Envoy met with Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, but the military reportedly denied him to meet with any civil society groups, or members of the NLD, which had won the most seats in the 2020 election. The Myanmar military also rejected the Special Envoy’s request to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi. This failure to meet with anyone other than the Myanmar military leadership shows that ASEAN has not been able to facilitate mediation. 4) Fourth, ASEAN shall provide humanitarian assistance through the AHA Centre. In October 2022, the Myanmar military enacted the Organization Registration Law, severely restricting the right to freedom of association by imposing criminal penalties on national and international humanitarian organizations if they do not register with the authorities. The enactment severely impedes desperately needed humanitarian aid. Amnesty International has documented the military authorities obstructing lifesaving humanitarian aid through cumbersome administrative restrictions and attacking camps for internally displaced people. Massive aerial bombing, indiscriminate shelling, and massacres by the military are causing large numbers of casualties and displacements – further increasing the need for humanitarian assistance. UNOCHA estimates that a total of 17.6 million people, including more than nine million women and girls, would require humanitarian assistance in 2023. In December 2021, two humanitarian workers were among those killed in a massacre by the military in Kayah State. UNOCHA’s end year report also indicates that “Myanmar recorded the second highest number of aid workers killed globally in 2022, and the fourth highest number of aid workers injured”. The AHA Centre has also failed to provide anywhere close to adequate humanitarian assistance to the population in need. 5) Fifth, the special envoy and delegation shall visit Myanmar to meet with all parties concerned. See point 2 and 3 above. In response to ASEAN’s failure to implement the five-point consensus, Amnesty International urges ASEAN and ASEAN member states to make the following recommendations to the Myanmar military: 1) Immediately stop dropping aerial bombs on civilians and carrying out indiscriminate attacks by ground and air in violation of international humanitarian law. 2) Lift internet blackouts, administrative and other arbitrary restrictions on humanitarian aid, stop attacks on humanitarian workers, and allow unimpeded access to national and international humanitarian organizations, so that they can reach all civilians in need. 3) Release all detainees arbitrarily detained or unjustly imprisoned through grossly unfair trials since the coup. 4) Immediately halt acts of intimidation, arrests, or torture and other ill-treatment of media workers, healthcare workers and others who peacefully joined the Civil Disobedience Movement. 5) Release all Rohingyas arbitrarily detained for exercising their right to freedom of movement and halt the military’s role in any plans to forcibly return Rohingyas from Cox’s Bazar and Bashan Char camps..."
Source/publisher: Amnesty International (UK)
2023-04-24
Date of entry/update: 2023-04-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Blue Shirt Day သည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီအရေးမှာ အလွန်အရေးပါသောနေ့ဖြစ်သည်။ ဒီမိုကရေစီ၏ရန်သူများဖြစ်သော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များသည် အမျိုးသားဒီမိုကရေစီအဖွဲ့ချုပ် ပူးတွဲတည်ထောင်သူလည်းဖြစ်၊ နိုင်ငံကျော်သတင်းစာဆရာ ဟံသာ၀တီဦး၀င်းတင်ကို ၁၉၈၉ ခုနှစ်မှ ၂၀၀၈ ခုနှစ်အထိ (၁၉)နှစ်တိုင်တိုင် အကြမ်းဖက်အာဏာရှင်များ၏ အကျဥ်းထောင်ထဲတွင် ရက်ရက်စက်စက် ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ထားခဲ့ပါသည်။ ဒီမိုကရေစီခေါင်းဆောင် ဆရာကြီးဦး၀င်းတင်ကို (၁၉) နှစ် ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခဲ့ခြင်းသည် မြန်မာ့ဒီမိုကရေစီအရေးကို ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်နိုင်ရန် ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ရှိရှိလုပ်ဆောင်ခြင်းဖြစ်သော်လည်း ဆရာကြီးဦး၀င်းတင်သည် အကျဉ်းထောင်ဝတ်စုံဖြစ်သော Shirt အပြာရောင်ကို ကွယ်လွန်သည်အထိ ဝတ်ဆင်ခြင်းဖြင့် စစ်လက်နက်တွေပိုင်ဆိုင်သော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များကို တော်လှန်လာခဲ့ပါသည်။ ၂၀၀၈ ခုနှစ် ဆရာကြီးဦး၀င်းတင် အကျဉ်းထောင်မှလွတ်လာပြီးနောက် အကျဥ်းထောင်ထဲမှာ နိုင်ငံရေးယုံကြည်ချက်ကြောင့် အကျဥ်းချခံနေရသော နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဥ်းသားများနှင့်အတူတကွ ခိုင်ခိုင်မာမာ ရပ်တည်ကြောင်း ခံယူချက်ကို ဖော်ပြသည့်အနေဖြင့် အပြာရောင်ရှပ်အကျီအား ဆက်လက်၀တ်ဆင်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ ဆရာကြီးဦး၀င်းတင်သည် ၂၀၀၈ ခုနှစ်၊ စက်တင်ဘာလ ၂၃ ရက်နေ့ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များ၏အကျဥ်းထောင်မှ လွတ်မြာက်သောနေ့မှစပြီး ကွယ်လွန်သည့် ၂၀၁၄ ခုနှစ်၊ ဧပြီလ ၂၁ ရက်နေ့အထိ (၆)နှစ်အတွင်း နေ့စဥ်မပျက်မကွက် အပြာရောင်ရှပ်အကျီတစ်မျိုးတည်းကို ၀တ်ဆင်ခဲ့ပြီး ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီကိုအခြေခံသော နိုင်ငံရေးစနစ်ကို အယုံအကြည်ရှိခြင်းကြောင့် ရက်ရက်စက်စက် ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခြင်း ခံထားရသော "နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဥ်းသားများ မိမိနိုင်ငံ‌ရေးယုံကြည်ခြင်းကြောင့် ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်းခံနေရသရွေ့ ကျွန်တော်တို့အားလုံးဟာ အကျဥ်းသားတွေပဲ" ဟုဆိုကာ ၎င်း၏ခံယူချက်ကို နောက်ဆုံးအချိန်အထိ ပြတ်ပြတ်သားသားဖော်ပြခဲ့ပါသည်။ ၂၀၁၅ ခုနှစ်၊ ဧပြီလ ၂၁ ရက်နေ့မှာ ဒီမိုကရေစီခေါင်းဆောင်ကြီး ဦး၀င်းတင်ကွယ်လွန်သည့် တစ်နှစ်ပြည့်တွင် ဆရာကြီးဦး၀င်းတင်၏ ဒီမိုကရေစီအရေးအတွက် တစိုက်မတ်မတ်လှုပ်ရှားမှုများကို အသိအမှတ်ပြုသည့်အနေဖြင့်လည်းကောင်း၊ ဒီမိုကရေစီအရေး ဆက်လက်ရှင်သန်ထမြောက်ရေးအတွက် ဒီမိုကရေစီနိုင်ငံရေး တက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူများမှ Blue Shirt Campaign ကို စတင်ပြုလုပ်ပြီး ဒီမိုကရေစီအရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှုတစ်ခုအဖြစ် အကောင်အထည်ဖော်လာခဲ့သည်မှာ ယနေ့ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်၊ ဧပြီလ ၂၁ ရက်မှာ (၉)နှစ်တိတိရှိပြီဖြစ်သည်။ ဒီမိုကရေစီခေါင်းဆောင်ကြီး ကွယ်လွန်သွားပြီဖြစ်သော်လည်း သူ၏လှုပ်ရှားမှုနှင့် ဆောင်ရွက်ချက်များသည် အရှိန်အဟုန်နှင့် ဆက်လက်ရှင်သန်နေဆဲဖြစ်ပါသည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံနှင့် မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထု ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီရရှိမှာကို အလွန်ကြောက်ရွံ့ တုန်လှုပ်လျက်ရှိသော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များသည် ဆရာကြီးဦး၀င်းတင်ကို (၁၉)နှစ်တိုင်တိုင် ထောင်နံရံတွေထဲ အကျဉ်းချထားခဲ့သော်လည်း မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထု၏ ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီနိုင်ငံရေးယုံကြည်ချက်ကို လုံး၀မထိန်းချုပ်နိုင်သည်မှာ ယနေ့နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးက အသစ်တစ်ဖန် ပြသလျက်ရှိပါသည်။ ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီနိုင်ငံရေးလမ်းကြောင်းကို ယုံကြည်သောသူတွေကို ရက်ရက်စက်စက် ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခဲ့သော်လည်း ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်သော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များသည် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီကိုယုံကြည်သော မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုကြီး၏ ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီနိုင်ငံရေးအပေါ် ခံယူချက်နှင့် ယုံကြည်ခြင်းကို လုံး၀မချုပ်နှောင်နိုင်သကဲ့သို့ မဖျက်ဆီးနိုင်သည်မှာ ထင်ထင်ရှားရှားဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ဆရာကြီးဦး၀င်းတင်က သူ့ဘဝတလျှောက်လုံး အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များ​၏ ထောင်သွင်းအကျဉ်းချပြီး အသက်ဘေးအန္တရာယ်ထိခိုက်အောင် ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုများကို ကြံ့ကြံ့ခံသက်သေပြခဲ့သလို ကိုဂျင်မီ၊ ကိုဖြိုးဇေယျာသော်စသည့် အာဇာနည်အပေါင်းတို့သည်လည်း ၎င်းတို့အသက်နှင့်လဲပြီး ကမ္ဘာသိအောင် ကြေငြာခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ကိုဂျင်မီနှင့် ကိုဖြိုးဇေယျာသော်နှင့် အပေါင်းအပါတို့ကို ရက်ရက်စက်စက်ကြိုးပေးပြီး သတ်ဖြတ်ခဲ့သော်လည်းပဲ ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်သော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များသည် ကိုဂျင်မီ၊ ကိုဖြိုးဇေယျာသော်တို့၏ ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီ နိုင်ငံရေးအပေါ် ခံယူချက်နှင့် ယုံကြည်ချက်ကို လုံး၀မဖျက်ဆီးနိုင်ပါ။ ၎င်းတို့၏ယုံကြည်ချက်နှင့် ခံယူချက်သည် ယနေ့ ပြည်သူ (၅၄) သန်းကျော်၏ နှလုံးသားထဲမှာ ဆက်လက်ရှင်သန်လျက်ရှိပြီး ဆရာကြီး ဦး၀င်းတင်နှင့် အပေါင်းအပါတို့၏ ယုံကြည်ခြင်းများသည် မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထု (၅၄) သန်းကျော်​၏ယုံကြည်ခြင်း၊ ခံယူခြင်းများပင်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်တွင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်များမှ ပြည်သူ့အာဏာကို နိုင်ငံတစ်နိုင်ငံနှင့် တစ်နိုင်ငံအကြား စစ်ပွဲကြီးများဖြစ်ရာတွင် အသုံးပြုသော စစ်လက်နက်များကို အသုံးပြုပြီး ပြည်သူ့လက်ထဲမှလုယူရန်ကြိုးစားခဲ့ပြီးနောက် ယနေ့ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်အထိ (၂) နှစ်ကျော်ကာလအတွင်း ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီရေးနှင့် စစ်အာဏာရှင်ဆန့်ကျင်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှုများကြောင့် ဖမ်းဆီးခံရသူ အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူစာရင်းမှာ နေ့စဥ်နေ့တိုင်း တိုးပွားလျက်ရှိပါသည်။ ယခု ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်၊ ဧပြီလအထိ ဖမ်းဆီးခံပြည်သူဦးရေ ၂၀,၀၀၀ နီးပါးရှိနေပြီး အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီမှ ရက်ရက်စက်စက်သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းခံရသူ ပြည်သူဦးရေမှာ ၄,၀၀၀ နီးပါး ရောက်ရှိနေပြီဖြစ်ပါသည်။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီမှ မတရား ရက်ရက်စက်စက် ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခံရသည့် အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူစာရင်းတွင် မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုက လွတ်လပ်တရားမျှတပြီး ဒီမိုကရေစီစံချိန်စံနှုန်းနှင့်အညီ ရွေးကောက်တင်မြှောက်ထားသော လူထုခေါင်းဆောင်များဖြစ်သည့် နိုင်ငံတော်အတိုင်ပင်ခံပုဂ္ဂိုလ် ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်နှင့် နိုင်ငံတော်သမ္မတ ဦး၀င်းမြင့်လည်း ပါ၀င်နေပါသည်။ မြန်မာပြည်သူများ ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီရရှိမှာကို အလွန်ကြောက်ရွံသော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များသည် အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူ ၂၀,၀၀၀ နီးပါးကို ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ထားပြီး အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူ ၄,၀၀၀ နီးပါး ရက်ရက်စက်စက် သတ်ဖြတ်သည်သာမက လွန်ခဲ့သော (၂)နှစ်ကျော်အတွင်း စာသင်ကျောင်း၊ ဘုရားကျောင်း၊ ဘုန်းကြီးကျောင်းအပါအ၀င် ပြည်သူ့ အသက်အိုးအိမ် ၆၀,၀၀၀ ကျော်ကို ရက်ရက်စက်စက် မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခဲ့ပါသည်။ ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်သော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီသည် ဆရာကြီးဦး၀င်းတင်၏နိုင်ငံရေးယုံကြည်ချက်ကို ဖျက်ဆီးဖို့ကြိုးစားခဲ့သလို မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုကြီး၏ နိုင်ငံရေးယုံကြည်ချက်ကို အကြိမ်ကြိမ်အခါခါဖျက်စီးရန် စစ်ကြေငြာပြီး စစ်လက်နက်များကိုအသုံးပြုကာ ဗုံးကြဲတိုက်ခိုက်ခြင်း နည်းမျိုးစုံလုပ်နေသော်လည်းပဲ သူတို့အောင်မြင်မှာမဟုတ်ကြောင်း သူတို့သိနေသည့်အပြင် ၎င်းတို့ နေ့တိုင်းလုပ်ဆောင်နေသည့် လူမဆန်သော အကြမ်းဖက်လုပ်ရပ်များက ဒီမိုကရေစီ၏ရန်သူများဖြစ်သော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များအနေနဲ့ ဘယ်တော့မှအောင်မြင်မှာမဟုတ်ကြောင်းကိုလည်း ၎င်းတို့၏လုပ်ရပ်များက သက်သေပြလျက်ရှိပါသည်။ လွန်ခဲ့သော (၂)နှစ်ကျော်အတွင်း ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီရန်သူများဖြစ်သည့် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များသည် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီစနစ်ကို လိုလားသော မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုကို စစ်ကြေငြာပြီး အကြိမ်‌ပေါင်း ၁၀,၀၀၀ နီးပါး စစ်ကြောင်းထိုး တိုက်ခိုက်ခြင်းကြောင့် အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူလူထု ၄,၀၀၀ နီးပါးအသက်ဆုံးရှုံးပြီး ပြည်သူလူထုအသက်အိုးအိမ် ၆၀,၀၀၀ ကျော် မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးသည့်အပြင် ယနေ့ ဆရာကြီးဦး၀င်းတင်ကွယ်လွန်သည့် (၉)နှစ်ပြည့်မှာ အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူလူထု (၁.၆) သန်းထက်မနည်းသောအရေအတွက်သည် အိုးမဲ့အိမ်မဲ့ဘ၀နှင့် ပြသနာပေါင်းများစွာကို ကြုံတွေ့လျက်ရှိပြီး အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူလူထု (၁၇) သန်းကျော်သည် ငတ်မွတ်ခေါင်းပါးခြင်းဘေးအမျိုးမျိုးနှင့် ရင်ဆိုင်နေရ၍ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံလူဦးရေ (၅၄) သန်းကျော်ထဲမှ အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူလူထု (၂၇) သန်းကျော်သည် အလွန်ဆင်းရဲနွမ်းပါးခြင်းအောက်သို့ ရောက်ရှိနေပြီဖြစ်ပါသည်။ အကယ်၍ စစ်အာဏာရှင်များသာမရှိခဲ့လျှင် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမှာ ဆရာကြီးဦးဝင်းတင်နှင့်တကွ ခေတ်အဆက်ဆက်ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီအရေးလှုပ်ရှားသူများ​၏ ဖက်ဒရာယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီအပေါ် ယုံကြည်ချက်များကို အကောင်အထည်ဖော်ပြီး မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသည် ယခုအခါ အရှေ့တောင်အာရှတွင် တိုးတက်နေသော စင်ကာပူ(Singapore) နိုင်ငံကို ကျော်နေမည်မှာမလွဲပေ။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံကို ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီနိုင်ငံ‌အဖြစ် တည်ဆောက်ရမည့်အိပ်မက်နှင့် ခံယူခြင်းများသာ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များက အနှောက်အယှက်မပေးဘဲ ဗိုလ်ချုပ်အောင်ဆန်းတည်ထောင်ခဲ့သည့် မြန်မာ့တပ်မတော်ကို Professionnal Federal Army အဖြစ် အကောင်အထည်ဖော်ခဲ့လျှင် ယနေ့မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသည် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီ အထွန်းကားဆုံးနိုင်ငံများဖြစ်သည့် အမေရိကန်ပြည်ထောင်စု (USA) ကဲ့သို့လည်းကောင်း၊ ဂျာမနီနိုင်ငံ(Germany)ကဲ့သို့လည်းကောင်း၊ ယူကေနိုင်ငံ(UK)ကဲ့သို့လည်းကောင်း၊ သြစတေးလျနိုင်ငံ(Australia) ကဲ့သို့လည်းကောင်း ဖြစ်နေနိုင်မည်။ သို့ရာတွင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များကြောင့် ယခုအခါ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသည် မြောက်ကိုးရီးယား(North Korea) ထက် ပိုမိုဆိုးရွားသော နိုင်ငံအဖြစ်သို့ရောက်ရှိနေပြီး အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီခေါင်းဆောင်ကိုလည်း Time မဂ္ဂဇင်းမှာ ကမ္ဘာ့ဆိုးရွားသော အာဏာရှင်များထဲက တစ်ယောက်အဖြစ် ဖော်ပြသတ်မှတ်ခြင်းကိုခံရပါသည်။ Blue Shirt Campaign သည် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီ Campaign ဖြစ်သကဲ့သို့ အင်မတန်ဆိုးရွားသော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များကို တော်လှန်သော Campaign လည်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များသည် ကျွန်တော်တို့၏ ခန္ဓာကိုယ်ကို ထောင်ချ၍ရသော်လည်း ကျွန်တော်တို့၏ ယုံကြည်ချက်နှင့် ခံယူချက်ကို အကျဥ်းထောင်ထဲမှာ ထည့်၍မရသလို ၎င်းယုံကြည်ချက်သည် ပြည်သူလူထုတိုင်း၏ နှလုံးသားထဲမှာ ခိုင်ခိုင်မာမာရှိနေပြီး နှလုံးသားကိုထောင်ချ၍မရသကဲ့သို့ ယုံကြည်ခြင်းကိုထောင်ချပြီး ဖျက်ဆီးလို့ လုံး၀မရပါ။ ဤကဲ့သို့ မရသည်ကို ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်သော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များက သိနေပြီဖြစ်သော်လည်း သူတို့သည် အင်မတန်ရက်စက်ပြီး ကြမ်းကြုတ်လှသောကြောင့် မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုများ၏ နိုင်ငံရေးခံယူချက်များကိုလည်း ရာဇ၀တ်မှုအဖြစ် ပြုလုပ်နေခြင်းသည် နိုင်ငံရေးခံယူချက်ကို ရာဇ၀တ်မှုသို့ ပြောင်းလဲရန် ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ရှိရှိ လုပ်ဆောင်နေခြင်းလည်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်များ၏ ဖခင်ကြီးဖြစ်သည့် ရက်စက်ယုတ်မာသော အကြမ်းဖက်ခေါင်းဆောင်ဦးနေ၀င်းသည် ကျောင်းသားခေါင်းဆောင် ဆလိုင်းတင်မောင်ဦးကို ကြိုးပေးပြီး သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းဖြင့် ကျောင်းသားခေါင်းဆောင်၏ နိုင်ငံရေးခံယူချက်ကို ဖျက်ဆီးနိုင်လိမ့်မည်ဟု ခံယူပြီး လူမဆန်စွာလုပ်ခဲ့ပါသည်။ သို့သော် ကျောင်းသားခေါင်းဆောင်ကြီး ဆလိုင်းတင်မောင်ဦး၏ နိုင်ငံရေးခံယူချက်ကို လုံး၀မဖျက်ဆီးနိုင်သည့်အပြင် ယနေ့မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုများ၏ နှလုံးသားထဲမှာ အလင်းရောင်ကဲ့သို့ ဆက်လက် တောက်ပလျက်ရှိပါသည်။ ထိုနည်းတူစွာ ဆရာကြီးဦး၀င်းတင်၏ အပြာရောင်ရှပ်အကျီကို (၆) နှစ်တာ နေ့စဥ်နေ့တိုင်း၀တ်ဆင်ပြီး နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဥ်းသားများနှင့်အတူရပ်တည်ခဲ့သည့် သမိုင်းသည်လည်း ယနေ့ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးမှာ စစ်အာဏာရှင်ကိုတိုက်ပွဲဝင်နေသော မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုကြီး၏ ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီ ယုံကြည်ချက်နှင့် ခံယူချက်တို့နဲ့အတူ ဆက်လက်တောက်ပလျက်ရှိပါသည်။ ဆရာကြီးဦး၀င်းတင်၏ နိုင်ငံရေး၊ ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီအရေးခံယူချက်များကို အမြန်ဆုံးအကောင်အထည်ဖော်နိုင်ရန်အတွက် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များကို အမြစ်ပြတ်ခြေမှုန်းရမည်မှာ အရေးကြီးဆုံးသောအချက်ဖြစ်သည်။ ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီ၏ရန်သူဖြစ်သည့် အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်အာဏာရှင်များကို အမြစ်ပြတ်မချေမှုန်းဘဲ ဆရာကြီးဦး၀င်းတင်၏ အိပ်မက်များကိုအကောင်အထည်ဖော်၍ မရပါ။ အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်အာဏာရှင်များကို အမြစ်ပြတ်ချေမှုန်းရာတွင် နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးသည် နောက်ဆုံးသော တော်လှန်ရေးဖြစ်သကဲ့သို့ အားလုံးပါ၀င်သော တော်လှန်‌ရေးဖြစ်ရန် အလွန်အရေးကြီးနေပါသည်။ တောင်ပေါ်မြေပြန့်မရွေး၊ လူမျိုးဘာသာမရွေး၊ တိုင်းရင်းသားမရွေး ရှိသမျှအင်အားကို အသုံးပြုပြီး တစ်ညီတစ်ညွတ်တည်း တော်လှန်ပြီး ခရီးကို အဆုံးအထိ ချီတက်ရန် အရေးကြီးပါသည်။ ရောဂါကို အမြစ်ပြတ်ကုသရာတွင် တစ်၀က်တစ်ပိုင်းကုသသည်ဟူ၍မရှိသကဲ့သို့ ကင်ဆာရောဂါကဲ့သို့ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံကို ဖျက်ဆီးနေသော၊ အသက်တွေသေဆုံးနေစေသော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များကို တော်လှန်ရာတွင်လည်း အမြစ်ပြတ်သည့်အထိတော်လှန်ရမည်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ၎င်းသည် သမိုင်းက ပေးသောတာ၀န်ဖြစ်သကဲ့သို့ ဘုရားသခင်ကပေးသောတာ၀န်လည်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။ တော်လှန်ရေးကို တစ်ညီတစ်ညွတ်တည်း အတူတကွ အဆုံးအထိချီတက်ပြီး အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အာဏာရှင်များကို အမြစ်ပြတ်ချေမှုန်းပြီးလျှင် ဘာသာမရွေး၊ လူမျိုးမရွေး၊ တိုင်းရင်းသားမရွေး၊ ဆင်းရဲချမ်းသာမရွေး၊ ကျား/မ မရွေး အားလုံးအတွက်ဖြစ်သော မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအသစ်ဖြစ်သည့် ဖက်ဒရယ် ဒီမိုကရေစီပြည်ထောင်စုကြီးသည်လည်း မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထု အားလုံးကို စောင့်မျှော်ကြိုဆိုလျက်ရှိပါသည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ အနာဂတ်သည် ရဲရင့်သတ္တိရှိသော ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီကို ယုံကြည်သော မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုကြီး၏ လက်ထဲမှာရှိနေပါသည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအသစ်ကို ရောက်သောအခါ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသည်လည်း အခြားသော ကမ္ဘာ့ထိပ်တန်းနိုင်ငံများကဲ့သို့ တိုးတက်အောင် တည်ဆောက်နိုင်မည်ဖြစ်သည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအသစ်ကိုမရောက်မချင်း ကျွန်တော်တို့တစ်တွေ လက်တွဲကြရပါလိမ့်မည်။ တစ်ဖက်မှာ ရန်သူကို အမြစ်ပြတ်ချုပ်ငြိမ်းရန် တော်လှန်နေသကဲ့သို့ တစ်ဖက်မှာလည်း မနီးမဝေးမှာ ကျွန်တော်တို့အားလုံးကို စောင့်မျှော်ကြိုဆိုနေ‌သော မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအသစ်ဖြစ်သည့် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရက်တစ်ပြည်ထောင်စုကြီးကို အမြဲတမ်းမြင်ယောင်မျှော်လင့်ရန်လိုအပ်ပါသည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ အခက်ခဲဆုံးသောကာလကိုရောက်ရှိနေသည့်အချိန်မှာ ကျွန်တော်တို့အားလုံးသည် ပြည်သူမှ ပြည်သူသို့ ဖြစ်နေကြရန်လိုအပ်လှပြီး ပြည်သူမှာ ပြည်သူပဲရှိသည်ဆိုသည့် ခွန်အားကို အပြည့်အ၀ရယူကြပါရန် လိုအပ်လှပါသည်။ အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာနိုင်ငံများ၊ အဖွဲ့အစည်းများ၊ အိမ်နီးချင်းနိုင်ငံများအနေဖြင့်လည်း ရဲရင့်သတ္တိရှိသော မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုကို လက်ပိုက်မကြည့်ဘဲ ချက်ချင်းကူညီရန်နှင့် လိုအပ်သည်များကို ဆက်လက်အကောင်အထည်ဖော်ဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်းအားဖြင့် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ခေါင်းဆောင်များ၏ အပြစ်မဲ့ပြည်သူလူထုအပေါ် ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်‌သောကာလကို တိုသွားစေမည်ဖြစ်ပြီး မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုကို မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအသစ်ဖြစ်သည့် ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီ ပြည်ထောင်စုကြီးအဖြစ် အမြန်ဆုံးအကောင်အထည်ဖော်စေနိုင်မည်ဖြစ်သည်။ လက်ရှိကာလတွင် မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုနဲ့ ယူကရိန်းပြည်သူလူထုတို့သည် မိမိတို့နိုင်ငံများအတွက်သာ တော်လှန်ရေးတိုက်ပွဲ၀င်နေကြခြင်းမဟုတ်ဘဲ တစ်ကမ္ဘာလုံးအတွက် အရေးကြီးလှသော ပထဝီနိုင်ငံရေးအကြပ်အတည်းကြီးကို ကျော်လွှားရန်အတွက် ဒီမိုကရေစီအရေးကို အသက်နဲ့လဲပြီး အသီးသီးတိုက်ပွဲ၀င်နေကြပါသည်။ ယူကရိန်းပြည်သူထုနှင့်အတူ အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာအဖွဲ့အစည်းများ၊ နိုင်ငံများက ခိုင်ခိုင်မာမာ ရပ်တည်ပြီး ကူညီပံ့ပိုးပေးသကဲ့သို့ မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုကြီးကိုလည်း သက်ဆိုင်ရာအဖွဲ့အစည်းများ၊ နိုင်ငံများက ခိုင်ခိုင်မာမာရပ်တည်ပြီး တစ်ကမ္ဘာလုံးဒီမိုကရေစီအရေးအတွက် အရေးကြီးလှသော ဤတော်လှန်‌ရေးကို အမြန်ဆုံးအောင်မြင်ရန်အတွက် ကူညီဆောင်ရွက်ပေးကြပါရန် အရေးကြီးလှပါသည်။ ဆရာကြီးဦး၀င်းတင်၏အိပ်မက်များ အမြန်ဆုံးအကောင်အထည်ဖော်ရန်အတွက် အရေးတော်ပုံမုချအောင်ရမည်။..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of International Cooperation Myanmar
2023-04-21
Date of entry/update: 2023-04-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Thai Government Aids Junta’s Persecution of Opposition
Description: "(New York) – Thai immigration officials forcibly returned three Myanmar opposition activists to Myanmar, putting them at grave risk of persecution and other abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. Myanmar junta authorities should immediately reveal the whereabouts of the activists – Thiha, 38, Htet Nay Win, 31, and Saw Phyo Lay, 26 – and any charges against them. On April 1, 2023, Thai authorities arrested the three members of the opposition group Lion Battalion Commando Column in the border town of Mae Sot in Tak province on illegal entry charges. On April 4, Thai immigration officials handed them over to a junta-aligned Border Guard Force in Myawaddy township in Karen State, Myanmar. “Thai officials colluded with the Myanmar junta by unlawfully returning these three opposition activists, whose lives and freedom are threatened,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Thai authorities disregarded the grave dangers the men face in Myanmar.” Myanmar media reported that the Border Guard Force troops shot and wounded the men when they tried to escape. Informed sources said the men were later handed over to junta security forces. The Thai government has increasingly collaborated with Myanmar’s junta and aligned forces to harass, arrest, and forcibly return asylum seekers, including members of opposition groups who have fled to Thailand since the February 2021 military coup. On March 22, 2023, Thai authorities raided 40 buildings in Mae Sot used by members of the anti-junta People’s Defense Forces and asylum seekers from Myanmar. Since the coup, the Myanmar junta has carried out a nationwide campaign of mass killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and indiscriminate attacks that amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes. Given the junta’s widespread human rights violations, forcible returns of asylum seekers and refugees to Myanmar violate the international legal principle of nonrefoulement, which prohibits countries from returning anyone to a country where they face a real risk of persecution, torture, or other serious harm. Even though Thailand is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, it is bound to the principle of nonrefoulement under customary international law. In addition, Thailand has ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Thailand has incorporated the provisions of both treaties into its newly enacted Act on Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance. The law prohibits actions to deport or extradite a person to another country where there are substantial grounds for believing that they would be in danger of being tortured or forcibly disappeared. “Thai and Myanmar authorities appear to have cut a deal that puts asylum seekers at grave risk,” Pearson said. “The United Nations and concerned governments should publicly press Thailand to end these serious violations of international law and demand that Myanmar immediately account for the three deported opposition activists.”..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch (USA)
2023-04-12
Date of entry/update: 2023-04-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Key Event Details Location of Incident: Lanmadaw township (လမ်းမတော်မြို့နယ်), Yangon (ရန်ကုန်မြို့) [16.777583, 96.138917] Date/Time of Incident: 8 March 2021 Alleged Perpetrator(s) and/or Involvement: Lon Htein (specific unit not identified) Myanmar military personnel (specific units not identified) Summary of Investigation: At approximately 2300 on 8 March, activists in Lanmadaw seized two vehicles that were part of a convoy they believed to be undercover military. The two vehicles – a car and a lorry carrying a bulldozer – were found to contain several guns and military clothing. A few hours after the incident, footage verified by Myanmar Witness shows men in police and military fatigues returning to the area; they go from building to building and detain at least 13, and possibly as many as 30 men. Myanmar Witness has verified 15 separate videos and images and has reconstructed the sequence of events that occurred in Lanmadaw. It is not known what happened to the men after they were detained. Executive Summary Following the 1 February 2021 Coup, Myanmar’s State Administration Council (SAC) has stripped away due process and fair trial rights to detain thousands of protestors, activists and human rights defenders. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that the vast majority of these deprivations of liberty were carried out without respect for the rule of law or in accordance with international human rights standards, therefore constituting arbitrary and unlawful detention. This series of case studies documents four separate incidents in Yankin, Tamwe, North Okkalapa and Lanmadaw in late February and early March 2021. Three of the reports cover mass detentions of protestors, while the other examines a case of mass detention of community members, following an incident involving alleged undercover military officers in the same area. This report covers the mass arrests of people in Lanmadaw during the early hours of 9 March 2021. The police raided the area after local people detained five men whom they believed to be undercover military. The two vehicles which the activists apprehended – a car and a lorry carrying a bulldozer – were found to contain several guns and military uniforms Myanmar Witness has identified as belonging to the Myanmar military’s Engineers Corp. A few hours after the incident, footage verified by Myanmar Witness shows men in police and military fatigues returning to the area; they go from building to building and detain at least 13, and possibly as many as 30 men. These examples of mass detentions are being released to mark two years passing since their occurrence; however, they are by no means exhaustive. Myanmar Witness continues to monitor the deprivation of civilian liberties. Introduction On the night of 8 March, at approximately 2300, activists in Lanmadaw seized two vehicles – a car and a lorry carrying a bulldozer – which they believed were part of an undercover military convoy. The locals reported that the two vehicles contained several guns and military clothing. Following this, Myanmar Witness has verified a series of events which culminated in police and military personnel moving into the area early in the morning of 9 March. They arrested at least 15 men, however social media users claim that the number was as high as 30. The investigation - a chronological walkthrough Incidents at night are challenging to verify – images are often dark and chronolocation is not possible due to the lack of shadows. Despite this, Myanmar Witness has been able to verify 15 separate videos and images and has reconstructed the sequence of events that occurred in Lanmadaw, culminating in the arrests of at least 13 individuals. ~2330: A 15-minute Facebook live-stream, geolocated by Myanmar Witness, was shot shortly after the vehicles were stopped (the link has since been removed, however this content was archived by Myanmar Witness). The timestamp on the live video says 2340; however, the live stream post appears as an hour-long clip with the same footage looped. While this reduces confidence in the timestamp, it does fit with accounts from individual social media posts and reporting. The clip shows a crowd of around 50-100 people gathered at the crossroads of Anawrahta Road and Wa Dan Street. At the start of the video, a grey car is stopped on the south side of the junction and is being inspected by members of the crowd. The crowd shine phone lights into the car, lighting up the backseat, where weapons and other material can be seen wrapped in a white plastic sheet. On the north side of the junction, a large truck towing a bulldozer is parked. At the 00:44 minute mark in the live stream, it appears the individuals inside the truck try to escape; the doors open and the crowd then run towards the truck and then north up the street, apparently in pursuit of the truck’s occupants. At the 02:17 minute mark, a man who had remained in the truck is seen being restrained by several civilians next to the vehicle. At 02:55, another man is escorted back from the street to the north. The detained men are then escorted west along the street, while the filmer returns to the grey car. At the 06:00 minute mark, the video shows a man being questioned for several minutes by members of the crowd. The same man is visible at the beginning of the footage (00:10) when a member of the crowd has their arm around him. He tells the crowd he has purchased weapons from a shop nearby, but accepts they will detain him until the morning. The video shows the crowd continuing to inspect the vehicle, and gives a close-up of the car’s number plate. At around the 10:00 minute mark, the man being questioned is also led west along Anawrahta Road, and the filmer then walks to an assembled crowd at the top of 3rd Street where 4-5 men can be seen on their knees with their hands tied behind their back at the 12:10 minute mark. The filmer then moves down 3rd Street with other members of the crowd, panning back to the detained men. Photos posted to social media and verified by Myanmar Witness corroborate the events in the video, showing the five men ‘detained’ by the activists, as well as the vehicles and materiel recovered from the grey car. Another set of images posted to Facebook shows the items and a uniform found at the scene bearing a distinctive insignia, which Myanmar Witness identified as belonging to the Engineers Corp of the Myanmar military. In another image posted on social media (VKontakte), the insignia is shown with writing underneath that reads: “စစ်အင်ဂျင်နီယာ ညွှန်ကြားရေးမှူးရုံး”, which translates as “Military Engineering Administration Office”. This also provides an explanation as to why the suspects were driving a truck with a bulldozer on a trailer. ~0030: According to social media posts from individual accounts, an hour later at around 0030 on 9 March, police and military returned to the area and went from building to building, arresting civilians. Photos and videos posted on social media at the time can be geolocated to 2nd and 3rd Streets, Lanmadaw. ~0041: A video posted to Facebook at 0041 local time shows approximately 15 police officers at the top of 2nd Street, filmed from the south-side of Anawrahta Road (Figure 5 Top Left). Shots are audible in the video but do not appear to be coming from the police in frame. ~0110: Images and videos released on social media provide multiple angles of the police and military on 2nd and 3rd street. For example, a video posted to Twitter at 0110 local time, shows men in police and military uniform breaking down a barricade before entering the street, firing as they walk down the road (Figure 5 Top Right). Police and several men in military fatigues can be seen at the top of the street (Figure 5 Bottom Left and Bottom Right). Figure 5: [Top Left] Capture (01:48) showing police at the top of 2nd Street. The footage was posted at 0041 (source: link has since been removed, but Myanmar Witness archived it). [Top Right] Capture (00:37) showing police and military moving down 2nd Street (source: redacted due to privacy concerns). [Bottom Left] Capture (00:18) of a video shows a group of police arriving at 2nd Street (source: redacted due to privacy concerns). [Bottom Right] Capture (00:11) shows a second video angle of the police (source: redacted due to privacy concerns). ~0114: A photo posted to Twitter and timestamped at 0114 shows five men lying on the ground face down with their hands behind their back (Figure 6). While the photo is difficult to geolocate from the tight angle, the vehicles match those seen briefly in the 15-minute Facebook live stream analysed above, and the videos of police arriving at the end of 2nd Street (Figure 5 Bottom). As a result, Myanmar Witness was able to geolocate these events to the north end of 3rd Street. Figure 6: [Top] Photo showing men detained. Military-uniformed men can be seen in the background (Source: Twitter). [Bottom Left] Capture (12:20) from the Facebook Live Video showing white vehicle with black band (source: the link has since been removed, however this content was archived by Myanmar Witness). [Bottom Right] Capture (13:34) from the Facebook Live Video showing the rear of a black saloon (source: the link has since been removed, however this content was archived by Myanmar Witness). ~0116: A second photo released in the same Twitter post, timestamped at 0116, shows another group of men lined up with their hands behind their heads. The dark image is difficult to geolocate, even after brightening with photo-editing software. The width of the street and parking is consistent with 3rd Street and the vehicles are possible matches with those seen at the top of 3rd Street in the Facebook live stream. The timestamp is also consistent with the previous image. While Myanmar Witness cannot verify with absolute confidence, it is likely that the image was taken near the north end of 3rd Street. Figure 7: [Left] Image posted on twitter (source: Twitter user). [Right] Capture (13:39) from the Facebook Livestream showing a possible match for the vehicle near the top of 3rd Street (source: the link has since been removed, however this content was archived by Myanmar Witness). Additional footage posted on social media provides two more angles of these men being marched along Anawrahta Road. One, shot from the south side, shows at least 13 men being marched along the street. A second short video from the north shows the same group being taken towards waiting trucks, which were out of shot in the first video. From the movements of the group, we can confirm that the two clips are shot seconds apart. It is not known what happened to these men after they were detained. Figure 8: [Top] Capture (00:03) of a video showing men being marched along Anawrahta Road. [Bottom] Capture (00:01) of a video showing another angle of the detained men being led to the waiting trucks. (source redacted due to privacy concerns). Attribution to the Lon Htein (Riot Police) and Myanmar military By analysing the uniform of the officers involved in this event, Myanmar Witness was able to identify them as members of the Lon Htein (Riot Security Forces) by the red scarves tied around their necks. Due to the darkness and limited imagery, Myanmar Witness was unable to determine which battalion. The Lon Htein are renowned for their brutality and Myanmar Witness has reported on their activity within the Police and Harassment series. Conclusion and future monitoring This chronological reconstruction of events shows the lead up to, and detention of, at least 13 individuals following a police raid in Lanmadaw. It is not known what happened to the men after they were detained. This series of case studies documents a number of early incidents involving violence against protestors and the deprivation of liberty of those who opposed the coup. As these case studies show, in the months following the coup, sound grenades, teargas, and live ammunition have been used on protestors and hundreds were detained. Two years have passed since these events occurred in Yankin, Tamwe, North Okkalapa and Lanmadaw, and the military continues to crackdown on dissent. Myanmar Witness will continue to monitor the deprivation of civil liberties in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: Myanmar Witness
2023-03-14
Date of entry/update: 2023-03-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Description: "In early February, four members of an anti-junta group in the Myanmar city of Mandalay said they received a secret, one-page, handwritten note spirited out of a prison that details two days of clashes and beatings of female political prisoners. The note, received by the "Anti-Junta Forces Coordination Committee - Mandalay" and since seen by Reuters, provides the first detailed account of a crackdown on defiant female prisoners inside Mandalay's Obo prison that left scores of women injured, according to six activists and lawyers who work with political prisoners. Two family members of prison inmates contacted the anti-junta group after being told by prison authorities that they couldn't send food and packages to relatives, the four anti-junta group members said. The group started looking into the matter and, within days, received the note, the four members said. Two lawyers, two family members of inmates and the human rights minister from Myanmar's exiled parallel civilian government confirmed the information contained in the note. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the note or the details it contains. A spokesman for Myanmar's military government that has ruled since seizing power in 2021 and two prison department officers did not answer repeated calls over two days from Reuters seeking comment. The junta has previously denied holding political prisoners, saying people in jail broke the law and were sentenced after due legal process. Human rights organizations have frequently criticized the hearings as kangaroo courts. Inside the prison, which rights activists say houses some 2,000 political inmates including 330 women, an altercation between an inmate and a prison official on Feb. 3 led to around 150 male prison guards arriving with slingshots, batons and bamboo sticks, the note, written in Burmese, said. "During that incident, more than 100 female political prisoners were seriously injured including a broken arm, eye injuries and facial bruises," the note said. The following day, some female prisoners and prison guards faced off again, leading to another bout of violent clashes, according to the note and the lawyers, activists and family members who spoke to Reuters. They said they obtained the information from around a dozen people, including prison wardens, medical staff and inmates. Serious injuries All four activists declined to reveal exactly how the note was smuggled out, citing risk to individuals involved in the process and fearful that such routes to leak information from inside the prison may be blocked by authorities. The activists and lawyers said the note, and the details of the clashes on Feb. 3-4 they pieced together from conversations with prison staff and others, afforded a rare insight into what they described as harsh conditions faced by thousands of prisoners across Myanmar under military rule, including women, who are often given limited food and medicines. The activists, lawyers and family members interviewed by Reuters asked not to be identified for fear of repercussions as they are working inside Myanmar. In the second week of February, the parallel civilian government said in a social media post that 150 male guards at Obo prison had "violently beaten up" women inmates, supporting the version of events that the activists, lawyers and family members separately provided to Reuters. Of the 100 female inmates injured in the clashes, all aged between 20 and 35, 21 were seriously injured, including six who were hit in the head, according to activists and lawyers. The smuggled note did not specify injuries or provide such detailed figures. Myanmar's jails were inundated by new prisoners in 2021 after the junta seized power from the elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering a wave of protests that has morphed into a guerrilla resistance movement. Accused by local and international rights activists of rampant abuses in its response, the junta has said that it has a duty to ensure peace and security, and that it is carrying out a legitimate campaign against “terrorists”. The junta has imprisoned around 16,000 people, more than 3,000 of them women, as of Feb. 28, according to the non-profit Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. 'They used men' to guard women Aung Myo Min, the human rights minister in Myanmar's exiled parallel civilian government, said Obo prison authorities had violated prison rules by using male guards to handle female inmates. "As these people are women prisoners, they have to be handled by women prison guards. But they used men,” he told Reuters, echoing similar allegations made separately by activists and lawyers. Male guards cannot enter dormitories housing female inmates without the presence of women guards and female inmates cannot be physically beaten, according to a copy of a nationwide prison rule book published in 1992 seen by Reuters. Reuters could not independently verify if there were any female guards present during the incidents on Feb. 3-4 or if the rule book remains current. "They used excessive force," Aung Myo Min said, adding that his ministry had investigated the violence at Obo prison. He declined to explain how the investigation was conducted and offered no evidence to support the allegation. The anti-junta group and two Mandalay-based lawyers who work with political prisoners said those involved in the violence were also denied medical care. "They refused to give medicines to the injured prisoners after beating them severely. We had to use under-the-table methods to be able to send medicine," one lawyer said. Reuters could not independently verify that information. After the violence, 72 female political prisoners were isolated from other inmates at Obo and dozens were transferred to other jails without their families being notified, according to three activists, two lawyers and two family members..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK) via "VOA" (Washington, D.C)
2023-03-10
Date of entry/update: 2023-03-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The people of Burma have been suffering greatly for many decades under the brutality of the junta. Human rights should not be violated by anyone under any circumstances. For that reason, we present these videos about documenting human rights violations to encourage the emergence of Citizen Human Rights Documenters who can systematically collect and record strong, accurate evidence of human rights violations with the aim to establish justice, rehabilitate victims, and put an end to the cycle of impunity in Burma. In this second video, we will talk about why we do human rights documentation and what data to collect when human rights violations occur in our communities..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2023-03-09
Date of entry/update: 2023-03-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Myanmar’s military has arrested around 200 people in Hpakant township this month.
Description: "Army troops have arrested seven people who were using the internet in a tea shop in Myanmar’s northernmost Kachin state as the military tightens its curfew on a township with a strong ethnic militia presence. Around 20 soldiers entered the shop on Tuesday night and started beating the owner, his wife and daughter, and four people who were drinking tea there. All seven were taken into custody, according to a Hpakant town resident who didn’t want to be named for fear of reprisals. “The shop was about to close when the troops came in a car and arrested them,” said the local. “Someone told them the daughter was sharing political posts on Facebook.” The local said the family who owned the Shu Daung Thit Tea Shop were Soe Naing; his wife Nan Kyin; and their daughter Shoon Lae Soe. The four customers have not been identified. He told RFA the family had been selling tea in Hpakant for almost 30 years and described them as honest people. He said he didn’t know where the troops had taken them. It’s believed the raid was sparked by fighting between junta troops and Kachin Independence Army joint forces, which broke out the previous morning near a police station in Hpakant. Locals said a 40-year-old woman called Khin Ma and her 10-year-old daughter, Moe Pwint Phyu, were hit by bullets during the battle, although it's not clear which side fired them. “Both mother and daughter’s injuries are not serious,” said a woman who also declined to be named. “It would be better if they were treated in Myitkyina [township’s] hospital but they had to go to the Hpakant hospital as they were afraid of fighting on the way.” The local said the junta had been firing heavy artillery on Hpakant town in recent weeks and arresting many civilians. Hpakant is a center for gold and jade production in Myanmar and home to many businesspeople, traders and miners. It has also attracted a lot of Chinese investors who are believed to pay “taxes” to the ethnic Kachin militia in order to operate mines safely. The junta issued a curfew in Hpakant town shortly after it staged a coup in Feb. 2021 and has started enforcing it strictly this year. RFA data show that troops arrested nearly 200 civilians in the town and nearby villages this month and are still holding 40 of them. RFA called Win Ye Tun, the junta spokesman for Kachin state seeking comments on the arrest but no one answered..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
2023-03-09
Date of entry/update: 2023-03-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "JAKARTA — Parliamentarians in Southeast Asia continue to face risk of reprisal simply for exercising their mandate or expressing their political opinions, according to the latest annual Parliamentarians At Risk report from ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), launched today in Jakarta. “The increasing risks, both physical and otherwise, faced by parliamentarians in the region are totally unacceptable and a matter of the utmost concern. Parliamentarians are the representatives of the people and their safety and freedom reflect the health of the democracies in which they work. We call on ASEAN, as well as ASEAN member states, to implement sufficient protections for them and put pressure on those governments that are arbitrarily and unjustly persecuting their lawmakers,” said Mercy Barends,member of the Indonesian House of Representatives and APHR Chair. The year 2022 saw a worsening trend for parliamentarians at risk in the region, particularly in Myanmar, where MPs face increasing dangers in the aftermath of the 1 February 2021 coup d’état. One lawmaker, Kyaw Myo Min, was tortured to death in detention and a former lawmaker, Phyo Zeya Thaw, was executed together with three political prisoners in Myanmar. The number of parliamentarians detained across Southeast Asia remains high at 85, with 84 in Myanmar and former senator Leila de Lima in the Philippines. “Even Myanmar MPs who have managed to take refuge in neighboring countries such as Thailand remain in a very precarious situation. Dozens of them are living in towns along the Thai-Myanmar border and find themselves constantly harassed by the police as undocumented migrants, in constant fear of being detained or, even worse, be repatriated to their country, where they would face arrest, likely torture or even worse, at the hands of the junta,” said Charles Santiago, former member of the Malaysian Parliament, and APHR Co-Chair. Outside of Myanmar, particularly in Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, cases of physical attacks remain rare, but governments often resort to politically motivated charges against opposition parliamentarians. Reprisals and threats are not only of a judicial nature. Parliamentarians also face online harassment, and being the victims of both disinformation campaigns as well as hate speech. In Cambodia, the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen has conducted a series of mass trials and convicted more than 100 members and supporters of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), including a number of former lawmakers in absentia. Political persecution and intimidation by the government against members and supporters of the opposition parties, human rights defenders, land rights and environment protection activists, and journalists are expected to continue escalating in the lead up to the next general election, expected to be held in July 2023. “Hun Sen and his party have been slowly building a one-party dictatorship over the years. The process has been so slow that few have noticed, but the signs are unmistakably clear and have resulted in an almost totalitarian state. The international community must hold Hun Sen’s government to account for its widespread human rights violations and ensure the opposition parties and their candidates are able to contest in the 2023 general election in a free and fair environment with a level playing field before it is too late,” said Kasit Piromya, former Thai Foreign Minister and APHR Board Member. Meanwhile, in Malaysia and the Philippines, online disinformation and hate speech against MPs continue to be widespread. Opposition parliamentarians in both the Philippines and Thailand also often face judicial harassment through the use of overly broad legislation, while the continued existence of draconian laws such as the Sedition Act and the Communication and Multimedia Act in Malaysia remain a threat that hangs over the heads of potential government critics. “The use of laws as weapons against politicians is nothing but a perversion of the rule of law, one of the cornerstones of a democracy. In several countries across Southeast Asia, laws and courts are used as instruments of those in power, rather than what they should be: instruments to prevent or stop abuses. It is necessary to hold those governments that abuse their power to account and make them understand that they are not above the law,” said Mu Sochua, former member of parliament from Cambodia and APHR Board Member..."
Source/publisher: ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights
2023-03-04
Date of entry/update: 2023-03-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 3.88 MB
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Sub-title: Brutal punishment against political prisoners is typical in post-coup Myanmar, critics say.
Description: "Guards injured more than 80 political prisoners at a prison in central Myanmar after an argument turned violent, an incident which observers say is typical in the prison system since the junta took control of the country in a coup more than two years ago. The incident occurred on Feb. 4 at Mandalay’s Obo Prison while a group of inmates, all female, were in line to get hot water, and some of the women began arguing with the guards. “That’s when the prison guards came in and beat them. It’s said that the guards who came in and beat included some male staff too,” a family member of one of the prisoners told Radio Free Asia’s Burmese Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “And then the prisoners were punished with solitary confinement. … But I don’t know if [my family member] was among the ones sent to solitary. This is all I know for now. Their news doesn't spread much these days,” the family member said. Since the junta ousted Myanmar’s democratically elected government in Feb. 2021, it began filling the country’s prisons with pro-democracy activists who were opposed to the coup. Reports have surfaced that these political prisoners are routinely beaten, sent to solitary confinement, transferred to prisons far away from their families, tortured, or even killed in an effort to silence them and dissuade others from resisting junta rule. In the Feb. 4 incident, the guards employed rubber and wooden batons and slingshots on the crowd. Collectively, the women suffered two lacerated ears, six skull injuries, a broken hand, an eye injury, three slingshot impacts near the eyes, and around 70 milder slingshot injuries, the shadow National Unity Government’s Ministry of Women, Youth and Children Affairs said in a statement on Feb. 15. According to that statement, 42 of the injured inmates were sent to another prison building, two were sent to solitary confinement, and another 40 were sent to separated cells. Additionally, the prisoners may not receive visits from their families for one month. RFA contacted Naing Win, the junta spokesman for the prison department, to find out about the situation at Obo Prison, but he did not respond. Malice against activists These types of human rights violations against political prisoners are typical of the junta because they hold malice against those who support democracy, Aung Myo Min, the shadow government’s human rights minister told RFA. “Political prisoners are those who bravely stand for rights and democracy in the fight against the military junta. That’s why they were specifically targeted,” he said. “It’s not just the military officers who arrest them, but the prison officials and staff also hate them because they think that the political prisoners are an extra burden for them. As a result, [they] continue to get tortured and suffer unjust and brutal punishments.” The Obo prison incident was one of several examples of prison violence in this year alone. Two inmates were killed and 70 others were injured on Jan. 6 at Pathein Prison in the Ayeyarwady region on Jan. 6. In the second week of January, about 700 inmates at Yangon’s Insein Prison were suddenly transferred to other prisons. On Jan. 25, two Insein inmates were sent to solitary confinement for reporting problems to prison officials, their relatives and other sources close to them told RFA. The oppression that inmates suffer is invisible to the public and the international community, an activist who started an inmate advocacy group called “Let’s Send Things to Prisoners,” told RFA. “I must say that these incidents should never happen whether inside or outside prisons. But since the prisoners are in [authorities’] hands, our words have no effect on them,” the activist said on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “It looks like [inmates] have to endure whatever pain [authorities] inflict on them. The activist called on the shadow government and other diplomatic officials to work together to make the rest of the world aware of the situation in Myanmar’s prisons. “Many people are being unfairly tortured in prisons without the people knowing it,” the activist said. The prison guards should worry that they could one day be found guilty of crimes against the inmates under their charge, Kyaw Win, the executive director of the U.K.-based Burma Human Rights Network, told RFA. “I’d like to warn the prison authorities, officials, and staff that their personal records are out, and the people know who they are,” he said. “The military generals and officers will just save themselves in the end. They will not care about these low level staff. That’s why these people should see the dangers they are creating for themselves.” The junta-administered Myanmar National Human Rights Commission released a report on Feb. 2 based on interviews with hundreds of prisoners nationwide, that stated allegations of human rights violations were being seriously investigated, but the report did not specifically mention that any violations were found. An official of the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said that the military intentionally commits human rights violations against its imprisoned political opponents. “Those who allowed, ordered and personally committed such violations and torture will definitely receive punishment for their crimes one day,” the official said. “We hear incidents of such torture happening everywhere and I want to say that those who commit those cruelties will definitely pay for their crimes.” As of Tuesday the junta has arrested 19,810 people since the beginning of the coup, 15,953 of whom are currently detained, including those who have been sentenced, according to the group’s statistics..."
Source/publisher: "RFA Burmese"
2023-02-21
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: A handwritten letter from inside the prison describes a two-day assault on more than 70 women using metal batons and tasers
Description: "Several women incarcerated on politically motivated charges in Mandalay’s Obo Prison have been injured in recent physical assaults by guards, according to sources in contact with the inmates. A Mandalay-based youth activist shared with Myanmar Now parts of a handwritten eyewitness account from inside the prison detailing the beatings and when they occurred. Titled “Oppressed Prisoners,” it was delivered to him through covert channels, and described a crackdown on detainees in two women’s wards that was perpetrated on February 3 and 4. “[The letter says] that the male prison authorities charged into the ward and beat over 70 female political prisoners. They were also allegedly hit with slingshots,” he explained. The activist said that the document also included a list of the prisoners who had been beaten and injured. Among those subjected to the assaults was 20-year-old San Lin May, who was arrested in December 2021 after being accused of funding an urban guerrilla force. On February 3, she was convicted in a junta court of violating Section 50 of the Counterterrorism Law and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The day after her sentencing, a source close to San Lin May’s family said that guards attacked inmates in her ward following a dispute between detainees and the prison authorities. They were reportedly armed with wooden and iron batons to which tasers had been attached. During the episode of violence, her ear was at least partially cut off. “They were all beaten indiscriminately… San Lin May was simply caught in the crossfire of the conflict,” the source said, adding that her wound had required five stitches. “We heard that the injury was serious, and we’re all deathly worried because we have not been able to make direct contact with [the prisoners].” Another woman identified as having been beaten that day was Po Pyae Thu, a restaurant owner known for her philanthropy work and serving a lengthy sentence after being convicted by the military council of multiple politically motivated charges. “It worried us a lot to see her name on the list,” a friend of Po Pyae Thu said. “It’s even worse because we have not heard any updates on her condition, nor have we had direct contact with her.” A woman released from Obo Prison three months ago told Myanmar Now that the facility’s authorities treated political prisoners with “extreme hostility, out of spite” and that other criminal convicts were also encouraged to take part in the abuse. “The worst thing I saw in prison was that [the guards] appointed several prisoners as administrators to ‘govern’ other prisoners: criminals that were sent to prison for dealing drugs or gambling were ruling over and torturing political prisoners,” she said. “On my first day in prison, I was beaten with a belt by another prisoner for absolutely no reason at all.” A Mandalay lawyer assisting political prisoners in Obo told Myanmar Now in October last year that the inmates were “losing their rights every day,” noting that after being subjected to violence, they were typically denied medical care. The All Burma Federation of Student Unions released a statement last August which also revealed that Obo’s political prisoners were being starved, beaten, and even electrocuted. In June, at least two inmates of the prison were beaten to death with metal batons during a crackdown that also left at least 13 others injured, according to two lawyers. Similar assaults were reported over the following months by released prisoners, including an attack on August 8—the anniversary of the start of Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement—that resulted in at least one death. Myanmar Now is unable to independently verify the incidents. The military has used health restrictions associated with the Covid-19 pandemic to deny visits to political prisoners, making it difficult to gather further information on the ongoing rights violations. Nearly 14,000 people were still in junta prisons at the time of reporting, more than 3,000 of whom were women, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners..."
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Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2023-02-14
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "A Myanmar junta court sentenced jailed former student leader and democracy activist Ko Lin Htet Naing, aka Ko James, to an additional five years in prison on a terrorism charge on Monday. According to his wife Ma Phyoe Phyoe Aung, who is herself a prominent activist and former political prisoner, Botahtaung District Court handed down the latest sentence under Article 52 (b) of the Counterterrorism Law. Ko James was earlier sentenced to three years’ imprisonment under incitement charges. With Monday’s sentence, he now faces a total of eight years’ imprisonment. “It is an unjust and false charge and sentence using repressive laws; it is a terrorism charge against an activist for defending democracy,” Ma Phyoe Phyoe Aung wrote on her Facebook account. Junta forces arrested Ko James on June 18 in Yangon and he has been detained in Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison since then. His mother was killed on Oct. 19 in a blast at the prison’s parcel drop-off office while delivering food for her detained son. The junta denied his request to attend her funeral. According to rights group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, more than 19,000 people including elected leaders, lawmakers, activists, protesters and striking civil servants have been arrested since the coup, mainly for anti-junta activism. Of those arrested, 15,177 remain behind bars..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2023-02-14
Date of entry/update: 2023-02-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "AAPP issues this statement to bring attention to the gross human rights violations perpetrated by the military junta. On the evening of January 5, 2023, a dispute occurred between prison authorities and political prisoners. Eight political prisoners were called out and brought from the compound. Their hands were tied behind their back, and they were savagely kicked and beaten with batons. Following brutal torture several political prisoners were severely injured some of whom are in critical condition, and at least one political prisoner was killed. AAPP strongly condemns these severe crimes of extrajudicial murder and torture in a crackdown. In Burma since the coup, rule of law and any judicial system have collapsed. The pillars of military rule – judges, soldiers, police, and prison guards are being used by the junta to abuse and torture political prisoners. In fact, in every prison, political prisoners are intentionally tortured and violated. On January 5, 2022, there was an altercation between political prisoners and prison guards. Prison personnel used excess force to crackdown with brutal beatings on political prisoners who were severely beaten with hands tied behind their back. One political prisoner was killed, and several critically injured. Looking at these events, the torture and extrajudicial killings in Pathein Prison are crimes under the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT). Junta authorities including Pathein Prison Superintendent Nay Min Htet, Pathein City Surveillance Police Station Officer Myint Aung, and Police Station Officer Kyaw Oo, are responsible for Pathein Prison. Those who ordered crimes be perpetrated in Pathein Prison, as well as all other relevant prison officers who personally carried out the violations are responsible and must be held to account. AAPP condemns these extrajudicial killings and brutal torture which occur daily under military rule and will strive to achieve justice for all political prisoners whose rights have been violated. We urge the international community to provide protection from the daily perpetrated human rights violations, extrajudicial killings and brutal torture. The junta is committing international crimes, but such cases cannot be handled within the domestic judiciary system – international judiciary mechanisms must hence take action for accountability..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2023-01-08
Date of entry/update: 2023-01-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "ပုသိမ်အကျဉ်းထောင်အတွင်း ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်၊ ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၅ ရက်နေ့ ညပိုင်းတွင် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများနှင့် ထောင် အာဏာပိုင်တို့ကြား ပြဿနာြဖစ်ခဲ့ပြီး ထောင်အာဏာပိုင်တို့ဘက်မှ လူကိုသေစေနိုင်သည့် လက်နက်များဖြင့် ပစ်ခတ်ခြင်း၊ အသံဗုံးခွဲခြင်း၊ အုပ်စုလိုက်ဝိုင်းဝန်းရိုက်နှက်ခြင်း၊ လက်ပြန်ကြိုးတုပ်ပြီးအပြင်းအထန်ရိုက်နှက်ခြင်း တို့ကြောင့် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားအနည်းဆုံးတစ်ဦး သေဆုံးခဲ့ရပြီး နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားအများအပြား အပြင်း အထန် ဒဏ်ရာရရှိခဲ့ကြောင်း သတင်းရရှိခဲ့ပါသည်။ ထိုလုပ်ရပ်များသည် အကျဉ်းထောင်လုပ်ထုံးလုပ်နည်း များကို ကျော်လွန်၍ လုပ်ဆောင်ခြင်းဖြစ်ပြီး မတရား ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုနှင့် ဥပဒေမဲ့သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းဖြစ်သည့် ကြီးမား သောရာဇဝတ်မှုကိုပါကျူးလွန်လိုက်သည့်လုပ်ရပ် ဖြစ်သည်ဟု နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေး အသင်း (အေအေပီပီ)မှ ထုတ်ပြန်လိုက်သည်။ ၁။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုအာဏာသိမ်းပြီးချိန်မှစပြီး တရားဥပဒေ စိုးမိုးရေးပျက်ပြယ်သွားခဲ့ပြီး အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု ၏ အမာခံထောက်တိုင်များဖြစ်ကြသည့် တရားသူကြီးများ၊ စစ်သားများ၊ ရဲများ၊ အကျဉ်း ဦးစီးဝန်ထမ်းများက စစ်အုပ်စုအလိုကျ မတရားဖမ်းဆီးခြင်း၊ ဥပဒေမဲ့မတရားပြစ်ဒဏ်များချမှတ်ခြင်း၊ အကျဉ်း ထောင်အသီးသီးတွင်လည်း နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများအား ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ရှိရှိဖြင့် ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခြင်း၊ အနိုင်ကျင့်စော်ကားခြင်းများ ပြုလုပ်လျက်ရှိနေပါသည်။ ၂။ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်၊ ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၅ ရက်နေ့ မှစတင်ခဲ့သောပုသိမ်ထောင်ဖြစ်စဉ်တွင် အင်အားအလွန်အကျွံသုံး၍ အသက်သေဆုံးစေသည့် ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှု ပြုမူဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်းကြောင့် အနည်းဆုံး နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား တစ်ဦးသေဆုံးပြီး နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား အများအပြား ဒဏ်ရာပြင်းထန်စွာရရှိခဲ့သည်။ အဆိုပါဖြစ်စဉ်သည် အကျဉ်းထောင်တွင်း မတရား ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခြင်း နှင့် ဥပဒေမဲ့မတရားသတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းကို ကျူးလွန်လိုက် ကြောင်း ထင်ရှားနေပါသည်။ ထိုသို့ကျူးလွန်မှုသည် ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုနှင့် အခြားရက်စက်၍ လူမဆန်သော သို့မဟုတ် လူ့ဂုဏ်သိက္ခာကျဆင်းစေသော ဆက်ဆံမှု သို့မဟုတ် ပြစ်ဒဏ်ပေးမှုဆန့်ကျင်ရေး နိုင်ငံတကာ သဘောတူစာချုပ် (UNCAT) ကို အတိအလင်းချိုးဖောက်ရာရောက်သည်။ ၃။ အဆိုပါဖြစ်စဉ်နှင့် ပတ်သက်ပြီး ပုသိမ်အကျဉ်းထောင် တာဝန်ခံအရာရှိ နေမင်းထက်၊ ပုသိမ်မြို့မရဲစခန်မှူး မြင့်အောင်၊ နယ်မြေစခန်းမှူး ကျော်ဦးတို့အပါအဝင် အမိန့်ပေးစေခိုင်းသူများ၊ သက်ဆိုင်ရာထောင်အာဏာပိုင်များ၊ ကိုယ်တိုင်ကျူးလွန်သူများအားလုံးအနေဖြင့် တာဝန်ခံရမည်ဖြစ်သည်။ ၄။ ထိုကဲ့သို့ ဥပဒေမဲ့မတရားသတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းနှင့် မတရားညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခြင်းများအပေါ် မိမိတို့ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်း သားများကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်အသင်း အနေဖြင့် ပြင်းပြင်းထန်ထန်ကန့်ကွက်ရှုံ့ချလိုက်ပြီး မတရားကျူးလွန်ခံခဲ့ရ သည့် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများအားလုံးအတွက် တရားမျှတမှုရရှိနိုင်ရေး အစွမ်းကုန် ကြိုးစားအကောင်အထည် ဖော်ဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည် ဖြစ်သည်။ ၅။ နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုင်းအဝိုင်းအနေဖြင့်လည်း ပုသိမ်ထောင်ဖြစ်စဉ်အပါအဝင် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံအတွင်း နေ့စဉ်ကြုံတွေ့ နေရသည့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုများ၊ ဥပဒေမဲ့သတ်ဖြတ်မှုများနှင့် မတရားညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုများသည် နိုင်ငံတကာလူ့အခွင့်အရေးဆိုင်ရာဥပဒေများအား ကျူးလွန်နေခြင်းဖြစ်ပြီး အဆိုပါကျူးလွန်မှုများကို ပြည်တွင်း တရားစီရင်ရေးကဏ္ဍအတွင်း ကိုင်တွယ်အရေးယူနိုင်ခြင်းမရှိသည့်အတွက် နိုင်ငံတကာတရားစီရင်ရေးယန္တရားတွင် အရေးယူနိုင်ရေး ဝိုင်းဝန်းကြိုးပမ်းပေးကြပါရန် အလေးအနက်တိုက်တွန်းလိုက်ပါသည်။ ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုနှင့်အခြားသောရက်စက်၍လူမဆန်သည့်(သို့)လူ့ဂုဏ်သိက္ခာညှိုးနွမ်းစေသည့်ပြုမှုဆက်ဆံမှု (သို့) ပြစ်ဒဏ်ပေးမှုတို့ကိုတားမြစ်ဆန့်ကျင်သည့်သဘောတူစာချုပ် (UNCAT) အပိုဒ်(၂) (၂) စစ်မက်ဖြစ်ပွားသည့်ကာလ(သို့)စစ်ဘေးအန္တရာယ်ကျရောက်နိုင်သည့်ကာလ၊ ပြည်တွင်း နိုင်ငံရေး မငြိမ်သက်မှု(သို့) အခြားသောအများပြည်သူအပေါ် သက်ရောက်သည့် အရေးပေါ်အခြေအနေ တို့အပြင် မည်သည့် အခြေအနေမျိုးတွင်မဆို ညှင်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှု ပြုလုပ်ကျူးလွန်ခွင့်မပြု။ အပိုဒ်(၂)(၃) အထက်အရာရှိ(သို့) အစိုးရအရာရှိများထံမှအမိန့်တစ်ရပ်ရပ်အား နှိပ်စက်မှုပြုလုပ်ကျူးလွန်ရန် အကြောင်းပြချက်အဖြစ် သုံးခွင့်မပြု။..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2023-01-08
Date of entry/update: 2023-01-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Description: "၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်၊ ဇန်နဝါရီလ (၅) ရက်နေ့နှင့် (၆) ရက်နေ့တွင်စတင်ပြီး ပုသိမ်ထောင် အတွင်းတွင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု လက်အောက်ခံ ထောင်ဝန်ထမ်းများ၏ အကြမ်းဖက်မှု ကြောင့် မတရား ဖမ်းဆီး အကျဉ်းချခံနေရသည့် ပြည်သူတစ်ဦး အသက်ဆုံးရှုံးခဲ့ရပြီး၊ (၇၀) ဦးခန့် ဒဏ်ရာရရှိခဲ့ကာ၊ တစ်ဦးပျောက်ဆုံးနေဆဲဖြစ်ကြောင်း အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးဆိုင်ရာ ဝန်ကြီး ဌာနက ကောက်ယူထားသည့် အချက်အလက်များအရ သိရှိရသည်။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးဆိုင်ရာဝန်ကြီးဌာန အနေဖြင့် ယခုဖြစ်စဉ် အပါအဝင် အကျဉ်းထောင်အတွင်း အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများ၊ ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုများ နှင့် မတရား သတ်ဖြတ်မှုများနှင့် ပတ်သက်ပြီး မှတ်တမ်းတင်ထိန်းသိမ်းလျက် သက်ဆိုင်ရာ ကုလသမဂ္ဂ အပါ အဝင် နိုင်ငံတကာအဖွဲ့အစည်းများထံ ပေးပို့ခြင်းအပါအဝင် နည်းလမ်းအမျိုးမျိုးဖြင့် တရားမျှတမှု ဖော်ဆောင်ရန် ကြိုးပမ်းဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည် ဖြစ်သည်။ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးဆိုင်ရာဝန်ကြီးဌာန အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Human Rights
2023-01-08
Date of entry/update: 2023-01-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "On January 4, the junta announced they would release a total of 7,012 prisoners in “accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure, Section 401, Sub-Section (1)”. AAPP has been monitoring the situation and understands that around 300 political prisoners from at least (19) prisons were released. Throughout the day, AAPP has been able to confirm the release of 223 identified political prisoners. The exact identities and total figures of the prisoners released remain to be verified, but AAPP will continue to monitor and document these releases as more information becomes available. Since the February 1, 2021, military coup and the emergence of the Spring Revolution, a total of (2707) people, pro-democracy activists and other civilians have been killed through military crackdowns following pro-democracy movements. Since the coup, a total of (13,272) people are currently under detention, (1911) of whom are serving sentences. There are a total of (100) post-coup death row prisoners as of January 6, 2023. (121) people have been sentenced in absentia, of whom (42) have been sentenced to death. This makes a total of (142) people who have been sentenced to death. (24) people have been released on bail and (3696) people have already been released. These are the numbers verified by AAPP. The actual numbers are likely much higher. We will continue to update accordingly. According to information gathered today, on the night of January 5 political prisoners were severely tortured by prison staff and many police forces in Pathein Prison. The beatings are still continuing today. It is reported that a political prisoner Win Min Thant (aka Mae Gyi) was killed from the assault, though the death is still being confirmed. 8 political prisoners are reportedly receiving medical treatments in the new Pathein Hospital and are in life-threatening condition. Such kind of torture is a serious and blatent violation of human rights. Among the prisoners released from Myeik Prison in Tanintharyi Region on January 4 was Dr. Min Htet Paing, a political prisoner who was sentenced to serve 3 years in prison under Penal Code Section 505 A. However, another charge was then made against Dr. Min Htet Paing and he was rearrested in front of the prison entrance. He was accused of writing false information on social media to create unrest and “terrorism”, and arrested in early April 2021 on Kyay Nan Taing Bridge in Pathaung Village Tract, Myeik Township. 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 offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against, CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent, please submit to the following addresses: [email protected] [email protected].....ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၄ ရက်နေ့တွင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုမှ အကျဉ်းသား၊အကျဉ်းသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၇၀၁၂) အား ရာဇဝတ်ကျင့်ထုံး ဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၄၀၁၊ ပုဒ်မခွဲ (၁) အရ ပြန်လည် လွှတ်ပေးမည်ဟု ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာခဲ့သည်။ AAPP မှ အဆိုပါ အကျဉ်းထောင်လွှတ်ပေးမှု အခြေအနေနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ စောင့်ကြည့်မှတ်တမ်းတင်လျက်ရှိရာ လက်ရှိအချိန်ထိရရှိထား သော အချက်အလက်များအရ အကျဉ်းထောင် (၁၉) ခုထက်မနည်းမှ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား (၃၀၀) ဝန်းကျင် လွတ်မြောက်လာကြောင်းသိရှိရသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ ကူညီစောင့် ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း (AAPP) မှ အဆိုပါ အကျဉ်းသားလွှတ်ပေးမှုဖြစ်စဉ်မှ ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်လာသော နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား (၂၂၃) ဦးကို ယနေ့အထိ မှတ်တမ်းပြုနိုင်ခဲ့သည်။ လွတ်မြောက်လာသူဦးရေအတိအကျနှင့် အမည်စာရင်းမှာ ချက်ချင်းရရှိရန် လက်လှမ်းမမီနိုင် သည့်အတွက် အတည်ပြုရန် လိုအပ်နေဆဲဖြစ်ပြီး အတည်ပြုနိုင်သည့် အမည်စာရင်းများကို ဆက်လက်ဖော်ပြပေးသွား ပါမည်။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ ၁ ရက်နေ့ မတရားစစ်အာဏာလုမှုဖြစ်စဉ်ကို ဆန့်ကျင်ခဲ့ကြသော ဒီမိုကရေစီရေးလှုပ်ရှားသူများ နှင့် ပြည်သူများ၏ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးကာလအတွင်း ကျဆုံးခဲ့ရသူ စုစုပေါင်းမှာ (၂၇၀၇) ဦး ရှိခဲ့ပြီဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် အာဏာသိမ်းချိန်မှ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ် ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၆ ရက်နေ့ထိတိုင် ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခြင်းခံထားရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၃၂၇၂) ဦးရှိပြီး ၎င်းတို့အနက်မှ (၁၉၁၁) ဦးမှာ ထောင်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံထားရသည်။ ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၆ ရက်၊ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်အထိ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးနှင့်ဆက်စပ်၍ သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခံထားရပြီး အကျဉ်းထောင်များတွင် ထိန်းသိမ်းခံနေရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၀၀) ဦးရှိပြီဖြစ်သည်။ မျက်ကွယ်သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံထားရသူ (၄၂) ဦး အပါအဝင် (၁၂၁) ဦးမှာ မျက်ကွယ်ပြစ်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံ ထားရသည်။ ထိုကြောင့် သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခံထားရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၄၂) ဦးရှိပြီဖြစ်သည်။ အာမခံဖြင့် လွတ်မြောက်သူ (၂၄) ဦးရှိပြီး၊ ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်လာသူဦးရေမှာ (၃၆၉၆) ဦး ရှိသည်။ ဖော်ပြပါ ကိန်းဂဏန်းအရေအတွက်များသည် AAPP မှ ကောက်ယူရရှိထားသည့် အရေအတွက်ဖြစ်ပြီး မြေပြင်တွင် ဖြစ်ပွားနေသည့်အချက်အလက်နှင့် ကိန်းဂဏန်းအရေအတွက်များမှာ ယခုထက်ပိုမိုများပြားနိုင်ပါသည်။ အချက်အလက်များကို ထပ်မံကောက်ယူရရှိလာပါက ဆက်လက်ထည့်သွင်းဖော်ပြသွားပါမည်။ ယနေ့ရရှိသော အချက်အလက်များအရ ယမန်နေ့ (ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၅ ရက်) ညအချိန်တွင် ပုသိမ်အကျဉ်းထောင်၌ ထောင်ဝန်ထမ်းနှင့် ရဲအင်အားအများအပြားမှ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများအား ပြင်းထန်စွာ ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခဲ့သည်ဟု ကြားသိရသည်။ ယနေ့တွင်လည်း ဆက်လက်၍ ရိုက်နှက်နေဆဲဖြစ်ပြီး နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားဖြစ်သူ ဝင်းမင်းထက်(ခ) မဲကြီးမှာ ရိုက်နှက်ခံရမှုကြောင့် သေဆုံးသွားကြောင်း ကြားသိရပြီး ထိုသေဆုံးမှုအား ဆက်လက်အတည်ပြုနေဆဲဖြစ်သည်။ ၈ ဦး မှာ ပုသိမ်ဆေးရုံအသစ်တွင် ဆေးကုသမှုခံနေရသည်ဟု သိရှိရသည်။ ဆေးကုသမှုခံနေရသူများမှာလည်း အသက်အန္တရာယ် စိုးရိမ်ဖွယ်ရာ အခြေအနေဖြစ်ပေါ်နေသည်။ ထိုကဲ့သို့ ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခြင်းသည် အလွန်ပြင်းထန် သော လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်မှုဖြစ်သည်။ ထို့ပြင် ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၄ ရက်နေ့၌ တနင်္သာရီတိုင်း၊ မြိတ်အကျဉ်းထောင်မှ လွတ်‌မြောက်လာသူများတွင် ရာဇသတ်ကြီးဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၅၀၅-က ဖြင့် ထောင်ဒဏ် သုံးနှစ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံထားရသော နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား ဒေါက်တာ မင်းထက်ပိုင် ပါဝင်ခဲ့သော်လည်း ၎င်းအား အခြားအမှုကပ်ပြီး ထောင်ဘူးဝရှေ့၌ ပြန်လည် ဖမ်းဆီးခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရှိရသည်။ ဒေါက်တာမင်းထက်ပိုင်သည် လူမှုကွန်ရက်စာမျက်နှာပေါ်တွင် မဟုတ်မမှန်ရေးသားပြီး ဆူပူအကြမ်းဖက်မှု များဖြစ်ပေါ်လာစေရန် စည်းရုံးလှုံ့ဆော်သည်ဟု စွပ်စွဲခြင်းခံရကာ မြိတ်မြို့နယ်၊ ပသောင်းကျေးရွာအုပ်စု၊ ကြေးနန်းတိုင် တံတား၌ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် ဧပြီလဆန်းပိုင်းတွင် ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရသည်။ အရပ်ဘက်အဖွဲ့အစည်းမှ ခေါင်းဆောင်များ၊ အရပ်သားများ၊ တက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူများ၊ သတင်းသမားများ၊ CDM လှုပ်ရှားနေသည့် ဝန်ထမ်းများစသည့် နယ်ပယ်အသီးသီးမှ မည်သူမဆို ဖမ်းဆီး၊ ထိန်းသိမ်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်းခံထားရ ခြင်းများနှင့် နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးကာလအတွင်း ကျဆုံးသွားသူများ၏ အချက်အလက်များကို သိရှိပါက အောက်ပါလိပ်စာ များသို့ ဆက်သွယ်၍ အသိပေး၊ အကြောင်းကြားနိုင်ပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် ကျဆုံးအချက်အလက်များကို ဖော်ပြပါ [email protected] အီးမေးလ်သို့လည်းကောင်း၊ အဖမ်းအဆီးအချက်အလက်များကို [email protected] အီးမေးလ်သို့လည်းကောင်း တိုက်ရိုက်ပေးပို့၍ ဆက်သွယ်အကြောင်းကြားနိုင်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2023-01-06
Date of entry/update: 2023-01-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
more
Description: "On January 4, the junta announced they would release a total of 7,012 prisoners in “accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure, Section 401, Sub-Section (1)”. AAPP has been monitoring the situation and understands that around 300 political prisoners from at least (19) prisons were released. Throughout the day, AAPP has been able to confirm the release of 193 identified political prisoners. The exact identities and total figures of the prisoners released remain to be verified, but AAPP will continue to monitor and document these releases as more information becomes available. Since the February 1, 2021, military coup and the emergence of the Spring Revolution, a total of (2702) people, pro-democracy activists and other civilians have been killed through military crackdowns following pro-democracy movements. Since the coup, a total of (13,284) people are currently under detention, (1912) of whom are serving sentences. There are a total of (100) post-coup death row prisoners as of January 5, 2023. (121) people have been sentenced in absentia, of whom (42) have been sentenced to death. This makes a total of (142) people who have been sentenced to death. (24) people have been released on bail and (3667) people have already been released. These are the numbers verified by AAPP. The actual numbers are likely much higher. We will continue to update accordingly. According to information gathered today, on January 3, at around 7:30 PM, the junta fired heavy artillery, despite no clash occurring, at Demoso Township in Kayah State. One of the artillery shells exploded on a hut near Daw Tangoo Village, resulting in the death of an internally displaced woman called Soe Myar, who was struck in the thigh. On January 3, Aung Kyawl, NLD Township Secretary of Wakema Township in Ayeyarwady Region, was sentenced to serve 10 years imprisonment with hard labour. Aung Kwyal was charged under Counter-Terrorism Law Section 50 (j) and sentenced by the Myaungmya Prison Special Court in Ayeyarwady Region. He is over 70 years old and already spent over a year under detainment. 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 offences. If you receive any information about detentions of, or charges against, CSO leaders, activists, journalists, CDM workers, other civilians and fallen heroes in relation to the military and police crackdown on dissent, please submit to the following addresses: [email protected] [email protected].....ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၄ ရက်နေ့တွင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုမှ အကျဉ်းသား၊အကျဉ်းသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၇၀၁၂) အား ရာဇဝတ်ကျင့်ထုံး ဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၄၀၁၊ ပုဒ်မခွဲ (၁) အရ ပြန်လည် လွှတ်ပေးမည်ဟု ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာခဲ့သည်။ AAPP မှ အဆိုပါ အကျဉ်းထောင်လွှတ်ပေးမှု အခြေအနေနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ စောင့်ကြည့်မှတ်တမ်းတင်လျက်ရှိရာ လက်ရှိအချိန်ထိရရှိထား သော အချက်အလက်များအရ အကျဉ်းထောင် (၁၉) ခုထက်မနည်းမှ နိုင်ငံရေး အကျဉ်းသား (၃၀၀) ဝန်းကျင် လွတ်မြောက်လာကြောင်းသိရှိရသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ ကူညီစောင့် ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း (AAPP) မှ အဆိုပါ အကျဉ်းသားလွှတ်ပေးမှုဖြစ်စဉ်မှ ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်လာသော နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား (၁၉၃) ဦးကို ယနေ့အထိ မှတ်တမ်းပြုနိုင်ခဲ့သည်။ လွတ်မြောက်လာသူဦးရေအတိအကျနှင့် အမည်စာရင်းမှာ ချက်ချင်းရရှိရန် လက်လှမ်းမမီနိုင် သည့်အတွက် အတည်ပြုရန် လိုအပ်နေဆဲဖြစ်ပြီး အတည်ပြုနိုင်သည့် အမည်စာရင်းများကို ဆက်လက်ဖော်ပြပေးသွား ပါမည်။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ ၁ ရက်နေ့ မတရားစစ်အာဏာလုမှုဖြစ်စဉ်ကို ဆန့်ကျင်ခဲ့ကြသော ဒီမိုကရေစီရေးလှုပ်ရှားသူများ နှင့် ပြည်သူများ၏ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးကာလအတွင်း ကျဆုံးခဲ့ရသူ စုစုပေါင်းမှာ (၂၇၀၂) ဦး ရှိခဲ့ပြီဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် အာဏာသိမ်းချိန်မှ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ် ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၅ ရက်နေ့ထိတိုင် ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခြင်းခံထားရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၃၂၈၄) ဦးရှိပြီး ၎င်းတို့အနက်မှ (၁၉၁၂) ဦးမှာ ထောင်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံထားရသည်။ ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၅ ရက်၊ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်အထိ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးနှင့်ဆက်စပ်၍ သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခံထားရပြီး အကျဉ်းထောင်များတွင် ထိန်းသိမ်းခံနေရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၀၀) ဦးရှိပြီဖြစ်သည်။ မျက်ကွယ်သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံထားရသူ (၄၂) ဦး အပါအဝင် (၁၂၁) ဦးမှာ မျက်ကွယ်ပြစ်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံ ထားရသည်။ ထိုကြောင့် သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခံထားရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၄၂) ဦးရှိပြီဖြစ်သည်။ အာမခံဖြင့် လွတ်မြောက်သူ (၂၄) ဦးရှိပြီး၊ ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်လာသူဦးရေမှာ (၃၆၆၇) ဦး ရှိသည်။ ဖော်ပြပါ ကိန်းဂဏန်းအရေအတွက်များသည် AAPP မှ ကောက်ယူရရှိထားသည့် အရေအတွက်ဖြစ်ပြီး မြေပြင်တွင် ဖြစ်ပွားနေသည့်အချက်အလက်နှင့် ကိန်းဂဏန်းအရေအတွက်များမှာ ယခုထက်ပိုမိုများပြားနိုင်ပါသည်။ အချက်အလက်များကို ထပ်မံကောက်ယူရရှိလာပါက ဆက်လက်ထည့်သွင်းဖော်ပြသွားပါမည်။ ယနေ့ရရှိသော အချက်အလက်များအရ ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၃ ရက်နေ့၊ ည ၇ နာရီခွဲခန့်အချိန်တွင် ကယားပြည်နယ်၊ ဒီးမော့ဆိုမြို့နယ်၌ တိုက်ပွဲဖြစ်ပွားခြင်းမရှိဘဲ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု၏တပ်မှ လက်နက်ကြီးဖြင့် ပစ်ခတ်ခဲ့ရာ အဆိုပါလက်နက်ကြီးကျည်မှာ ဒေါတငူးကျေးရွာအနီးရှိ တဲအိမ်ပေါ်ကို ကျရောက်ပေါက်ကွဲခဲ့သောကြောင့် စစ်ရှောင် အမျိုးသမီးတစ်ဦးဖြစ်သူ စိုးမြာသည် ပေါင်ကို ထိမှန်ခဲ့ပြီး သေဆုံးခဲ့သည်။ ထို့ပြင် ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၃ ရက်နေ့တွင် ဧရာဝတီတိုင်း၊ မြောင်းမြအကျဉ်းထောင်တွင်းအထူးတရားရုံးမှ ဝါးခယ်မမြို့နယ် အမျိုးသားဒီမိုကရေစီအဖွဲ့ချုပ်၏ မြို့နယ်အတွင်းရေးမှူး ဦးအောင်ကြွယ်ကို အကြမ်းဖက်မှုတိုက်ဖျက်ရေးဥပဒေပုဒ်မ ၅၀(ည) ဖြင့် အလုပ်ကြမ်းနှင့် ထောင်ဒဏ် ၁၀ နှစ်စီ ချမှတ်ခဲ့သည်။ ဦးအောင်ကြွယ်သည် အသက် ၇၀ ကျော်အရွယ် ရှိပြီဖြစ်ပြီး တစ်နှစ်ကျော်ကြာဖမ်းဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရပြီးနောက် အမိန့်ချမှတ်ခံခဲ့ရခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။ အရပ်ဘက်အဖွဲ့အစည်းမှ ခေါင်းဆောင်များ၊ အရပ်သားများ၊ တက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူများ၊ သတင်းသမားများ၊ CDM လှုပ်ရှားနေသည့် ဝန်ထမ်းများစသည့် နယ်ပယ်အသီးသီးမှ မည်သူမဆို ဖမ်းဆီး၊ ထိန်းသိမ်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်းခံထားရ ခြင်းများနှင့် နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးကာလအတွင်း ကျဆုံးသွားသူများ၏ အချက်အလက်များကို သိရှိပါက အောက်ပါလိပ်စာ များသို့ ဆက်သွယ်၍ အသိပေး၊ အကြောင်းကြားနိုင်ပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် ကျဆုံးအချက်အလက်များကို ဖော်ပြပါ [email protected] အီးမေးလ်သို့လည်းကောင်း၊ အဖမ်းအဆီးအချက်အလက်များကို [email protected] အီးမေးလ်သို့လည်းကောင်း တိုက်ရိုက်ပေးပို့၍ ဆက်သွယ်အကြောင်းကြားနိုင်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2023-01-05
Date of entry/update: 2023-01-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "AAPP Secretary U Tate Naing said “the junta’s propaganda mouthpiece Myawaddy media today stated that 7,012 prisoners would be released. An illegal regime cannot announce an amnesty – since its coup the junta has announced several so-called amnesties to distract international attention. AAPP has been monitoring the situation and understands that over 200 political prisoners from at least (19) prisons were released today. We have so far confirmed 43 identities and will continue to monitor the situation. In fact, today on January 4, 2022 – an additional (22) political prisoners were arrested across the country but mostly in Sagaing” Since the February 1, 2021, military coup and the emergence of the Spring Revolution, a total of (2701) people, pro-democracy activists and other civilians have been killed through military crackdowns following pro-democracy movements. Since the coup, a total of (13,356) people are currently under detention, (1923) of whom are serving sentences. There are a total of (100) post-coup death row prisoners as of January 4, 2023. (121) people have been sentenced in absentia, of whom (42) have been sentenced to death. This makes a total of (142) people who have been sentenced to death. (24) people have been released on bail and (3517) people have already been released. These are the numbers verified by AAPP. The actual numbers are likely much higher. We will continue to update accordingly. According to information gathered today, on January 1, junta troops stationed in Htan Ma Kauk Village, Seikphyu Township, Magway Region indiscriminately fired into the village. A 12-year-old called, A Mu Mu Aung, was killed while gathering firewood on the hill to the southwest of the village. In addition, on January 3, Ashin Arsar Ya (aka Thabeik Khin) from Sangha Union Mandalay who was involved in anti-dictatorship protests in Mandalay City, was detained by the armed wing of the junta. He was arrested whilst carrying out a photo campaign at Kyauk Taw Gyi Pagoda, near the foot of Mandalay Mountain. 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] .....“အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုရဲ့ဝါဒဖြန့်သတင်းမီဒီယာတစ်ခုဖြစ်တဲ့ မြဝတီသတင်းဌာနကနေ ပြစ်ဒဏ်ကျခံနေရတဲ့ အကျဉ်းသား/အကျဉ်းသူ ၇၀၁၂ ဦးကို လွှတ်ပေးမယ်လို့ ဒီနေ့မှာ ထုတ်ပြန်ခဲ့ပါတယ်။ အကြမ်းဖက်အာဏာလု စစ်အုပ်စုအနေနဲ့ လွတ်ငြိမ်းချမ်းသာခွင့်ပေးဖို့ရာ တရားဝင်ဘာအခွင့်အာဏာမှမရှိနေပေမယ့် သူတို့အနေနဲ့ နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုင်းအဝိုင်းကို အာရုံလွှဲဖို့ရာအတွက် အမည်ခံလွတ်ငြိမ်းချမ်းသာခွင့်တွေကို အာဏာသိမ်းပြီးနောက်မှာ ပြုလုပ်နေပါတယ်။ AAPP က ဒီနေ့လွတ်မြောက်လာတဲ့ အခြေအနေနဲ့ပတ်သက်ပြီး စောင့်ကြည့်မှတ်တမ်း ပြုစုလျက်ရှိရာမှာ လက်ရှိအချိန်ထိ ရထားတဲ့အချက်အလက်တွေအရ အကျဉ်းထောင် (၁၉) ခုထက်မနည်းကနေ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား (၂၀၀) ကျော် လွတ်မြောက်လာတယ်လို့ သိထားရပါတယ်။ အဲ့ဒီထဲကမှ အမည်စာရင်းနဲ့တကွ မှတ်တမ်းကောက်ယူထားနိုင်သူဦးရေ (၄၃) ဦးရှိနေပြီး အချက်အလက်တွေကို ဆက်လက်ကောက်ယူနေဆဲပါ။ စစ်အုပ်စုက အကျဉ်းထောင်တွေကနေ အကျဉ်းသားတွေကိုလွှတ်ပေးနေတယ်လို့ ပြောပေမယ့်လည်း ဒီနေ့မှာ နိုင်ငံရေးအရ အဖမ်းခံရတဲ့သူ (၂၂) ဦးရှိနေပြီး အဲ့ဒီထဲက အများစုဟာ တိုက်ပွဲအရှိန် ပြင်းထန်နေတဲ့ စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းကပါ” ဟု နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ ကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း (AAPP) ၏ အတွင်းရေးမှူးဖြစ်သူ ဦးတိတ်နိုင်မှ ပြောကြားခဲ့သည်။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ ၁ ရက်နေ့ မတရားစစ်အာဏာလုမှုဖြစ်စဉ်ကို ဆန့်ကျင်ခဲ့ကြသော ဒီမိုကရေစီရေးလှုပ်ရှားသူများ နှင့် ပြည်သူများ၏ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးကာလအတွင်း ကျဆုံးခဲ့ရသူ စုစုပေါင်းမှာ (၂၇၀၁) ဦး ရှိခဲ့ပြီဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် အာဏာသိမ်းချိန်မှ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ် ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၄ ရက်နေ့ထိတိုင် ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခြင်းခံထားရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၃၃၅၆) ဦးရှိပြီး ၎င်းတို့အနက်မှ (၁၉၂၃) ဦး မှာ ထောင်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံထားရသည်။ ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၄ ရက်၊ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်အထိ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးနှင့်ဆက်စပ်၍ သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခံထားရပြီး အကျဉ်းထောင်များတွင် ထိန်းသိမ်းခံနေရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၀၀) ဦးရှိပြီဖြစ်သည်။ မျက်ကွယ်သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံထားရသူ (၄၂) ဦး အပါအဝင် (၁၂၁) ဦးမှာ မျက်ကွယ်ပြစ်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံ ထားရသည်။ ထိုကြောင့် သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခံထားရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၄၂) ဦးရှိပြီဖြစ်သည်။ အာမခံဖြင့် လွတ်မြောက်သူ (၂၄) ဦးရှိပြီး၊ ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်လာသူဦးရေမှာ (၃၅၁၇) ဦး ရှိသည်။ ဖော်ပြပါ ကိန်းဂဏန်းအရေအတွက်များသည် AAPP မှ ကောက်ယူရရှိထားသည့် အရေအတွက်ဖြစ်ပြီး မြေပြင်တွင် ဖြစ်ပွားနေသည့်အချက်အလက်နှင့် ကိန်းဂဏန်းအရေအတွက်များမှာ ယခုထက်ပိုမိုများပြားနိုင်ပါသည်။ အချက်အလက် များကို ထပ်မံကောက်ယူရရှိလာပါက ဆက်လက်ထည့်သွင်းဖော်ပြသွားပါမည်။ ယနေ့ရရှိသော အချက်အလက်များအရ ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် မကွေးတိုင်း၊ ဆိပ်ဖြူမြို့နယ်၊ ထမ္မကောက်ကျေးရွာ၌ တပ်စွဲထားသော အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု၏တပ်မှ ရမ်းသန်းပစ်ခတ်ခြင်းကြောင့် ရွာ၏ အနောက်တောင်ဘက်ရှိ တောင်ကုန်းပေါ်တွင် ထင်းခွေနေသော အသက် ၁၂ နှစ်အရွယ် ဧမူမူအောင်သည် ကျည်ထိမှန်ပြီး သေဆုံးခဲ့သည်။ ထို့ပြင် မန္တလေးမြို့တွင် စစ်အာဏာရှင်ဆန့်ကျင်သော ဆန္ဒပြလှုပ်ရှားမှု၌ ပါဝင်သည့် သံဃသမဂ္ဂ (မန္တလေး) မှ အရှင်အာစာရ (ခ) သပိတ်ခင်ကို အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု၏တပ်မှ ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၃ ရက်နေ့၌ ဖမ်းဆီးခဲ့သည်။ အရှင်အာစာရသည် မန္တလေးတောင်ခြေအနီးရှိ ကျောက်တော်ကြီးဘုရားတွင် ဓာတ်ပုံကမ်ပိန်းပြုလုပ်နေစဥ် ဖမ်းဆီး ခြင်း ခံခဲ့ရသည်။ အရပ်ဘက်အဖွဲ့အစည်းမှ ခေါင်းဆောင်များ၊ အရပ်သားများ၊ တက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူများ၊ သတင်းသမားများ၊ CDM လှုပ်ရှားနေသည့် ဝန်ထမ်းများစသည့် နယ်ပယ်အသီးသီးမှ မည်သူမဆို ဖမ်းဆီး၊ ထိန်းသိမ်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်းခံထားရ ခြင်းများနှင့် နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးကာလအတွင်း ကျဆုံးသွားသူများ၏ အချက်အလက်များကို သိရှိပါက အောက်ပါလိပ်စာ များသို့ ဆက်သွယ်၍ အသိပေး၊ အကြောင်းကြားနိုင်ပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် ကျဆုံးအချက်အလက်များကို ဖော်ပြပါ [email protected] အီးမေးလ်သို့လည်းကောင်း၊ အဖမ်းအဆီးအချက်အလက်များကို [email protected] အီးမေးလ်သို့လည်းကောင်း တိုက်ရိုက်ပေးပို့၍ ဆက်သွယ်အကြောင်းကြားနိုင်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2023-01-04
Date of entry/update: 2023-01-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar’s military regime has released the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) government’s Minister of Religious Affairs and Culture, Thura U Aung Ko, philanthropist and writer Daw Than Myint Aung and ex-NLD information officer, writer U Htin Lin Oo, along with some detained journalists, as part of the junta’s prisoner amnesty to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from the UK. The junta announced on Wednesday that 7,021 prisoners were freed from jails across the country. It is not yet clear how many political prisoners were among those released. Family members said that former Brigadier General Thura U Aung Ko was released from Yangon’s Insein Prison on Tuesday night. The 75-year-old was arrested after the February 2021 coup and charged with alleged corruption. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison with labor in March 2021. Relatives of Daw Than Myint Aung and U Htin Lin Oo were waiting at the gate of Insein Prison on Wednesday morning to welcome them. The pair were released Wednesday afternoon. Daw Than Myint Aung was a member of the Yangon City Development Committee during the NLD’s time in power. She was arrested on the first day of the military takeover and sentenced to three years in prison for incitement. Former NLD information officer U Htin Lin Oo faced the same charge as Daw Than Myint Aung, and was also sentenced to three years by the Insein Prison Court. U Tun Kyi, the head of a political prisoners group, said that Thura U Aung Ko is known to be in poor health and that his release was a cynical ploy by the regime. “The junta released the political prisoner hostages for its own political gain,” said U Tun Kyi, referring to international pressure on the regime to free political prisoners. On Wednesday, Kyaw Zay Ya, the chief reporter of Mawkun Magazine, was released from Daik-U prison in Bago Region, but was then detained again by police for unknown reasons. Family members of other detained journalists were eagerly awaiting the release of their relatives. The husband of Thuzar, a journalist arrested in September 2021 and sentenced to two years in prison under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code for spreading false news, said that she had been freed. “I am now on my way to East Dagon Police Station to get her,” said her husband Ko Ye Ko. Another journalist Sai Ko Ko Tun, a former reporter from the now defunct 7 Days News, was released from Dawei prison, too. As of Tuesday, some 16,862 people have been detained by the junta since the coup, of whom 3,463 have been released, according to the rights group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP). The AAPP’s joint secretary Ko Bo Kyi said that with many political prisoners still locked up, the regime’s amnesty does not herald any meaningful changes for Myanmar. “That will happen only when Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, U Win Myint and all the other political prisoners are freed,” he added. Both Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U Win Myint were arrested on the first day of the coup. Former State Counselor Suu Kyi has been sentenced to a total of 33 years in prison, while ousted President U Win Myint has been given 12 years by the regime..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2023-01-04
Date of entry/update: 2023-01-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Since the February 1, 2021, military coup and the emergence of the Spring Revolution, a total of (2692) people, pro-democracy activists and other civilians have been killed through military crackdowns following pro-democracy movements. Since the coup, a total of (13,375) people are currently under detention, (1947) of whom are serving sentences. There are a total of (100) post-coup death row prisoners as of January 3, 2023. (121) people have been sentenced in absentia, of whom (42) have been sentenced to death. This makes a total of (142) people who have been sentenced to death. (24) people have been released on bail and (3463) people have already been released. These are the numbers verified by AAPP. The actual numbers are likely much higher. We will continue to update accordingly. On December 29, Nang Twal Tar Oo, Joint-Secretary of Yangon University of Education Students’ Union (ABFSU), and Yu Yu Mon, a former member of Yangon Institute of Economics Students’ Union and current Vice-Chief Statistician of Nay Pyi Taw Central Statistical Organization, were each sentenced to serve 10 years imprisonment. Yu Yu Mon had joined CDM and the pair were sentenced by Mon State Mawlamyine District Court under Counter-Terrorism Law Section 50 (j). They were arrested while evading capture in Mawlamyine Town on June 9. On January 2, 2023, at around 9 AM, junta forces, stationed at Budalin Township in Sagaing Region, raided Shwe Taung Village in Budalin Township. The junta troops killed a couple of over 70-years-old. Military soldiers also detained a local called Nga Hmay for just wearing long pants, then tortured before killing him in a corn field outside 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].....၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ ၁ ရက်နေ့ မတရားစစ်အာဏာလုမှုဖြစ်စဉ်ကို ဆန့်ကျင်ခဲ့ကြသော ဒီမိုကရေစီရေးလှုပ်ရှားသူများ နှင့် ပြည်သူများ၏ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးကာလအတွင်း ကျဆုံးခဲ့ရသူ စုစုပေါင်းမှာ (၂၆၉၂) ဦး ရှိခဲ့ပြီဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် အာဏာသိမ်းချိန်မှ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ် ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၃ ရက်နေ့ထိတိုင် ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခြင်းခံထားရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၃၃၇၅) ဦးရှိပြီး ၎င်းတို့အနက်မှ (၁၉၄၇) ဦး မှာ ထောင်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံထားရသည်။ ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၃ ရက်၊ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်အထိ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးနှင့်ဆက်စပ်၍ သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခံထားရပြီး အကျဉ်းထောင်များတွင် ထိန်းသိမ်းခံနေရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၀၀) ဦးရှိပြီဖြစ်သည်။ မျက်ကွယ်သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံထားရသူ (၄၂) ဦး အပါအဝင် (၁၂၁) ဦးမှာ မျက်ကွယ်ပြစ်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံ ထားရသည်။ ထိုကြောင့် သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခံထားရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၄၂) ဦးရှိပြီဖြစ်သည်။ အာမခံဖြင့် လွတ်မြောက်သူ (၂၄) ဦးရှိပြီး၊ ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်လာသူဦးရေမှာ (၃၄၆၃) ဦး ရှိသည်။ ယနေ့ရရှိသောအချက်အလက်များအရ ဒီဇင်ဘာလ ၂၉ ရက်နေ့တွင် မွန်ပြည်နယ်၊ မော်လမြိုင်ခရိုင်တရားရုံးမှ ရန်ကုန်ပညာရေးတက္ကသိုလ်ကျောင်းသားများသမဂ္ဂ (ဗကသများအဖွဲ့ချုပ်)၏ တွဲဖက်အတွင်းရေးမှူး နန်းတွယ်တာဦးနှင့် ရန်ကုန်စီးပွားရေးတက္ကသိုလ်ကျောင်းသားသမဂ္ဂအဖွဲ့ဝင်ဟောင်း၊ အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေးလှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) ပြုလုပ်ထား သော နေပြည်တော် ဗဟိုစာရင်းအင်းအဖွဲ့၏ ဒု-စာရင်းအင်းမှူး မယုယုမွန်တို့ကို အကြမ်းဖက်မှုတိုက်ဖျက်ရေးဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၅၀ (ည) ဖြင့် ထောင်ဒဏ် ၁၀ နှစ်စီ ချမှတ်ခဲ့သည်။ ဇွန်လ ၉ ရက်နေ့တွင် မနန်းတွယ်တာဦးနှင့် မယုယုမွန်တို့သည် မော်လမြိုင်မြို့၌ တိမ်း‌ရှောင်နေစဉ် ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရသည်။ ထို့ပြင် ဒီဇင်ဘာလ ၃၀ ရက်နေ့တွင် ဧရာဝတီတိုင်း မအူပင်ခရိုင်ထောင်တွင်းအထူးတရားရုံးမှ မအူပင်နည်းပညာ တက္ကသိုလ်၏ နောက်ဆုံးနှစ်ကျောင်းသူ မရွှေခြူးဝိုင်းကို အကြမ်းဖက်မှုတိုက်ဖျက်ရေးဥပဒေပုဒ်မ ၅၀ (ည)ဖြင့် ထောင်ဒဏ် ဆယ်နှစ်ချမှတ်ခဲ့သည်။ မရွှေခြူးဝိုင်းသည် ဗကသများအဖွဲ့ချုပ် (မအူပင်) ၏ သတင်းနှင့် ပြန်ကြားရေး တာဝန်ခံ တစ်ဦး ဖြစ်ပြီး ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလတွင် ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရသည်။ ဖော်ပြပါ ကိန်းဂဏန်းအရေအတွက်များသည် AAPP မှ ကောက်ယူရရှိထားသည့် အရေအတွက်ဖြစ်ပြီး မြေပြင်တွင် ဖြစ်ပွားနေသည့်အချက်အလက်နှင့် ကိန်းဂဏန်းအရေအတွက်များမှာ ယခုထက်ပိုမိုများပြားနိုင်ပါသည်။ အချက်အလက် များကို ထပ်မံကောက်ယူရရှိလာပါက ဆက်လက်ထည့်သွင်းဖော်ပြသွားပါမည်။ အရပ်ဘက်အဖွဲ့အစည်းမှ ခေါင်းဆောင်များ၊ အရပ်သားများ၊ တက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူများ၊ သတင်းသမားများ၊ CDM လှုပ်ရှားနေသည့် ဝန်ထမ်းများစသည့် နယ်ပယ်အသီးသီးမှ မည်သူမဆို ဖမ်းဆီး၊ ထိန်းသိမ်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်းခံထားရ ခြင်းများနှင့် နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးကာလအတွင်း ကျဆုံးသွားသူများ၏ အချက်အလက်များကို သိရှိပါက အောက်ပါလိပ်စာ များသို့ ဆက်သွယ်၍ အသိပေး၊ အကြောင်းကြားနိုင်ပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် ကျဆုံးအချက်အလက်များကို ဖော်ပြပါ [email protected] အီးမေးလ်သို့လည်းကောင်း၊ အဖမ်းအဆီးအချက်အလက်များကို [email protected] အီးမေးလ်သို့လည်းကောင်း တိုက်ရိုက်ပေးပို့၍ ဆက်သွယ်အကြောင်းကြားနိုင်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2023-01-03
Date of entry/update: 2023-01-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Since the February 1, 2021, military coup and the emergence of the Spring Revolution, a total of (2689) people, pro-democracy activists and other civilians have been killed through military crackdowns following pro-democracy movements. Since the coup, a total of (13,300) people are currently under detention, (1940) of whom are serving sentences. There are a total of (100) post-coup death row prisoners as of January 2, 2023. (121) people have been sentenced in absentia, of whom (42) have been sentenced to death. This makes a total of (142) people who have been sentenced to death. (24) people have been released on bail and (3463) people have already been released. These are the numbers verified by AAPP. The actual numbers are likely much higher. We will continue to update accordingly. According to information gathered today, on December 30, an artillery shell fired by junta forces exploded in San Khar Village, Lone Khin Village Tract, Hpakant Township, Kachin State; injuring six locals. Kun Jar Naw was one of six injured locals and he died on arrival at the hospital. On December 30, Kaung Khant Kyaw, a primary school teacher of a high school branch in Htate Pote Kone Village, Myanaung Township, Ayeyarwady Region, was given a death sentence by a special court inside Hinthada Prison. He was charged under Section 51 (a) of the Counter-Terrorism Law and Section 302 (1)(c) of the Penal Code. In August 2022, Kaung Khant Kyaw had previously been sentenced to serve 5 years in prison under Section 50 (j) of the Counter-Terrorism Law. Kaung Khant Kyaw had taken part in the Civil Disobedience Movement and he was arrested in October 2021, on suspicion of being involved in the death of junta informant Win Nyunt Aung from Thabyay Kone 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].....၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီ ၁ ရက်နေ့ မတရားစစ်အာဏာလုမှုဖြစ်စဉ်ကို ဆန့်ကျင်ခဲ့ကြသော ဒီမိုကရေစီရေးလှုပ်ရှားသူများ နှင့် ပြည်သူများ၏ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးကာလအတွင်း ကျဆုံးခဲ့ရသူ စုစုပေါင်းမှာ (၂၆၈၉) ဦး ရှိခဲ့ပြီဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ် အာဏာသိမ်းချိန်မှ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ် ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၂ ရက်နေ့ထိတိုင် ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခြင်းခံထားရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၃၃၀၀) ဦးရှိပြီး ၎င်းတို့အနက်မှ (၁၉၄၀) ဦး မှာ ထောင်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံထားရသည်။ ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၂ ရက်၊ ၂၀၂၃ ခုနှစ်အထိ နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးနှင့်ဆက်စပ်၍ သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခံထားရပြီး အကျဉ်းထောင်များတွင် ထိန်းသိမ်းခံနေရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၀၀) ဦးရှိပြီဖြစ်သည်။ မျက်ကွယ်သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံထားရသူ (၄၂) ဦး အပါအဝင် (၁၂၁) ဦးမှာ မျက်ကွယ်ပြစ်ဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံ ထားရသည်။ ထိုကြောင့် သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခံထားရသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၁၄၂) ဦးရှိပြီဖြစ်သည်။ အာမခံဖြင့် လွတ်မြောက်သူ (၂၄) ဦးရှိပြီး၊ ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်လာသူဦးရေမှာ (၃၄၆၃) ဦး ရှိသည်။ ယနေ့ရရှိသောအချက်အလက်များအရ ဒီဇင်ဘာလ ၃၀ ရက်နေ့တွင် ကချင်ပြည်နယ်၊ ဖားကန့်မြို့နယ်၊ လုံးခင်း ကျေးရွာအုပ်စု၊ ဆန်ခါကျေးရွာအတွင်းကို အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုမှ ပစ်ခတ်သော လက်နက်ကြီးကျည် ကျရောက် ပေါက်ကွဲခဲ့သောကြောင့် အရပ်သားခြောက်ဦး ကျည်ထိမှန်ခဲ့သည်။ ကျည်ထိမှန်ခဲ့သော အရပ်သား ခြောက်ဦးအနက် တစ်ဦးဖြစ်သော ကွန်ဂျာနော်မှာ ဆေးရုံအရောက်၌ သေဆုံးခဲ့သည်။ ထို့ပြင် ဧရာဝတီတိုင်း၊ မြန်အောင်မြို့နယ်၊ ထိပ်ပုတ်ကုန်းကျေးရွာတွင်ရှိသည့် အထက်တန်းကျောင်းခွဲ၏ မူလတန်းပြ ကျောင်းဆရာတစ်ဦးဖြစ်သော ကိုကောင်းခန့်ကျော်ကို ဟင်္သာတအကျဥ်းထောင်တွင်း အထူးတရားရုံးမှ အကြမ်းဖက်မှု တိုက်ဖျက်ရေးဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၅၁ (က)၊ ရာဇသတ်ကြီးဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၃၀၂ (၁)(ဂ) တို့ဖြင့် ဒီဇင်ဘာလ ၃၀ ရက်နေ့တွင် သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခဲ့သည်။ ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ်၊ ဩဂုတ်လတွင် ကိုကောင်းခန့်ကျော်သည် အကြမ်းဖက်မှုတိုက်ဖျက်ရေးဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၅၀ (ည) ဖြင့် ထောင်ဒဏ် ငါးနှစ် ချမှတ်ခြင်းခံထားရပြီးဖြစ်သည်။ ကိုကောင်းခန့်ကျော်သည် အာဏာဖီဆန်ရေး လှုပ်ရှားမှု (CDM) တွင် ပါဝင်သူဖြစ်ပြီး သပြေကုန်းကျေးရွာမှ စစ်တပ်သတင်းပေး ဦးဝင်းညွန့်အောင် သတ်ဖြတ်ခံရမှု ဖြစ်စဥ်နှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ သံသယဖြင့် ၂၀၂၁ ခုနှစ်၊ အောက်တိုဘာလတွင် ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်းခံခဲ့ရသည်။ ဖော်ပြပါ ကိန်းဂဏန်းအရေအတွက်များသည် AAPP မှ ကောက်ယူရရှိထားသည့် အရေအတွက်ဖြစ်ပြီး မြေပြင်တွင် ဖြစ်ပွားနေသည့်အချက်အလက်နှင့် ကိန်းဂဏန်းအရေအတွက်များမှာ ယခုထက်ပိုမိုများပြားနိုင်ပါသည်။ အချက်အလက် များကို ထပ်မံကောက်ယူရရှိလာပါက ဆက်လက်ထည့်သွင်းဖော်ပြသွားပါမည်။ အရပ်ဘက်အဖွဲ့အစည်းမှ ခေါင်းဆောင်များ၊ အရပ်သားများ၊ တက်ကြွလှုပ်ရှားသူများ၊ သတင်းသမားများ၊ CDM လှုပ်ရှားနေသည့် ဝန်ထမ်းများစသည့် နယ်ပယ်အသီးသီးမှ မည်သူမဆို ဖမ်းဆီး၊ ထိန်းသိမ်း၊ တရားစွဲဆိုခြင်းခံထားရ ခြင်းများနှင့် နွေဦးတော်လှန်ရေးကာလအတွင်း ကျဆုံးသွားသူများ၏ အချက်အလက်များကို သိရှိပါက အောက်ပါလိပ်စာ များသို့ ဆက်သွယ်၍ အသိပေး၊ အကြောင်းကြားနိုင်ပါသည်။ ထို့ပြင် ကျဆုံးအချက်အလက်များကို ဖော်ပြပါ [email protected] အီးမေးလ်သို့လည်းကောင်း၊ အဖမ်းအဆီးအချက်အလက်များကို [email protected] အီးမေးလ်သို့လည်းကောင်း တိုက်ရိုက်ပေးပို့၍ ဆက်သွယ်အကြောင်းကြားနိုင်ပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2023-01-02
Date of entry/update: 2023-01-02
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Description: "Bangkok, December 5, 2022 – Myanmar authorities should immediately and unconditionally release journalist Myo San Soe and stop imprisoning members of the press on bogus terrorism charges, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. On November 30, a court inside Pyapon Prison, in the Ayeyarwady region, sentenced Myo San Soe, a freelance reporter who contributed to the local Delta News Agency and Ayeyarwaddy Times, to 15 years in prison on charges of violating Sections 50(j) and 52(a) of the Counter-Terrorism Law, according to news reports. Myo San Soe was convicted for contacting members of People’s Defense Forces, an array of insurgent groups that are fighting Myanmar’s military regime, according to those reports and an employee of the Delta News Agency who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal. He will serve his sentence at Pathein Prison, according to reports. “Myanmar journalist Myo San Soe’s harsh sentencing is the military regime’s latest outrageous crime against the free press,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar’s junta must stop equating journalism with terrorism and allow journalists to report on anti-military resistance groups without fear of legal harassment and imprisonment.” Authorities first arrested Myo San Soe in the Ayeyarwaddy region’s Pyapon township on August 29, 2021, the Delta News Agency employee told CPJ. Myo San Soe was doing charity work related to the COVID-19 pandemic when he was detained, according to a report, which CPJ reviewed, by the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners Burma, a local human rights organization. Authorities then allegedly found evidence of his contacts with the People’s Defense Forces on his phone, according to that report. Myo San Soe had covered the People’s Defense Forces before his arrest, the Delta News Agency employee said, adding that authorities had not contacted the outlet at the time of his detention. Authorities banned the Delta News Agency and filed anti-state charges against its top editors soon after the military seized power in a February 1, 2021, coup, forcing the news organization to relocate to a perceived safe area of Kayin state controlled by rebels, the employee told CPJ. Myo San Soe had stopped working as a Delta News Agency staff reporter by mid-2021 but continued to file news about the Ayeyarwaddy region as a freelancer, including a report published approximately one week before his arrest, the Delta News Agency employee told CPJ. The Myanmar Ministry of Information did not reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on Myo San Soe’s conviction, sentencing, and status in prison. Myanmar was the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists after China, with at least 26 behind bars on CPJ’s 2021 prison census. CPJ will release its 2022 prison census on December 14..."
Source/publisher: Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
2022-12-05
Date of entry/update: 2022-12-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Commute Sentences; End Capital Punishment
Description: "(New York) – The Myanmar military junta should immediately commute the death sentences recently handed down against 10 prisoners, Human Rights Watch and the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said today. The junta should impose a moratorium on the death penalty with the aim of abolishing capital punishment in the country. Death sentences for 10 people, including 7 university students, by military courts follow the executions of four political prisoners in July 2022 that resulted in broad international condemnation. All these convictions followed grossly unjust closed-door trials that fell far short of international fair trial standards. “Myanmar’s junta should immediately commute the sentences of all those facing the death penalty, a cruel punishment that most of the world rejects,” said Manny Maung, Myanmar researcher at Human Rights Watch. “For those governments that have hesitated to impose targeted sanctions against the junta for its long list of rights violations, the new death sentences should be a clear signal to take action now.” On November 30, a closed military court in Yangon handed down the death sentences for the seven students, all members of the Dagon University Students’ Union, under section 302 of Myanmar’s penal code. The tribunal convicted the students for involvement in a shooting that killed a former military officer in Yangon in April. Police arrested all seven in April shortly after the alleged shooting. The students are Khant Zin Win; Thura Maung Maung; Zaw Lin Naing; Thiha Htet Zaw; Hein Htet; Thet Paing Oo; and Khant Linn Maung Maung. A military court also sentenced Wai Zin Yan, Thu Htoo Aung, and Min Htet Thar to death under section 302 of the penal code for a separate incident in June, for allegedly shooting and killing a ward administrator in north Yangon on May 24, 2022. Myanmar’s secretive military tribunals have long shown complete disregard for basic human rights protections and failed to uphold international due process and fair trial standards. Those on trial before military tribunals face almost certain conviction regardless of the available evidence against them. Families, the public, and foreign diplomats have no access to trials. Convictions are frequently based on confessions obtained by torture and other ill-treatment, including frequent beatings. The new United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk, expressed alarm at the new death sentences in a December 2 statement: “By resorting to use death sentences as a political tool to crush opposition, the military confirms its disdain for the efforts by ASEAN and the international community at large to end violence and create the conditions for a political dialogue to lead Myanmar out of a human rights crisis created by the military.” Military tribunals in Myanmar have sentenced 138 people to death since the February 2021 military coup, including 41 in absentia. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and concerned governments should press the junta to immediately commute all death sentences and release all those wrongfully imprisoned. ASEAN member states and other concerned governments should press the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo and refer the country situation for Myanmar to the International Criminal Court. The July 25 executions were the first death sentences carried out in Myanmar in over 30 years. The men put to death were Phyo Zeya Thaw, 41; Kyaw Min Yu, known as “Ko Jimmy,” 53; Hla Myo Aung; and Aung Thura Zaw. A military tribunal sentenced Ko Jimmy and Phyo Zeya Thaw to death on January 21 under Myanmar’s overbroad Counterterrorism Law of 2014. Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw were convicted in April 2021 for allegedly killing a military informant. Human Rights Watch and the AAPP oppose the death penalty in all circumstances and have 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. “The Myanmar junta’s threats are aligned with military courts that have continually failed to protect any basic principles of fair trial process or to demonstrate independence and impartiality,” said Ko Bo Gyi, co-founder for the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. “Swift condemnation and concerted pressure and unified, targeted sanctions is what is necessary to end the junta’s violations.”..."
Source/publisher: Human Rights Watch (USA)
2022-12-05
Date of entry/update: 2022-12-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "(၁) စစ်ကိုင်းတိုင်းဒေသကြီး၊ တမူးမြို့တွင် PDF များအား သတ်ဖြတ်ခဲ့သည့် ဖြစ်ရပ်တစ်ခု၌ ပါဝင်ပတ်သက်ခဲ့သည်ဟု ယူဆရသူ အမျိုးသမီးတစ်ဦး ပစ်သတ်ခံခဲ့ရသည့် ဗွီဒီယိုဖိုင်တစ်ခု လူမှုကွန်ရက်ပေါ်တွင် ပြန့်နှံခဲ့သည်ကိုတွေ့ရှိရသည်။ အဆိုပါ ဗွီဒီယိုတွင် ပါဝင်သော လုပ်ရပ်သည် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၊ ကာကွယ်ရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာနက ချမှတ်ထားသည့် စစ်ဘက်ဆိုင်ရာ ကျင့်ဝတ်များနှင့် ဆန့်ကျင်သွေဖည်လျက်ရှိသည်။ (၂) အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအနေဖြင့် အဆိုပါဖြစ်စဉ်အသေးစိတ်နှင့် ဖြစ်စဉ်အတွင်း ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေး တပ်မတော်သားများ ပါဝင်ပတ်သက်ခြင်းရှိမရှိ သိရှိနိုင်ရန် စုံစမ်းစစ်ဆေးခြင်း လုပ်ငန်းများကို စစ်ဘက်ဆိုင်ရာ ဥပဒေများနှင့် အညီလုပ်ဆောင်သွားရန် သက်ဆိုင်ရာ စစ်ရေးတာဝန်ရှိသူများအား ညွှန်ကြားထားပြီး ဖြစ်သည်။ (၃) အဆိုပါဖြစ်စဉ်သည် စစ်ဘက်ဆိုင်ရာကျင့်ဝတ်စည်းကမ်းများအရ လုံးဝလက်သင့်မခံနိုင်သည့် ကိစ္စရပ်ဖြစ်သောကြောင့် ဖြစ်စဉ်နှင့်ပတ်သက်သည့် ကွင်းဆက်များကို စုံစမ်းစစ်ဆေးဖော်ထုတ် သွားမည်ဖြစ်ပြီး ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သူ မည်သူ့ကိုမဆို ဥပဒေနှင့်အညီ ထိရောက်စွာ အရေးယူသွားမည် ဖြစ်သည်။ (၄) ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်မတော်တပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင်များအနေဖြင့် အကြမ်းဖက်မှု တိုက်ဖျက်ရေးနှင့် ပြည်သူ့ခုခံတွန်းလှန်စစ် ဆင်နွဲရာတွင် စစ်ဘက်ဆိုင်ရာဥပဒေများ၊ စစ်ရေးညွှန်ကြားချက်များနှင့်အညီသာ စီမံဆောင်ရွက်ကြရမည်ဖြစ်သည်။ (၅) အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက တော်လှန်ရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင်များအား ၎င်းတို့ကဲ့သို့ပင် အကြမ်းဖက်မှုများ ပြုလုပ်နေသည်ဟု ပုံဖော်ရန်ကြိုးစားနေသည့် ထောင်ချောက်ထဲသို့ မကျရောက်မိစေရန် ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေး တပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင်များ၊ ပြည်သူ့ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင်များနှင့် ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးအဖွဲ့ဝင်များ အားလုံး အထူးသတိချပ် ကြစေလိုပါသည်။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုက ကျူးလွန်လျက် ရှိသော စစ်ရာဇဝတ်မှုများ၊ လူမဆန်သော ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်မှုများကို အပြီးတိုင်အဆုံးသတ်နိုင်ရေး စစ်ရေးနည်းလမ်းဖြင့် တော်လှန်တိုက်ပွဲဝင် နေကြရသော်လည်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုတပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင်များကဲ့သို့ အသိတရားမဲ့ တရားလက်လွတ်ပြုကျင့်သူများ မဖြစ်စေရေး ရဲဘော်များအနေဖြင့် ဂရုပြုကြရန်လိုအပ်ပါသည်။ (၆) အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအနေဖြင့် မုန်းတီးမှု၊ ဖိနှိပ်မှုများမှကင်းဝေးပြီး အပြန်အလှန်မှီခိုမှု၊ ကရုဏာရှိမှု၊ အပြန်အလှန် ကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်မှု တို့ကိုအခြေခံသည့် လွတ်လပ်သော အနာဂတ်ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီပြည်ထောင်စုကိုမျှော်ရည်လျက် ယခုဖြစ်စဉ်ကဲ့သို့သော ကိစ္စရပ်မျိုး နိုင်ငံတော်၏ မည်သည့်နေရာတွင်မှ ထပ်မံဖြစ်ပွားခြင်းမရှိစေရန် တာဝန်ယူမှု တာဝန်ခံမှုအပြည့်ဖြင့် ကွပ်ကဲကြပ်မတ် ဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည်ဖြစ်သည်။..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
2022-12-05
Date of entry/update: 2022-12-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "1. On April 21, 2022, the terrorist military unjustly arrested seven young students from Dagon University: Maung Hein Thant, Maung Thiha Htet Zaw, Maung Thura Maung Maung, Maung Khant Linn Maung Maung, Maung KhantZin Win, Maung Thet Paing Oo, and Maung Zaw Linn Naing. They were sentenced to death by an illegitimate prison court on November 30th, 2022. In addition, another four youths, Maung Min Htet Tha, Maung Wai Yan Zin, Maung Thu Htoo Aung, and Ko Phyo, had also been sentenced to death by the same prison court. 2. The terrorist military violates people's democratic rights by arbitrarily detaining those who oppose them through political means, committing extrajudicial killings, violating the political rights of people, passing judgment through biased courts, and infringing on the legal rights of people. At worst, they violate the people's right to life by carrying out the inhumane death penalty. 3. The terrorist military does not have the right to control the judiciary as it is not a legitimate government. Furthermore, imposing the death penalty is contrary to international human rights principles. 4. While the United Nations, ASEAN, and the international community have urged for the release of political prisoners, the terrorist military have challenged the entire world by sentencing death penalties on these young students. 5. The terrorist military must be held accountable for committing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. 6. Actions will also be carried out to bring justice for the terrorist military’s unlawful execution of Ko Jimmy, Ko Phyo Zay Yar Thaw, Ko Hla Myo Aung, and Ko Aung Thura, which took place on July 25, 2022, as well as for the people who have suffered from the inhumane and brutal acts committed by the terrorist military group. 7. We are gathering documentary proof on the nationwide killing and torture of people, workers, farmers, students, and teachers who have been involved in the Spring Revolution. We vow to seek justice and continue to fight against the military dictatorship until federal democracy is restored..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Human Rights
2022-12-03
Date of entry/update: 2022-12-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "၁။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုသည် ဒဂုံတက္ကသိုလ်ကျောင်းသားလူငယ် (၇) ဦး ဖြစ်သည့် မောင်ဟိန်းထက် (ရှေးဟောင်း အထူးပြု)၊ မောင်သီဟထက်ဇော် (ပထဝီဝင် အထူးပြု)၊ မောင်သူရမောင်မောင် (မြန်မာစာအထူးပြု)၊ မောင်ခန့်လင်းမောင်မောင် (မြန်မာစာအထူးပြု)၊ မောင်ခန့်ဇင်ဝင်း၊ မောင်သက်ပိုင်ဦး၊ မောင်ဇော်လင်းနိုင်တို့ကို ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ်၊ ဧပြီလ (၂၁) ရက်နေ့တွင် ဖမ်းဆီးခဲ့ပြီးနောက် တရားဥပဒေဘောင်မဝင်သော ထောင်တွင်းတရားရုံးတွင် စစ်ဆေးပြီး ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ်၊ နိုဝင်ဘာလ (၃၀) ရက်နေ့တွင် သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရှိရသည်။ ထို့အပြင် အခြားလူငယ် လေးဦး ဖြစ်သည့် မောင်မင်းထက်သာ၊ မောင်ဝေယံဇင်၊ မောင်သူထူးအောင်၊ ကိုဖြိုး တို့ကိုလည်း သေဒဏ် ချမှတ်ခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ်ကြောင်းသိရသည်။ ၂။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုသည် ပြည်သူများ၏ ဒီမိုကရေစီ အခွင့်အရေးများကို ချိုးဖောက်ခြင်း၊ လွတ်လပ်စွာ ဆန္ဒဖော်ထုတ်ကြသည့်၊ နိုင်ငံရေးနည်းလမ်းများဖြင့် ဆန့်ကျင်ကြသည့် ပြည်သူများကို ဖမ်းဆီးခြင်း၊ သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းများပြုလုပ်ပြီး ပြည်သူများ၏ နိုင်ငံရေး အခွင့်အရေးများကို ချိုးဖောက်ခြင်း၊ တရားဥပဒေဘောင်မဝင်သော တရားရုံးများ မှတဆင့် စီရင်ချက်များ ချမှတ်ခြင်းများ ပြုလုပ်ပြီး ပြည်သူများ၏ တရားဥပဒေဆိုင်ရာ အခွင့်အရေးများကို ချိုးဖောက်ခြင်း၊ အဆိုးရွားဆုံးအနေဖြင့် သေဒဏ်များ ချမှတ်ခြင်းနှင့် သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်းများ ပြုလုပ်လျက် ပြည်သူများ၏ အသက်ရှင်သန်ခွင့်ကို ချိုးဖောက်ခြင်းများ ကျူးလွန်လျက်ရှိသည်။ ၃။ စစ်အုပ်စုသည် တရားမဝင် အာဏာသိမ်းစစ်အုပ်စုသာဖြစ်သဖြင့် တရားစီရင်ရေးယန္တရားကို လည်ပတ်ရန် အခွင့်အာဏာမရှိပါ။ ထို့အပြင် သေဒဏ်စီရင်ခြင်းသည် နိုင်ငံတကာ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးစံနှုန်းများနှင့် ကိုက်ညီခြင်း မရှိသော လုပ်ရပ်ဖြစ်သည်။ ၄။ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများအား လွှတ်ပေးရန်အတွက် ကုလသမဂ္ဂ၊ အာဆီယံနှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာ အသိုင်းအဝိုင်းတစ်ခုလုံးက တောင်းဆိုနေချိန်တွင် ယခုကဲ့သို ကျောင်းသားလူငယ်များအား သေဒဏ် စီရင်ချက် ချမှတ်ခြင်းသည် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုက ကမ္ဘာတစ်ဝှမ်းလုံးအား စိန်ခေါ်လိုက်ခြင်းပင် ဖြစ်သည်။ ၅။ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု၏ လူသားမျိုးနွယ်အပေါ် ကျူးလွန်သော ရာဇ၀တ်မှုများ၊ စစ်ရာဇဝတ်မှုများ၊ လူမျိုးသုဉ်း သတ်ဖြတ်မှုများအတွက် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုအနေဖြင့် တာ၀န်ယူ၊ တာ၀န်ခံရမည် ဖြစ်သည်။ ၆။ ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ် ဇူလိုင်လ (၂၅) ရက်နေ့တွင် စစ်အုပ်စု၏ ကြိုးပေးသတ်ဖြတ်ခံခဲ့ရသော ကိုဂျင်မီ၊ ကိုဖြိုးဇေယျာသော်၊ ကိုလှမျိုးအောင်၊ ကိုအောင်သူရ တို့အပါအ၀င် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု၏ ဆိုးရွားသည့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုများကြောင့် ထိခိုက်နစ်နာရသော ပြည်သူလူထုအတွက် တရားမျှတမှုရနိုင်ရေးကို ရရှိနိုင်ရန်အတွက် ဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည်ဖြစ်သည်။ ၇။ ထိုသို့ တစ်နိုင်ငံလုံးအနှံ့ နှိပ်စက်သတ်ဖြတ်ခံနေရသော အလုပ်သမား၊ လယ်သမား၊ ပြည်သူလူထုနှင့် အတူ ရပ်တည်၍ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှု မှတ်တမ်းများကို ကောက်ယူ သိမ်းဆည်းလျက် တရားမျှတမှု ရရှိနိုင်ရေးကို အစွမ်းကုန် ကြိုးစား လုပ်ဆောင်ပြီး အရေးတော်ပုံ အောင်သည်အထိ ဆက်လက်တိုက်ပွဲဝင်သွားမည်ဟု သံန္ဒိဌာန် ပြုပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Ministry of Education, Ministry of Women, Youths and Children Affairs and Ministry of Human Rights
2022-12-03
Date of entry/update: 2022-12-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Description: "Myanmar’s junta on Wednesday handed down death sentences to seven Dagon University students in Yangon who took part in anti-regime protests. Dagon University Students’ Union confirmed that Ko Khant Zin Win, Ko Thura Maung Maung, Ko Zaw Lin Naing, Ko Thiha Htet Zaw, Ko Hein Htet, Ko Thet Paing Oo and Ko Khant Linn Maung Maung were sentenced in closed trials by a military tribunal. The seven were arrested in April for alleged involvement in the shooting of Global Treasure Bank branch manager Saw Moe Win, a former military officer. Ko Nan Lin from the University Students’ Union Alumni Force condemned the sentences as unjust. “We are deeply worried for our seven comrades,” he said, given the junta hanged four pro-democracy activists, ignoring international appeals and public objections. The regime, which has killed more than 2,500 people since the February 2021 coup, has used the death penalty to intimidate opponents as it struggles to control the country. It carried out the country’s first execution in nearly four decades in July by hanging veteran activist Ko Jimmy, Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, former National League for Democracy lawmaker Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw and activists Ko Hla Myo Aung and Ko Aung Thura Zaw. It has since handed down more death penalties. Around 100 dissidents, including students, professionals and medics, have been sentenced to death..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-12-01
Date of entry/update: 2022-12-01
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Description: "On November 30, seven students from Dagon University were sen-tenced to death by Myanmar Military Council. The military group's im-position of the death sentence is just trying to kill innocent people using crumbling courts and laws. We, the Students Unions, do not accept the ruling by the courts, which are the pillars of the terrorist military group, and strongly oppose such injustice sentences imposed on innocent uni-versity students. We, the Student Unions, stand together with the students who have been unjustly sentenced, Ko Khant Zin Win, Ko Thura Maung Maung, Ko Zaw Lin Naing, Ko Thiha Htet Zaw, Ko Hein Htet, Ko Thet Paing Oo, Ko Khant Lynn Maung Maung, monitoring all the situations closely. The regime continues to torture and kill innocent students brutally. Also, in July 2022, four pro-democracy activists were hanged by the terrorist military group, and so far, more than 13,000 people have been unjustly arrested, and 2,500 have been imprisoned across the country. We strongly urge the international community, including governments and organizations, to take more focused actions to prevent the killing mechanisms of the military group from continuing to operate. As a whole population, we appeal to overcome fear and participate in the revolution for our student comrades and the unjustly oppressed people..."
Source/publisher: 223 Students' Unions in Myanmar
2022-12-01
Date of entry/update: 2022-12-01
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Description: " ပြည်သူ့ဒီမိုကရေစီအရေးတော်ပုံတွင် ပါဝင်ကာ စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ်ကို ဆန့်ကျင်တိုက်ဖျက်ခဲ့သည့်အတွက် ဒဂုံတက္ကသိုလ်ကျောင်းသားများဖြစ်ကြသည့် ကိုခန့်ဇင်ဝင်း၊ ကိုသူရမောင်မောင်၊ ကိုဇော်လင်းနိုင်၊ ကိုသီဟထက်ဇော်၊ ကိုဟိန်းထက်၊ ကိုသက်ပိုင်ဦး နှင့် ကိုခန့်လင်းမောင်မောင် တို့အား အာဏာသိမ်းဖက်ဆစ်တပ်က နိုဝင်ဘာလ ၃၀ ရက်နေ့တွင် သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်လိုက်ကြောင်း သိရသည်။ ယနေ့ကာလသည် အာဏာသိမ်းဖက်ဆစ်ဘီလူး မင်းအောင်လှိုင် ဦးဆောင်သည့် စစ်အုပ်စုက ပြည်သူလူထုအား အကြမ်းဖက် နှိပ်စက်သတ်ဖြတ်ကာ ဖိနှိပ်အုပ်ချုပ်နေသည့် ကာလဖြစ်သည်။ စစ်အုပ်စုသည် အစုလိုက်အပြုံလိုက် သတ်ဖြတ်မှုများကို ကျူးလွန်လျက်ရှိသည်။ ပြည်သူလူထု၏ အသက်၊ အိုးအိမ်၊ ပိုင်ဆိုင်မှုများကိုလည်း ပေါ်ပေါ်ထင်ထင် ဖျက်ဆီးနေမှု၊ လုယက်နေမှုများမှာ မျက်ဝါးထင်ထင်ပင်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။ ဒဂုံတက္ကသိုလ်ကျောင်းသား (၇) ဦးကို သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခြင်းသည်လည်း စစ်အုပ်စု၏ မတရားသဖြင့် တဖက်သတ်စီရင်ချက်ဟုသာ ဗကသများအဖွဲ့ချုပ်မှ ယူဆသည်။ ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့/ကျူးလွန်ဆဲ တရားမဲ့သတ်ဖြတ်မှုများ၊ တရားမဲ့ဖမ်းဆီးထောင်ချမှု အလုံးစုံတို့ကို ဗကသများအဖွဲ့ချုပ်မှ ပြင်းပြင်းထန်ထန် ကန့်ကွက်ရှုတ်ချသည်။ စစ်အုပ်စုအနေဖြင့် ၎င်းတို့ကျူးလွန်သမျှ ဖိနှိပ်မှုတိုင်းအတွက် မုချတာဝန်ခံရမည်။ ဤကာလတွင် စစ်အစိုးရ၊ စစ်အုပ်စု၊ စစ်ဗျူရိုကရေစီယန္တရား (စစ်သုံးစစ်) ဖြင့် အခိုင်အမာ တည်ဆောက်ထားသည့် စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ်ကို အမြစ်ဖြတ်ချေမှုန်း သုတ်သင်ရန်မှာ တောင်ပေါ်/မြေပြန့် ဒေသအားလုံးရှိ လူထုလူတန်းစားပေါင်းစုံ အဖိနှိပ်ခံပြည်သူလူထုတရပ်လုံး၏ အရေးအကြီးဆုံး တာဝန်တရပ်ဖြစ်သည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ် (စစ်သုံးစစ်) ကို အဖိနှိပ်ခံပြည်သူလူထုတရပ်လုံးက ထိရောက်မှန်ကန်သည့် နည်းလမ်းပေါင်းစုံဖြင့် ဆက်လက်တိုက်ပွဲဝင်ကြပါရန် ကျွန်ုပ်တို့ ဗကသများအဖွဲ့ချုပ်က တိုက်တွန်းနှိုးဆော်အပ်ပါသည်။ ကျွန်ုပ်တို့ ဗကသများအဖွဲ့ချုပ်သည်လည်း တောင်ပေါ်/မြေပြန့် ဒေသအားလုံးရှိ အဖိနှိပ်ခံပြည်သူလူထုနှင့် လက်တွဲကာ စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ် (စစ်သုံးစစ်) အား အမြစ်ပြတ်ချေမှုန်းနိုင်သည်အထိ ဆက်လက်တိုက်ပွဲဝင်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ခေတ်အဆက်ဆက်က ဒီမိုကရေစီတိုက်ပွဲများတွင် မြင့်မြတ်ဂုဏ်ပြောင်စွာ ကျဆုံးသွားခဲ့သည့် ပြည်သူလူထုအား တိုင်တည်ကာ ကတိသစ္စာပြုအပ်ပါသည်။ သေဒဏ်ပေးခြင်း၊ ဖမ်းဆီးနှိပ်စက်သတ်ဖြတ်ခြင်း၊ ရွာလုံးကျွတ် မြို့လုံးကျွတ် မီးရှို့ဖျက်ဆီးခြင်းများဖြင့် တော်လှန်ရေးကို တားဆီး၍ရမည်မဟုတ်။ “စစ်သုံးစစ်ကို အမြစ်ပြတ်ချေမှုန်းကြ” “ပြည်သူ့ဒီမိုကရေစီအရေးတော်ပုံ မုချအောင်ရမည်”..."
Source/publisher: All Burma Federation of Student Unions
2022-12-01
Date of entry/update: 2022-12-01
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Description: "A special junta court on Tuesday jailed U Tun Tun Hein, the former deputy speaker of the Lower House under the ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) government, for an additional 20 years after convicting him of high treason, taking his total sentence to 24 years, according to NLD politicians. He is also a member of the NLD’s Central Executive Committee (CEC). The special court in Lashio Prison, northern Shan State, sentenced U Tun Tun Hein to 20 years’ imprisonment under the Penal Code’s Section 122, which pertains to high treason, said the politicians. U Nay Zin Latt, the elected MP for Kantbalu Township and a member of the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, condemned the sentence. “Whether high treason or state defamation, all such charges against politicians or others are meaningless. I don’t even have the proper words to describe the madness of the junta regime,” he remarked. U Tun Tun Hein was detained on the same day as State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, President U Win Myint and other members of the ruling party’s CEC on Feb. 1, 2021, the day of the coup. The junta released him on Feb. 7 and sent him back to his native town of Nawnghkio in northern Shan State. But on Feb. 10 he was rearrested and since then he has been detained at Lashio Prison, hit with three charges. In December 2021 he was charged under the notorious sections 505 (a) and (b) of the Penal Code and sentenced to four years in prison. He was later charged under Section 130 (a), accused of breaching polling laws. Section 130 (a) aims to penalize those who prohibit or fail to carry out the implementation of existing laws and carries a maximum sentence of three years plus a fine. U Tun Tun Hein, 73, first won a seat in the Lower House in the 1990 general election, the results of which were ignored by the then military regime. He was imprisoned in 2012 and released in 2015. That year, he contested and won a seat representing Nawngkio Township constituency in the Lower House. In 2018, he became third deputy speaker of the Lower House and served until the end of that parliamentary term. In 2020 he was reelected to the Lower House representing a constituency in his home town. As part of its crackdown on political opponents, Myanmar’s junta has handed out jail sentences to NLD CEC members and former Union Election Commission members. “I’m especially concerned for elderly persons facing such political charges. Though they are mentally strong, they are getting too old to cope with the demands of prison, as well as the multiple methods of torture used during detention or interrogation,” said U Nay Zin Latt..."
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Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2022-11-30
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Description: "The November 17, 2022, junta announcement that a total of 5774 prisoners would be released in accordance with Code of Criminal Procedure Section 401, Sub-Section (1), has continued to be monitored. Through this, AAPP has been able to confirm 402 political prisoners released across 19 prisons in the country. Up until 3.00pm of today (November 21, 2022), AAPP has documented and identified 161 released political prisoners. The junta only announced the names of a handful of released political prisoners, exposing the utter lack of transparency regarding the released persons, and leading to delays in documenting the list of released political prisoners and confirming their names. Release data is still being verified, we will update accordingly when further information is received. If anyone would like to share information about the prison releases, contact..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2022-11-21
Date of entry/update: 2022-11-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "When leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met at the regional summit last week, there appeared to be progress regarding how they would handle the Myanmar crisis. The bloc released an assessment recognizing the need for an “implementation plan” to support the Five-Point Consensus, along with “concrete, practical and measurable indicators with specific timeline”. A few days after ASEAN’s assessment, the Myanmar military junta granted amnesty to 6,000 prisoners including some prominent political figures and high-profile foreigners such as Australian economist Sean Turnell and former British Ambassador Vicky Bowman. While it may be taken as a diplomatic success for ASEAN and the international community, ASEAN needs to use caution, as the Myanmar junta has used this go-to strategy of delaying and defusing ASEAN and international efforts to resolve political crises since back in the 1990s. The recent release of some political prisoners will do little to resolve the ongoing crisis, as thousands of political prisoners remain detained, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes, and innocent civilians remain at risk of being killed by air strikes. On the other hand, this kind of defusing of international pressure benefits the junta by allowing it to not only buy time but also remain focused on crushing the resistance and maintaining its tight grip on power, while the suffering of millions of Myanmar people continues. Myanmar people have learned from the past that this is just the junta’s attempt to defuse pressure. Thus, the release of some political dissidents will have little impact on people’s strong resistance against military rule and more importantly on the suffering of the Myanmar people. Upholding its non-interference policy, ASEAN faces limitations in dealing with the Myanmar crisis. Thus, many criticisms of ASEAN from the international community may be undue. However, the exasperation of the Myanmar people towards the regional bloc is largely different. Myanmar people have done everything they could within their means to show their rejection of military rule, from voting for civilian politicians in the 1990, 2012, 2015 and 2020 general elections, to nationwide peaceful protests against military rule in 1988, 2007 and 2021. When decades of peaceful means still did not produce the outcomes that they strongly desired, they finally resorted to the current armed struggle, joining forces with ethnic armed resistance organizations who have been fighting for self-determination and freedom from the military’s ultra-nationalistic rule for many decades. Myanmar people have very few expectations when it comes to international support, as we know, for the most part, that we must fight our battle on our own. However, what Myanmar people are really hoping and crying out loud for, is for our neighboring countries to not enable further or inadvertently embolden the Myanmar military to continue to commit their horrific crimes with impunity. Myanmar people have every reason to fear history repeating – any de facto recognition of the current military rule by ASEAN is expected to result in more decades of military rule and suffering, which are the Myanmar people’s worst fears. Under ASEAN’s constructive engagement policy with the Myanmar military, which dates to the 1990s, the then-military regime was admitted to the bloc in 1997. The admission to ASEAN not only let the Myanmar generals get away with their horrific human rights violations with impunity, but also shielded them from pressure from the international community. ASEAN’s constructive engagement was also taken as an example to follow by Western democracies, since Myanmar was viewed as moving in the right direction when the political transition of the 2010s seemed initially to go smoothly. The coup in 2021 has proved that when it comes to the military, neither ASEAN’s constructive engagement nor the Myanmar political elite’s appeasement and reconciliation policy of the 2010s will work. It only confirmed that the Myanmar military never had any intention to retreat from politics or to let go of its political power and economic privileges. The continued violent and horrific crackdown on the resistance by the military has only made people more determined to end military rule once and for all. However, the people’s strong resistance and rejection of military rule appear to be misjudged by outside observers and some ASEAN leaders. Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan recently described the Myanmar conflict as “a fight for the heart of the Bamar majority, between the Tatmadaw [Myanmar’s military] on one hand and the National League for Democracy led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.” While ASEAN may see military rule as the norm in politically complex Myanmar, resistance leaders, Myanmar analysts, and ordinary Myanmar people immediately knew, as soon as the coup occurred, that the truly barbaric nature and intentions of the generals would soon be revealed. With the recent release of political prisoners, ASEAN may still hope that the Myanmar military can be convinced to bring stability and peace. However, over the past about 18 months since the agreement on the Five-Point Consensus laid out by ASEAN leaders, the Myanmar junta has had no qualms about continuing its extreme violence against its own citizens. Just a week before the 55th ASEAN ministerial summit, the Myanmar military executed four political activists. In the midst of ASEAN’s continuous calls for the utmost restraint and the end of all violence, the Myanmar military continues with its campaign of terror including recent air strikes on a school in Sagaing Region and on a concert in Kachin State..... Options for ASEAN...ASEAN’s current assessment shows that in order to remain relevant, the bloc will need to show unity and leadership in the Myanmar crisis. After giving the benefit of the doubt to the military council for the past 18 months, the bloc now has an opportunity to take on fresh outlooks and approaches to develop the implementation plan. The regional bloc is now at a critical juncture – with a lot at stake, amid the continued deepening of the suffering of the Myanmar people, it has a chance to be on the right side of history, and save its reputation and relevance. ASEAN has three very different options: 1) maintain its old approach of constructive engagement with the Myanmar military; 2) take a politically neutral approach with effective support on humanitarian assistance; and 3) take a new direction, and listen to the people of Myanmar for a change. The first option, constructive engagement with the junta, has been a default option for the bloc. It has raised the question of the relevance of the bloc and had a negative impact on ASEAN’s unity and leadership. To the people of Myanmar, such engagement only emboldens the junta and inadvertently sharpens the weapons that kill innocent Myanmar citizens and deepen their suffering. And the worst nightmare would be the regional bloc’s de facto recognition of the junta after its sham elections in 2023. The second option, politically neutral support on humanitarian assistance, as also mentioned in the recent assessment, if taken cautiously, might be able to deliver urgently needed humanitarian assistance. ASEAN may be able to take a politically neutral approach, without directly engaging with the junta’s State Administration Council (SAC) or the National Unity Government (NUG). However, this humanitarian assistance could only achieve so much, considering the pace and intensity of atrocities that the junta continues to commit. This in a way only prolongs the people’s suffering with occasional relief provided along the way. The third option is to take a completely new direction, an unprecedented one for ASEAN, by listening to the people of Myanmar for a change. It also means listening to the people’s representatives—those whom the people of Myanmar have chosen to lead their desperate attempt to overthrow the military. This includes the leadership of the NUG, the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs). Myanmar has already experienced the harsh reality of military rule under generations of generals from the same institution for half a century. The military has a record of failing the country as a key driver of conflict and division, and mismanaging the economy resulting in poverty for the majority of the population. The junta’s atrocities since the coup have opened all the old wounds and caused fresh suffering. None of the options will be easy for ASEAN. It will be even more difficult for the Myanmar people to comprehend if ASEAN continues falling for the junta’s ploy while our lives are at stake—the lives of Myanmar people who are also a part of the ASEAN community. And the sad reality is that there are only very limited options for Myanmar people: to live under military rule, be killed and impoverished, or remove the military from the political sphere once and for all. People have learned the hard way that there is a price to pay for peace, stability and prosperity. That’s all Myanmar people are trying to achieve today and all they are fighting for. That is the very reason why the recent military coup has only made the people more determined to break this vicious cycle of military coups and end the military’s attempts to deceive the people and the world as “transitioning to a disciplined democracy.” It is therefore more important than ever that ASEAN not fall for the junta’s ploy whenever the generals try to defuse the pressure for a short term so that they can remain in power as long as they wish. With a more informed approach to handling the Myanmar crisis, ASEAN could still have a positive impact or even a monumental chance to be on the right side of history. That would not only save Myanmar but also reclaim the bloc’s unity and leadership role in the region..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-11-21
Date of entry/update: 2022-11-21
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Description: "BANGKOK – The Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer is encouraged by the announcement of the mass release of detainees in Myanmar and reiterates the Secretary-General’s call for the immediate release of all of those who continue to be arbitrarily detained, including President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. Special Envoy Heyzer reinforced her call for the release of all children and political prisoners who are being detained in prisons or other facilities in Myanmar, which she conveyed during her mission to Nay Pyi Taw in August along with the requested release of Australian economist Sean Turnell, who was freed during the recent mass release. The Special Envoy appreciates continued support from Member States including in the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly that have echoed calls for the immediate release of all political detainees and strongly condemned arbitrary detention, arrest and politically motivated convictions, sentencing and executions, including of opposition activists..."
Source/publisher: Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Myanmar
2022-11-19
Date of entry/update: 2022-11-19
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Description: "On November 16 evening, the military junta announced via Myawaddy Television, 5774 prisoners would be released the following day under pardon order, No. 70/2022, of the Code of Criminal Procedure Article 401 (1). Up until now, AAPP has been monitoring and can confirm the release of only 72 political prisoners following this announcement and are cautious to declare this significantly higher as yet. All political prisoners released yesterday were also done so under the condition of retrospective sentencing. The releases were an attempt to show political good will, but tens of thousands of political prisoners including the President and State Counsellor remain behind bars. Detained political prisoners will continue to endure daily physical and mental torture whilst across the country the military junta’s arrests, arsons, torture and murder will persist. AAPP Secretary U Tate Naing said “most these released political prisoners had already been sentenced under baseless accusations and random charges, after detaining them in the first place for no apparent reason. Others had almost already served their prison sentences. The whole charade is but an attempt to alleviate domestic and international pressure off the junta, so that it can continue to commit inhumane crimes daily against the people. AAPP Joint-Secretary U Bo Kyi said that “just as in every prison release since the coup the junta has refused to be transparent about the numbers of political prisoners released and the identities of those released. It is a deliberate tactic meant to deceive foreign governments”. AAPP will continue to make efforts to ensure the unconditional release of all the arbitrarily detained, including the President and State Counsellor. Perpetrators of arbitrary arrests, torture, and murder must be punished. International actors are strongly urged to take more effective measures against the junta regime. Data on releases is still being verified, we will update accordingly when further information is received. If anyone would like to share information about the prison releases contact:..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2022-11-18
Date of entry/update: 2022-11-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "၂၀၂၂၊ နိုဝင်ဘာ ၁၇ နေ့တွင် အကျဉ်းသား၊အကျဉ်းသူ စုစုပေါင်း (၅၇၇၄) အား ရာဇဝတ်ကျင့်ထုံး ဥပဒေ ပုဒ်မ ၄၀၁၊ ပုဒ်မခွဲ (၁) အရ ပြန်လည်လွှတ်ပေးမည်ဟု အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုမှ ထုတ်ပြန်ကြေညာခဲ့သည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ ကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း (AAPP) မှ စောင့်ကြည့်လေ့လာမှတ်တမ်းတင်ခဲ့ရာ ယခု ကြေညာချက်ထုတ်ပြန်ချိန်အထိ ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်လာသော နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား (၇၂) ဦးကိုသာ မှတ်တမ်းပြု ထားနိုင်လျက်ရှိသည်။ လွှတ်ပေးခဲ့သည့် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများမှာ နောက်ကြောင်းပြန်ပြစ်ဒဏ်ဆိုသည့် နှောင်ကြိုးဖြင့်သာလွှတ်ပေးခဲ့ ခြင်းဖြစ်ပြီး နိုင်ငံရေးမျှော်လင့်ချက်အရ ဟန်ပြလွှတ်ပေးခဲ့ခြင်းဖြစ်သည်။ ထို့အပြင် နိုင်ငံတော်သမ္မတနှင့် နိုင်ံတော် အတိုင်ပင်ခံပုဂ္ဂိလ်များအပါအဝင် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားတစ်သောင်းကျော်မှာ အကျဉ်းထောင်နောက်ကွယ်တွင် နိုင်ငံ ရေးအရ ဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခံနေရဆဲဖြစ်ပြီး ရုပ်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ၊ စိတ်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာ ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုများကို နေ့စဉ်နှင့်အမျှ ခံစားနေကြရဆဲဖြစ်သည်။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၌ မတရားဖမ်းဆီးမှုများ၊ မီးရှို့မှုများ၊ ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုများ၊ သတ်ဖြတ်မှုများ အစရှိသည့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်မှုများကို စစ်အုပ်စုက နေ့စဉ်ရက်ဆက်ကျူးလွန်နေဆဲဖြစ်သည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ လွှတ်ပေးမှုနှင့်ပတ်သက်၍ အေအေပီပီ၏ အတွင်းရေးမှူး ဦးတိတ်နိုင်က “အခု ပြန်လွှတ် ပေးလိုက်တဲ့ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားအများစုဟာ ဘာအကြောင်းပြချက်မှမရှိဘဲ ဖမ်းပြီးမှအခြေအမြစ်မရှိတဲ့ စွပ်စွဲ ချက်တွေနဲ့ တွေ့ကရာပုဒ်မတွေတပ်ပြီး ထောင်ဒဏ်တွေ ချမှတ်ခံထားရသူတွေပါ။ နောက်တော့ သူတို့တွေဟာ ချမှတ်ထားတဲ့ ထောင်ဒဏ်တွေကို နှစ်ပြည့်နီးပါး နေခဲ့ပြီးသားတွေဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ဒါဟာ ပြည်တွင်း၊ ပြည်ပ ဖိအားတွေကို ဖြေလျှော့ဖို့ ကြိုးစားချက်တစ်ခုသာဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ တချိန်တည်းမှာ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုက လူသားဖြစ်မှုကို ပိတ်ပင် တဲ့ လုပ်ရပ်တွေကို နေ့စဉ်နဲ့အမျှ တရားလက်လွတ်ဆက်တိုက် ကျူးလွန်နေတာဖြစ်ပါတယ်” ဟု မှတ်ချက်ပြုသည်။ ထို့အပြင် “စစ်အာဏာသိမ်းချိန်ကစပြီးတောက်လျှောက် အကျဉ်းသားတွေလွှတ်ပေးခဲ့တဲ့ အရင်အကြိမ်တွေလိုပဲ ဒီ တစ်ခေါက် အကျဉ်းသားတွေလွှတ်ပေးတဲ့အခါမှာလည်း စစ်အုပ်စုအနေနဲ့ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားဘယ်နှစ်ယောက် လွှတ်ပေးတယ်၊ သူတို့နာမည်တွေက ဘယ်သူ ဘယ်ဝါတွေဖြစ်သလဲဆိုတာနဲ့ပတ်သက်ပြီး ပွင့်လင်းမြင်သာမှု မရှိပါ ဘူး။ ဒါဟာ နိုင်ငံတကာအစိုးရတွေကို လှည့်စားဖို့အကြံနဲ့ တမင်လုပ်တဲ့ လုပ်ရပ်တစ်ခုပဲ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်” ဟု အေအေပီပီ တွဲဖက်အတွင်းရေးမှူး ဦးဘိုကြည်မှ ဆိုသည်။ မိမိတို့အနေဖြင့် နိုင်ငံတော်သမ္မတ၊ နိုင်ငံတော်၏ အတိုင်ပင်ခံပုဂ္ဂိုလ်အပါအဝင် ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းထားသူများ အားလုံး ခြွင်းချက်မရှိလွတ်မြောက်ရေးနှင့် မတရားညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခြင်း၊ မတရားဖမ်းဆီးခြင်းများနှင့် လူမဆန်စွာသတ်ဖြတ် ခြင်းများကို ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့သူများအား အပြစ်ပေးအရေးယူမှု ပြုလုပ်နိုင်ရန်အတွက် ဆက်လက်ကြိုးပမ်းဆောင်ရွက် သွားမည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်းနှင့် နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုင်းအဝန်းအနေဖြင့်လည်း စစ်အုပ်စုကို ဆက်လက်၍ ထိရောက်သည့် အရေး ယူဆောင်ရွက်မှုများကို အမြန်ဆုံး ပြုလုပ်ပေးရန် လေးနက်စွာ တိုက်တွန်းပါသည်။..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2022-11-18
Date of entry/update: 2022-11-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "1. On November 17, 2022, the Myanmar Military Council released some political prisoners from arbitrary detention. Their freedom is a symbol of people’s victory after nearly two years of nationwide struggle by people of all ethnicities combined with the sustained international pressure. 2. The National Unity Government is appreciative of the fact that some of political prisoners have been released. Nevertheless, we need to recognise that those freed were unjustly detained in the first place and that thousands of political activists remain in detention, many cannot return home as they were killed during interrogation or murdered in prison and many have given their lives and livelihoods for the revolution. The National Unity Government will continue to strive to achieve justice for all injustices. 3. We thank all revolution forces of different ethnic regions, strike groups, and allied ethnic revolution organisations, who have been behind the driving force to achieve such positive outcomes for the release of political prisoners after one and a half years. We extend our profound appreciation to the international community for not recognising the terrorist military and for standing together with the People of Myanmar by cherishing democracy and human rights principles. Based on our current achievements to date, we urge everyone to maintain and escalate the revolution momentum using all possible means to bring about a solid change in Myanmar. 4. The National Unity Government will not lose sight of the goal of a federal democratic union, which the entire people of the country long for and to end the military dictatorship from the land of Myanmar, and we will continue to fight together with all ethnic allied organisations until our ultimate common goal is achieved..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
2022-11-18
Date of entry/update: 2022-11-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Description: "၁။ ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ် နိုဝင်ဘာလ ၁၇ ရက်နေ့တွင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုက နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားအချို့ကို မတရားဖမ်းဆီးထားရာမှ ပြန်လည်လွှတ်ပေးခဲ့သည်ကို တွေ့ရသည်။ အဆိုပါ ဖြစ်ရပ်သည် တော်လှန်ရေးတစ်နှစ်နှင့် ၉ လကျော်ကာလအတွင်း နိုင်ငံအဝှမ်းရှိ တိုင်းရင်းသား ပြည်သူတစ်ရပ်လုံး နည်းလမ်းပေါင်းစုံဖြင့် ကြံ့ကြံ့ခံတိုက်ပွဲဝင်နေခြင်း၊ နိုင်ငံတကာ၏ စဉ်ဆက်မပြတ် ဖိအားပေးနေခြင်းတို့ကြောင့် ဖြစ်တည်လာခဲ့သော ပြည်သူ့အောင်ပွဲတစ်ခုဖြစ်သည်မှာ ထင်ရှားပါသည်။ ၂။ အသက်နှင့်ခန္ဓာမြဲလျက် ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်လာခဲ့ကြသော နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများအတွက် အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအနေဖြင့် ဝမ်းမြောက်မိပါသည်။ သို့ရာတွင် ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက် လာသော နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများ အားလုံးသည် မတရားဖမ်းဆီးချုပ်နှောင်ခံခဲ့ကြရသူများဖြစ်ခြင်း၊ မတရားဖမ်းဆီးခံထားရပြီး ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်ခြင်းမရှိသေးသူများစွာ ကျန်ရှိနေခြင်း၊ ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်လာခြင်းမရှိတော့ပဲ စစ်ကြောရေးတွင် ကျဆုံးခဲ့ရသူများ၊ ထောင်တွင်း သတ်ဖြတ်ခံရသူများ ရှိခဲ့ခြင်း၊ တော်လှန်ရေးကာလတစ်လျှောက် အသက်သွေးချွေးများရင်းနှီးပေးဆပ် ခဲ့ကြသူများစွာရှိနေခြင်း စသည့်အချက်တို့ကို အမှတ်ရနေရမည်ဖြစ်ကာ ထိုကဲ့သို့သော မတရားမှုများ အားလုံးအတွက် တရားမျှတမှုကို ပြန်လည်ရရှိစေရေးကို အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအနေဖြင့် တစိုက်မတ်မတ် ဆက်လက်ကြိုးစားဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည်ဖြစ်သည်။ ၃။ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားအချို့ လွတ်မြောက်လာခြင်းကဲ့သို့သော တော်လှန်ရေး ရလဒ်ကောင်းများ ရရှိလာခြင်း၏ အခြေခံအင်အားဖြစ်သော တစ်နှစ်ခွဲကျော်ကာလအတွင်း အလံမလှဲစတမ်း နည်းလမ်းပေါင်းစုံဖြင့် တော်လှန်ရေးကို ဆင်နွှဲခဲ့၊ ဆင်နွှဲနေကြဆဲဖြစ်သော တိုင်းရင်းသားပြည်သူများ၊ တော်လှန်ရေးအင်အားစုများ၊ သပိတ်အဖွဲ့များနှင့် တိုင်းရင်းသားမဟာမိတ်များအားလုံးကို အထူး ကျေးဇူးတင်ကြောင်း ပြောကြားလိုသည်။ ထို့အတူ ဒီမိုကရေစီနှင့် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးကို လေးစားတန်ဖိုးထားပြီး အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုကို အသိအမှတ်မပြုပဲ မြန်မာပြည်သူလူထုနှင့်အတူ ရပ်တည်ပေးခဲ့ကြသော နိုင်ငံတကာအသိုင်းအဝိုင်းကိုလဲ အထူးကျေးဇူးတင်အပ်ပါသည်။ လက်ရှိရရှိနေသော တော်လှန်ရေးရလဒ်ကောင်းများကို အခြေပြု၍ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတွင် ခိုင်မာသေချာသော အပြောင်းအလဲတစ်ခု ဖြစ်ပေါ်လာစေရေး တော်လှန်ရေးကို အရှိန်အဟုန်မပျက်စေပဲ ဆက်လက်တိုက်ပွဲဝင်သွားကြရန် တိုက်တွန်းနှိုးဆော်လိုက်ပါသည်။ ၄။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအနေဖြင့်လဲ တိုင်းရင်းသားပြည်သူတစ်ရပ်လုံး လိုလားတောင့်တ နေသော ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီပြည်ထောင်စုပန်းတိုင်ကို မျက်ခြေပြတ်မခံပဲ မြန်မာ့မြေပေါ်မှ စစ်အာဏာရှင်စနစ်ကို အမြစ်ပြတ်ဖယ်ရှားကာ ပန်းတိုင်ကို လက်ဝယ်ပိုင်ပိုင်လှမ်းကိုင်နိုင်သည်အထိ တိုင်းရင်းသားမဟာမိတ်များအားလုံးနှင့် ပူးပေါင်းလက်တွဲကာ ဆက်လက်တိုက်ပွဲဝင်သွားမည် ဖြစ်ကြောင်း ထပ်လောင်း ကတိပြုပါသည်။ ..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
2022-11-18
Date of entry/update: 2022-11-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "JAKARTA – As the Myanmar military released four unjustly jailed foreigners in a mass amnesty this Thursday, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) wishes to congratulate their families. Yet this is no time to lower the guard with the military led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, as the prisoners should not have been jailed in the first place and thousands of Myanmar political prisoners remain in the country’s jails, APHR said. As part of a mass amnesty in which 6,000 prisoners were freed, the junta released Sean Turnell, an Australian citizen and economic adviser to former State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi; Vicky Bowman, a former British envoy; U.S. citizen Kyaw Htay Oo; and Toru Kubota, a Japanese filmmaker. Another prisoner released is the former Chief Minister of Tanintharyi Region, U Myint Maung. Meanwhile, over 13,000 political prisoners remain in Myanmar’s jails, where conditions are notoriously abysmal and the use of torture is routine, often resulting in gruesome deaths. “This is a game the Myanmar generals have been playing for a very long time. In the midst of continuous atrocities, from time to time they make an apparent gesture of goodwill, minor in comparison with the crimes they commit on a daily basis, in order to alleviate international pressure and gain legitimacy. No one should fall for this trick; the global community should not be fooled into thinking that Min Aung Hlaing and his henchmen have changed their ways,” said Kasit Piromya, former Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs and APHR Board Member. Sean Turnell was arrested on 6 April 2021, five days after the coup, under the accusation of trying to flee the country with secret information. Vicky Bowman and her husband, Htein Lin, were arrested in August this year on immigration charges, and Toru Kobuta was detained in July when he was filming a demonstration against the military. While they have been released, others have not been so lucky. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, at least 73 detainees have died in police or military custody in police stations, military interrogation centers, and prisons since the coup last year. They include four political prisoners executed in July: Phyo Zeya Thaw, former lawmaker for the National League for Democracy (NLD); the prominent activist Kyaw Min Yu, known as ‘Ko Jimmy’; Aung Thura Zaw; and Hla Myo Aung. These were the first known judicial executions in Myanmar since 1988, according to Amnesty International. Since the coup on 1 February 2021, the Myanmar military has committed all kinds of atrocities, which the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said may amount to “crimes against humanity and war crimes,” in order to consolidate its power against widespread popular resistance. The self-styled State Administration Council (SAC) led by Min Aung Hlaing has killed at least 2,465 people, launched indiscriminate aerial attacks in ethnic areas, and razed hundreds of villages to the ground, throwing the country into chaos, and leading it to the brink of becoming a failed state. Meanwhile, the international response to the crisis has been sorely insufficient, as argued in a report launched recently by the International Parliamentary Inquiry into the global response to the crisis in Myanmar, an initiative organized by APHR and whose Committee is formed by eight parliamentarians from seven different countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. “The international community has proven largely unable to respond effectively to the crisis. The junta’s international allies—most prominently Russia and China—have emerged as steadfast and uncritical supporters, supplying both weapons and legitimacy to an otherwise isolated regime. Foreign governments that profess support for democracy have not backed up their rhetoric with the same force of action,” said the report, titled ‘Time is not on our side’: The failed international response to the Myanmar coup. The reasons for the mass amnesty, and the release of the three foreigners, remain unclear, but they come after an ASEAN Summit, in which its member states reaffirmed its commitment to the Five Point Consensus, an agreement signed in April 2021 to address the crisis in Myanmar that has been supported by the international community at large. The consensushas not produced any tangible results ever since, as APHR has repeatedly denounced. “There is a legitimate concern that ASEAN member states are going to drink the kool-aid and treat the Myanmar junta with even kinder gloves after the release of these political prisoners. Against all reason, ASEAN is already sticking to an agreement that has proved an utter failure for over one and a half years, instead of doing the right thing to solve the crisis: put real pressure on the military, recognize the National Unity Government (NUG) as the legitimate authority in the country,” said Charles Santiago, former Malaysian Member of Parliament, APHR Chairperson, and one of the IPI Committee Members..."
Source/publisher: ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights
2022-11-17
Date of entry/update: 2022-11-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The number of currently detained political prisoners has reached more than 13,000, according to the latest figures from Assistance Association for Political Prisoners – Burma. Under the previous military dictatorship pre 2010 the average was just over 2,000. “Despite the record number of political prisoners, they barely get mentioned by governments and world leaders,” said Wai Hnin, Senior Advocacy Officer at Burma Campaign UK. “The fact that so many people have been jailed demonstrates the level of fear the Burmese military have of the people of Burma. The Burmese military are afraid for their survival and arrest anyone they see as a threat.” The number of political prisoners is growing every day as the military continues to arrest peaceful protesters, interfaith writers, celebrities, civilians, and anyone opposing the attempted coup, which began on 1st February last year. The military is not only carrying out the targeted arrest of individuals whom they might consider a threat because of their activities, but they are also conducting random mass arrests of civilians as a means of trying to instil fear and crush dissent. The Burmese military has also started using the official death penalty for the first time in decades, executing 4 political prisoners in July 2022. Many more activists have been sentenced to death and are awaiting execution. Political prisoners are usually held in military-controlled detention centres for a lengthy period before being charged and sent to prison. Many of them face brutal torture, harassment, rape, and sexual violence. Activists from the LGBTQ community face severe torture and harassment purely because of their sexual orientation. The current number of political prisoners does not include civilians who have been forcibly disappeared in remote ethnic areas and people who have been unlawfully detained in military camps in ethnic areas, where documentation is difficult. In addition, there is an unknown number of Rohingya political prisoners, who have been arrested and imprisoned for breaking laws and regulations specifically targeting Rohingya as part of the ongoing genocide they face. Since 1 February, at least 80 journalists have been arrested for reporting on the human rights violations committed by the military. Many civil servants, including doctors, teachers, and nurses, have been arrested for participating in the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM). The military also issued warrants and revoked licences for many doctors and nurses for taking part in the CDM. After their release, they will have a criminal record, making it almost impossible to return to their jobs or find new jobs. Currently, trials are being held inside prison out of public view, and families cannot attend. Trials in Burma are just formalities, and almost all of them will undoubtedly be sentenced under politically motivated charges. The Burmese military arrest, jail, torture and even kill many activists and civilians daily but people in Burma continue to stand up against them. “These political prisoners bravely stood up against the military coup, but the world seems to have forgotten about them,” said Wai Hnin, Senior Advocacy Officer at Burma Campaign UK. “Many of them are just young students who should be in university but instead, they were brutally tortured and jailed for speaking out. The international community must speak out for these 13,000 political prisoners in Burma, and provide much needed support for families of political prisoners.”..."
Source/publisher: "Burma Campaign UK" (London)
2022-11-16
Date of entry/update: 2022-11-16
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "One of the biggest challenges that Indonesia will face as ASEAN Chair 2023 is how it ensures effective leadership to secure significant progress on the ongoing political and human security crisis in Burma/Myanmar. On 1 Feb 2021, the Burmese military took over the country’s capital and detained government officials and elected parliamentarians preparing to convene parliament, dramatically halting the country’s 10-year transition to a semi-democratic system. For the people of Burma, this was only the beginning of a reign of terror - the junta has consistently ramped up the brutality of attacks against civilians, targeting them with airstrikes, artillery attacks and atrocity crimes. For ASEAN, this was the beginning of a multi-level and multi-dimensional threat to ASEAN’s credibility and regional human security. The regime used lethal force against opponents to crush nationwide opposition to its rule. As of 6 Oct 2022, regime troops had killed at least 2,338 civilians and arrested at least 15,770. Junta tribunals also sentenced 126 people, including children, to death.1 On 23 Jul, the junta executed four prominent anti-coup activists; a first since 1976.2 In Aug 2022, Amnesty International highlighted the regime’s systematic use of torture in custody. It said the junta was ‘flout[ing] the law at every stage of the arrest and detention process’—from making arbitrary arrests to forcing confessions through torture or by threatening of reprisals against relatives.3 The junta also tried to destroy the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party that overwhelmingly won the 2015 and 2020 general elections. It sentenced top officials—on bogus charges—including President Win Myint, Naypyidaw Mayor Myo Aung, and the Chief Ministers of Mandalay, Magway, Rakhine, Tanintharyi, Mon, Shan, and Karen States/Regions.4 Ousted State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi faces almost 200 years in prison on multiple charges, and had been sentenced to 26 years as of 12 Oct 2022.5 As of late September 2022, the regime had also killed at least 56 party members.6 The regime’s escalating violence resulted in nationwide conflict with Ethnic Resistance Organizations and newly formed civilian guerilla groups. In the first 18 months of the coup, there have been 14,076 armed clashes and attacks against civilians, compared to 12,822 in Syria, 10,204 in Yemen, and 8,110 in Afghanistan during the same period.7 During the six months of Jan-Jun 2022, the Armed Conflicts Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) recorded 668 incidents of violence directly targeting unarmed civilians by the regime - the highest figure worldwide. In the same period ACLED documented over 11,000 fatalities, mostly resulting from battles between the regime and anti-junta armed groups.8 The National Unity Government (NUG), a coalition of over 70% of MPs elected in 2020 and Ethnic Resistance Organizations, documented 2,778 war crimes by junta forces during 1 Dec 2021-31 May 2022.9 On 9 Aug 2022, the UN Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) said there were ample indications that crimes against humanity had been committed in Burma since 1 Feb 2021.10 While the numerous crimes have taken place around the country, 3 incidents have sparked international shock and concern:  On 24 Dec 2021, regime forces captured at least 37 men, women, and children fleeing conflict in Karenni State and burned them alive.11  On 16 Sep 2022, regime helicopters fired at a school housed in a Buddhist monastery in Sagaing Region, killing at least 14 people, including twelve children.12  On 23 October 2022, regime airstrikes targeted a music concert in Kachin state, killing up to 80 people – the largest number of people killed in an airstrike by the junta which described it as a “necessary operation”. 13 Regime troops also destroyed at least 132 religious buildings as of late June 2022, mostly in Chin State (66 churches destroyed), Sagaing Region (28 Buddhist monasteries, a Buddhist convent, two mosques, and two churches), Karenni State (20 churches and a mosque), and Magway Region (11 Buddhist monasteries and a church).14 Junta soldiers burned down 28,434 houses during Feb 2021-25 Aug 2022, including 20,153 houses in Sagaing Region and 5,418 houses in Magway Region.15 Conflict in Burma also spread to neighboring countries:  On 30 Jun 2022, a regime MiG-29 fighter jet crossed into Thai airspace amid clashes with resistance forces, forcing local officials to evacuate villages and schools.16 A Thai farmer later reported that his truck was hit by shrapnel from the jet’s missiles.17  On 30 Aug 2022, a regime helicopter crossed into Bangladeshi airspace and attacked AA fighters.18  On 16 Sep 2022, five artillery shells fired from Burma killed a young Rohingya refugee and injured at least six others in Bangladesh.19 The Bangladesh Foreign Minister subsequently summoned the Burmese Ambassador over this incident and multiple other incursions. 20 On 21 Sep, the Bangladesh Army chief said his personnel was ready to respond if regime forces did not stop firing across the border.21 HOW ASEAN RESPONDED Under Brunei’s chairmanship, ASEAN proved itself incapable of responding swiftly to the Burma crisis. On 24 Apr 2021, almost three months after the attempted coup, the bloc held talks with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing in Jakarta.22 The meeting led to the adoption of the Five-Point Consensus (FPC), calling for: (1) immediate cessation of violence; (2) constructive dialogue among all parties concerned; (3) a special envoy of the ASEAN Chair to facilitate the mediation of dialogue; (4) ASEAN to provide humanitarian aid through its AHA Centre; and (5) the special envoy and delegation to visit Burma and to meet with all parties concerned.23 Within two days, the junta walked back its commitment to the FPC, saying it would only implement these ‘suggestions’ after restoring stability in Burma.24 On 29 Apr 2021, the junta declared itself ‘recognized’ by ASEAN,25 making clear that its participation in the Jakarta meeting was merely a publicity stunt to appear as the country’s legitimate government. During 24-30 April 2021 (i.e. a week of the ASEAN meeting), the junta launched 68 airstrikes on Kachin and Karen states. 26 Brunei waited until 4 Aug 2021 to appoint an envoy to Burma; and achieved no further results. On 1 Jan 2022, Cambodia became ASEAN’s chair and appointed its Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn as envoy. On 7 Jan 2022, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen met with Min Aung Hlaing in Burma, drawing widespread condemnation while achieving no results.27 On 7 Feb 2022, a little over a month into Cambodia’s chairmanship, Hun Sen said he would leave it to the next ASEAN chair to sort out the Burma crisis, adding that he had ‘already tried his best’ and did not need the ‘headache.’28 As of Oct 2022, the ASEAN envoy had been unable to meet with Burma civilian representatives or facilitate dialogue. On 25 Jul 2022, ASEAN denounced and expressed disappointment at the four executions carried out by the regime but abstained from outright condemning them.29 Hun Sen had previously called on the junta to reconsider the death sentences.30 The bloc ultimately prevented the junta from attending its Foreign Ministers meeting in Phnom Penh on 3 Aug 2022, citing its lack of commitment to the FPC. It also demanded the junta changed course before its November summit, and agreed to continue to bar the regime from high-level meetings until progress was made.31 Although such a stance against a member state is unprecedented in its history, the fact that ASEAN decided to give the junta three more months to implement the FPC is symptomatic of the lack of urgency that has plagued the bloc’s response to the regime’s attempted coup and all-out war on the people of Burma. Malaysia has been the loudest voice calling for ASEAN to harden its stance towards the regime and engage with the NUG. On 14 May 2022, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah met with his NUG counterpart, becoming the first ASEAN minister to do so.32 On 26 Jul 2022, the country called the regime’s executions a crime against humanity and a mockery of the FPC.33 On 19 Sep 2022, Saifuddin Abdullah called on ASEAN to review whether the FPC should be replaced with a better plan.34 On 20 Sep, he called on the bloc to engage with the NUG and work towards ‘a framework that has a clear endgame to return democracy to [Burma].’35 HOW INDONESIA CAN HELP On 19 March 2021, Indonesia President Joko Widodo called for ASEAN members to meet as soon as possible ‘to discuss Burma’, also calling for a restoration of democracy and an end to violence.36 This was the very first initiative of an ASEAN member state to take an action on the military coup in Myanmar. Following the adoption of the FPC, Indonesia constantly urged the junta to implement it in a transparent and time sensitive way. On 3 Sep 2021, a top diplomat from Indonesia expressed concerns over ASEAN’s delayed action to address the Burma crisis and urged the junta to grant ASEAN’s Special Envoy full access to the country.37 As time passed, the junta still failed to implement the FPC and continued attacking civilians. On 26 Oct, together with Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, Indonesia urged ASEAN to take a more assertive stance towards the regime, suggesting barring the junta from further ASEAN meetings or even revoke its membership, if progress remained elusive.38 On 23 Feb 2022, Indonesian President Joko Widodo called for an immediate and fair solution for the people of Burma, saying the nation’s citizens deserved peace, safety and prosperity. Widodo stressed that the resolution could not be delayed any further. In a meeting with the Singaporean PM, Widodo argued that the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus was critical.39 Under two ASEAN chairmanships, the Burma situation wasn’t sufficiently addressed and there was a significant increase in the number of atrocities committed by the junta. One and a half years after the adoption of the Five-Point Consensus, the bloc still seems to lack common ground regarding the FPC’s implementation. As an ASEAN member state, Indonesia echoed significant initiatives and clearly revealed its stance against the junta. In its upcoming 2023 chairmanship, Indonesia should trade the FPC for a more progressive and pragmatic plan with clear timelines and enforcement mechanisms in the best interest of the Burma people. The plan should also include political dialogue with NUG counterparts and engagement with international and civil society organizations working along the borders of Burma to enable humanitarian assistance..."
Source/publisher: ALTSEAN-Burma and The Commission for Disappeared and Victims of Violence
2022-10-27
Date of entry/update: 2022-10-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Size: 735.56 KB
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Topic: 2022-10-19
Topic: 2022-10-19
Description: "ယနေ့နံနက် ဖြစ်ပွားခဲ့သော အင်းစိန်ထောင် တိုက်ခိုက်မှုဖြစ်စဥ်အတွင်း ဗုံးပေါက်ကွဲမှု နှင့် ထောင်လုံခြုံရေးမျှော်စင်ပေါ်မှ ပစ်ခတ်မှုများကြောင့် ထောင်ဝင်စာပို့ဆောင်ရန်နှင့် ထောင်တွင်းရုံးထုတ်သို့ လာရောက်သူအရပ်သားများ ထိခိုက်သေဆုံးမှုများ ဖြစ်ပေါ်ခဲ့ကြောင်း ကြားသိရသည်။ အင်းစိန်ထောင်သည် မတရားအကျဥ်းချခံထားရသော နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဥ်းသားများအပါအဝင် အကျဥ်းသားများအတွက် ထောင်ဝင်စာပေးပို့ရန် လာရောက်သည့် မိသားစုဝင်များ၊ ဥပဒေအထောက်အကူပြုပုဂ္ဂိုလ်များ အပါအဝင် အရပ်သားများ အမြဲလှုပ်ရှားသွားလာနေသည့် နေရာဖြစ်သည်။ ထိုသို့ အများပြည်သူသွားလာနေသည့် နေရာများသည် စစ်ရေးပစ်မှတ်အဖြစ် မသတ်မှတ်သင့်သည့် နေရာများဖြစ်သည်ဟု ယူဆသည်။..."
Source/publisher: General Strike Committee, Anti-Junta Mass Movement and General Strike Committee of Nationalities
General Strike Committee
Date of entry/update: 2022-10-19
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Description: "Bangkok, October 13, 2022 — In response to multiple news reports that a Myanmar court on Wednesday sentenced Japanese documentary filmmaker Toru Kubota to three more years in prison for allegedly violating the country’s immigration laws, bringing his total incarceration term to 10 years, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement calling for his immediate release: “Myanmar’s latest action in adding three years to Japanese journalist Toru Kubota’s prison sentence for immigration violations is excessive, grotesque, and must be reversed,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “Myanmar’s military junta is sending a deliberate and threatening message to all foreign journalists that they too could be imprisoned under arbitrary laws if they report on its crimes and abuses.” Kubota, a freelance filmmaker who has contributed to international media outlets including Vice Japan, the BBC, and Al-Jazeera English, was sentenced last week to seven years for violating the electronic transactions law and three years for incitement, as CPJ documented. Those sentences are to be served concurrently, and Wednesday’s additional three-year sentence brings Kubota’s total prison term to 10 years, reports said. Authorities arrested Kubota on July 30 while he filmed a small protest in Myanmar’s commercial capital of Yangon. Myanmar was the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists in 2021, according to CPJ’s December 1 prison census. Several journalists have been jailed under Section 505(a) of the penal code for incitement and dissemination of false news, an anti-state charge that Myanmar’s military regime has used broadly to stifle independent news reporting since staging a coup in 2021..."
Source/publisher: Committee to Protect Journalists (New York)
2022-10-13
Date of entry/update: 2022-10-13
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Sub-title: A Japanese documentary filmmaker has been sentenced to a total of 10 years in jail by a court in Myanmar.
Description: "A Japanese documentary filmmaker has been sentenced to a total of 10 years in jail by a court in Myanmar. Toru Kubota, 26, was first detained in July near an anti-government rally in the capital Yangon. He was sentenced to three years on sedition charges and seven years for violating an electronic communications law. It's not clear if he will be able to serve these concurrently. He faces another charge of breaking an immigration law next week. According to Japanese news agency Kyodo, the Myanmar junta claims Kubota entered Myanmar from neighbouring Thailand using a tourist visa, and that he had participated in anti-government demonstrations in 2021. They also said that he had previously reported on the Rohingya minority. Kubota, who first arrived in Myanmar in July, was filming a "documentary featuring a Myanmar person", a friend of his was reported to have said earlier this year. According to filmmaker site Film Freeway, Kubota started his career when he met a Rohingya refugee in Japan in 2014, and subsequently made "several films about refugees and ethnic issues in Myanmar". His Instagram profile also features several pictures of Rohingya refugees from as far back as 2017. "Myanmar's detention of Japanese journalist Toru Kubota shows that the military regime will stop at nothing to suppress independent news reporting," Shawn Crispin, the Committee to Protect Journalists' senior Southeast Asia representative said earlier this year. "Myanmar's junta must stop treating journalists as criminals." Earlier last year, a Japanese freelance journalist was also arrested and charged with spreading false news - the first foreign journalist known to be charged since the military took power in February 2021. He was later released, with Myanmar authorities maintaining he had violated the law but saying they were releasing him at the request of the Japanese government. It's estimated more than 15,600 people - including lawmakers, activists and journalists - have been arrested since the military overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi's democratically elected government in February 2021 - sparking huge protests across the country and a widespread resistance movement..."
Source/publisher: "BBC News" (London)
2022-10-06
Date of entry/update: 2022-10-06
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Sub-title: A freelance television presenter who worked for the BBC's charity branch has been sentenced to three years hard labour in Myanmar.
Description: "Htet Htet Khine, the presenter of a programme produced by BBC Media Action for local audiences, was arrested in August 2021. Many journalists and activists have been jailed since the military seized power in a coup in February 2021. BBC Media Action's director of programmes said the move was alarming. "This, and other detentions of media workers in the country, runs counter to basic principles of human rights and freedom of expression," Richard Lace said. The authorities said Htet Htet Khine's reporting amounted to incitement and illegal association, charges her family said were unjust. Her contact with family and access to legal representation has been limited since her arrest, BBC Media Action says. Since the coup, 12 media outlets have been forcibly shut and 142 journalists arrested, according to the independent Myanmar Now website. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which keeps a toll of those killed, jailed or detained by the military, says that more than 14,000 people have been arrested, with an estimated 2,114 killed by military forces. Htet Htet Khine became well known in the country as the face of Khan Sar Kyi, described by the charity as a national television peace programme. She had travelled across the country showing the impact of internal conflicts. BBC Media action is an independent charity that operates separately from BBC News. It follows the corporation's editorial standards but is distinct from BBC News Burmese language news programmes..."
Source/publisher: "BBC News" (London)
2022-09-17
Date of entry/update: 2022-09-17
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Description: "Myanmar’s junta added a charge that carries a death sentence against jailed protest leader Ko Wai Moe Naing for his role in the protest movement against military rule. The 27-year-old pro-democracy activist has been held in Monywa Prison, Sagaing Region, since his arrest in April last year during an anti-regime rally. He has already faced several charges and was given a 10-year sentence in five incitement cases last month. On August 26 the junta filed a fresh case against him under Article 122 of the Penal Code for leading protests in Monywa and for affiliating with the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw of deposed lawmakers, which the junta has declared an unlawful organization, his mother told The Irrawaddy. Article 122 enforces a death sentence or life in prison for high treason. Ko Wai Moe Naing defended himself in court as neither of his lawyers was able to attend court. One lawyer was detained and the other has been in hiding for over a month after the junta issued an arrest warrant. He also faces charges of murder, wrongful confinement, defamation and under the Natural Disaster Management Law. A hearing for the latest charge is scheduled for September 22. The regime, which has killed at least 2,273 people since the February 2021 coup, has used the death penalty to intimidate opponents as it struggles to control the country. It carried out Myanmar’s first execution in nearly four decades in July by hanging four detainees, including veteran democracy activist Ko Jimmy and Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former National League for Democracy lawmaker, who were sentenced to death in January. The other two victims were Ko Hla Myo Aung and Ko Aung Thura Zaw, who were accused of murdering a woman they believed to be a junta informant. Many other political prisoners now face death sentences issued by junta courts..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-09-14
Date of entry/update: 2022-09-14
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Description: "Myanmar’s detained democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is facing several health issues in solitary confinement, ranging from an irregular heartbeat to festering insect bites. The 77-year-old civilian leader had to undergo a medical check-up in early September after her heart rate quickened, according to sources familiar with the case. She had no history of heart problems previously. Before the coup, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was in excellent shape for her age, and had no problems with her kidneys, heart, lungs, stomach, liver or other vital organs. However, her physical condition has started to decline since she was moved from house arrest to solitary confinement in Naypyitaw Prison in June this year, the sources said. Moreover, she has developed itchy lumps due to insect bites. Some of these have begun to fester because the water inside the prison is not clean. Food provided by the prison is lousy, and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has to make do with bread and milk, as well as nutritional supplements like Ensure. The poor nutrition is taking a toll on her physical condition. She is being kept in a small building in the prison compound in Naypyitaw, where daytime temperatures are high. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi asked for six curtains to ward off the heat, but prison authorities only gave her three. She also has to attend four trial hearings every week in cases filed against her by the regime. The regime has detained Daw Aung San Suu Kyi since the coup in February last year and filed 20 charges against her, including 13 corruption cases. As of Sept. 2, a regime court had sentenced her to a total of 20 years and she still faces other charges. If she is found guilty of all charges, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will have to spend the rest of her life in prison. Local and international observers see it as a deliberate strategy by the junta to remove her from politics once and for all..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-09-14
Date of entry/update: 2022-09-14
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Description: "At least 15 protesters were arrested in Yangon on Wednesday afternoon when regime personnel in civilian clothes broke up a flash mob in Kyimyindaing Township. The protest in Pan Pin Gyi Street was in support of the civilian National Unity Government and its United Nations representative, U Kyaw Moe Tun. The security forces were prepared and waiting for them, residents said. Protesters who escaped said the security forces were in plain clothes. “They arrived soon after we began the protest and beat us with sticks. Three vehicles suddenly appeared and at least three shots were fired,” said a protester who escaped. “At least 15 were taken away and we are very concerned for them. We saw them being beaten and shot at in public and anything can happen to them in an interrogation camp,” he said. Daw Win Win, a Kyimyindaing resident who witnessed the incident, said: “It happened very quickly. I saw the people in plain clothes with sticks and some with guns watching from a distance. They beat the protesters. I ran away because I was scared.” Ko Min Thurein, an executive member of the East Yangon University Students’ Union, was detained, according to the students union. Others seized were representatives of the Basic Education Students’ Union, Myanmar Labour Alliance, Myanmar Youth Network and Pyinnya Nan Taw private school. Five were members of the Confederation of Trade Unions Myanmar (CTUM), the group said, denouncing the crackdown. U Nay Min Tun from the Building and Wood Workers Federation of Myanmar and Daw Zuu Zuu Ra Khaing, Daw Yamin Kay Thwe Khaing and U Than Zaw from the Industrial Workers’ Federation of Myanmar were seized, according to the CTUM. Last December junta forces rammed a vehicle into protesters and bystanders in the same street and arrested at least 12 people, including two journalists..."
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Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-09-14
Date of entry/update: 2022-09-14
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Sub-title: The group, including three children, was refused visits from locals offering food and assistance.
Description: "A court in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region has sentenced 56 ethnic Rohingya to two years in prison. They were arrested on Aug. 21 in Wakema township and the sentences were handed down by the township’s court on Tuesday under Section 6 (3) of the Residents Registration Act. The group came from Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships in Rakhine State. They decided to leave due to a lack of jobs in their townships and the hardships of living there. The group comprised 30 men, including three boys, and 26 women. The children were sent to a youth detention center in Twantay township, Yangon region. The adults were sent to Myaungmya Prison in Ayeyarwady region, according to people who volunteered to assist the Rohingya while they were in custody. A Wakema resident who offered to help the group, and who declined to be named for safety reasons, told RFA the township administration and its judicial department made the decision to detain the Rohingya and later refused to allow visitors. “At first, we could assist them with food,” the volunteer said. “I haven’t been able to see them since last week. I can’t go to court anymore. Even if we wanted to give food or other things, we couldn’t give them directly. That was carried out by administration officials. We don’t know much about the details.” RFA’s calls to the State Administration Council’s Minister of Social Affairs Khin Maung Than, who is the spokesman for Ayeyarwady region, went unanswered Thursday. Sources close to the court said the 56 were the first group of Rohingya in Ayeyarwady region to be prosecuted under the 1949 Union of Myanmar Residents Registration Act. Previous groups were prosecuted only under immigration law. Ayeyarwady region lies directly south of Rakhine State and many Rohingya enter the region as they try to seek refuge there or reach Malaysia. At the end of August six bodies were found, along with 59 Rohingya survivors, on a boat floating near an island off the Ayeyarwady delta region. The survivors were detained by local police. Rohingya arrests continue Also on Tuesday, 19 Rohingya residents from Minbya, Kyauktaw, Mrauk-U and Buthidaung townships in Rakhine state were arrested in Ayeyarwady region’s Mindon township. Nearly 800 Rohingya have been arrested across Myanmar between Dec. 2021 and Sept. 6, 2022, according to data compiled by RFA based on local reports and local news sources. A bloody crackdown by the Burmese military that started on Aug. 25, 2017 led to more than 740,000 Rohingya fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh, where they have spent the last five years sheltering in refugee camps. Of the more than 600,000 Rohingya who stayed in Myanmar an estimated 125,000 have been confined to open-air camps in Rakhine State..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
2022-09-08
Date of entry/update: 2022-09-08
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Sub-title: Many of the victims were tortured to death, according to the director of the UK-based Burma Human Rights Network
Description: "More than 200 people have died in regime custody since last year’s coup, according to the head of a UK-based human rights watchdog group. Kyaw Win, the director of the Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN), said that the group’s records show that a total of 217 people have been killed during interrogations over the past year and a half. Most of the victims were members or supporters of the ousted ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), or of People’s Defence Force (PDF) groups formed in the wake of crackdowns on anti-coup protests, he said. “Some of the PDF members were killed on arrival, while many NLD members were killed after a period of torture,” he told Myanmar Now. “The actual numbers could be higher than our list indicates,” he added. Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, which also tracks abuses by the junta that seized power in February of last year, had similar findings, according to its minister for human rights, Aung Myo Min. “More than 200 have been killed after being tortured in interrogation centres. Many of the victims faced extreme physical, mental and sexual abuse before they died,” he said. He added that most of the victims were under the age of 35, and that NLD lawmakers were among those subjected to torture. One MP who had been arrested during the Saffron Revolution in 2007 said that human rights violations were routine in military custody. “I was blindfolded, day and night, for three days and made to sit in a very high chair so that my feet couldn’t touch the ground. Sometimes they kicked me with their boots. I was also forced to kneel on pebbles and small, sharp objects,” he said, recalling his own experience. According to data compiled by BHRN, more than 80 of those killed in custody since the military takeover died in Sagaing Region, making it the deadliest state or region for political prisoners. This includes 28 who were killed in the region in July alone, according to the group’s director. “Some were killed two or three days of their arrest, but most were dead within 24 hours. In some cases, the bodies of detainees arrested the night before were handed over the next morning. Some families didn’t even get the bodies back,” said Kyaw Win. According to a woman involved in efforts to assist civilians displaced by the junta’s ongoing military operations in Sagaing, many of the victims are not even involved in the conflict. “Most of the people killed during interrogation were PDF members, but some are just locals accused of multiple things. Most of them were youths,” she said. One of the more notorious cases of death in custody occurred a little more than a month after the regime overthrew Myanmar’s elected NLD government on February 1, 2021. Just hours after Khin Maung Latt, an NLD-appointed ward administrator from Yangon’s Pabedan Township, was arrested on March 6, his family received a call from police telling them to come collect his body. Sithu Maung, the NLD MP for Pabedan Township, recalled that the police could not explain the cause of death, even though an autopsy had been performed. “The military arrested Khin Maung Latt, but the police either wouldn’t disclose what happened to him, or didn’t know. But there were signs of torture on his body,” he said. A day later, Zaw Myat Lin, an NLD member who ran a vocational school in Yangon’s Shwepyithar Township, also died under similar circumstances less than a day after his arrest. His body was so badly disfigured by his injuries that the junta threatened to take “severe action” against anyone who suggested he had been tortured. Since then, many others have met a similar fate. In the case of those who belonged to urban guerrilla groups, even the identities of many of the victims could not be confirmed, said Sithu Maung. “We don’t even know the names of some of the victims, as we only know the aliases they adopted when they joined the revolution. We don’t know who their families are or where they live. This is occurring more frequently recently,” he said. On Tuesday, the leader of a PDF group based in southern Shan State became the latest regime opponent to die of injuries inflicted during interrogation. According to the latest figures released by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, more than 12,000 people arrested for anti-regime activities remain behind bars in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Now" (Myanmar)
2022-09-07
Date of entry/update: 2022-09-07
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Description: "France utterly condemns the new prison sentence, with hard labour, imposed on State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. This new sentence is arbitrary and politically motivated. It was delivered by a judicial system in the hands of generals and shows the junta’s contempt for the rule of law and fundamental rights. The electoral fraud accusation on which the sentence is based aims only to justify the coup d’état of 1 February 2021, which goes against the will of the Burmese people expressed democratically in the general election of 8 November 2020. This decision makes the prospect of political dialogue requested by the international community, in which Aung San Suu Kyi must be involved, even more distant. The regime, which resulted from the coup, has no legitimacy. France reiterates its call for the immediate, unconditional release of all those people being arbitrarily detained, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint. It maintains its support for the action of ASEAN and its special envoy, and the efforts of the United Nations Secretary-General’s special envoy, and recalls that the establishment of a political dialogue including the democratic opposition is an essential requirement for finding any way out of the crisis..."
Source/publisher: Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs
2022-09-05
Date of entry/update: 2022-09-05
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Sub-title: Vicky Bowman and Htein Lin were arrested last week accused of violating immigration laws
Description: "Britain’s former ambassador to Myanmar and her husband, a prominent artist, have been sentenced to one year in prison by the country’s military-controlled courts, reports say. Vicky Bowman, who was the ambassador in Myanmar from 2002 to 2006, and her husband, Htein Lin, a veteran democracy activist, were arrested last week in Yangon and accused of violating immigration laws. They have each been sentenced to one year in prison, according to the BBC and Associated Press. Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for campaigns, Ming Yu Hah, described news of their conviction as extremely concerning. “Myanmar’s military has a notorious track record of arresting and jailing people on politically motivated or trumped-up charges,” she said. Separately on Friday, courts sentenced the ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, 77, to three years’ imprisonment for electoral fraud, meaning she faces a total 20-year sentence. Further cases against her, which could lead to decades more prison time, are ongoing. The ousted president, Win Myint, and the former minister of the president’s office, Min Thu, also received sentences of three years for electoral fraud, according to AP. The military has sought to justify its 2021 coup by alleging widespread fraud in the 2020 election – which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won by a landslide. The Asian Network for Free Elections, an independent group that observed the 2020 vote, found it was “by and large, representative of the will of the people”, however. In a statement, it condemned the latest convictions and called on the military to respect the results of the election. Dr Sasa, spokesperson for the National Unity Government (NUG), which was formed by elected lawmakers as well as activists in opposition to the coup, said the cases against Aung San Suu Kyi were ridiculous, and that the military was simply trying to silence her. She has been denied free and proper access to her lawyer, he said. “This is just the military doing everything they can to prolong their reign of terror agains the people of Myanmar. This has nothing to do with rule of law, nothing to do with justice, it’s all about them remaining in power,” said Sasa. Advertisement The sentences announced on Friday, including those relating to Bowman and Htein Lin, showed the true colours of the Myanmar military, he added. “Regardless of whether you are a foreigner, or a diplomat, whoever you are, if you are in Myanmar, you are not safe. They do not see you as a human being. They see you as someone who can be taken away from the house at night,” he said. Bowman, who is fluent in Burmese and began her diplomatic career working as the second secretary at the British embassy in 1990, now leads the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business. Htein Lin is one of Myanmar’s most famous artists. He was imprisoned for more than six years under military rule in 1998 and is known for continuing his art while in detention, improvising with materials to create more than 1,000 works. The junta said previously that the pair violated immigration regulations because they had not registered their new address with the authorities. The arrests came last week as the UK announced new sanctions targeting military-linked companies and said it would “intervene” in a genocide case filed by the Gambia against Myanmar at the international court of justice in 2019. More than 15,320 people have been arrested since the military took power in a coup on 1 February 2021, and 12,219 remain in detention, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which tracks arrests and killings. Other foreign nationals being held are Prof Sean Turnell, an Australian economic adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi, and Toru Kubota, a Japanese film-maker..."
Source/publisher: "The Guardian" (UK)
2022-09-02
Date of entry/update: 2022-09-02
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Description: "A military-run court in Myanmar has sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to a further three years in prison on election fraud charges, her lawyers have told the BBC. Ms Suu Kyi - the country's former leader - has now been sentenced to 20 years in prison on 11 counts, with several charges remaining. She denies all of the accusations, and the trials have been condemned by rights groups as politically-motivated. If convicted on all charges, she could face almost 200 years in prison. The new sentence included hard labour, her lawyers said. The 77-year-old Nobel laureate has spent most of her time in detention under house arrest in the capital Nay Pyi Taw. The public and media have had no access to the closed-door hearings and the military has prevented her lawyers from speaking to journalists. The court found her guilty of committing fraud in the November 2020 general election, which her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won overwhelmingly. The army launched a coup last year after alleging there had been massive voter fraud in the vote, but independent election observers said the poll was "representative of the will of the people". Civil rights and democracy groups have denounced the legal proceedings against Ms Suu Kyi and others as a farce. The UN has said she is facing a "sham trial". Myanmar's military regime says Ms Suu Kyi's trials are part of the legal process. A spokesperson for Amnesty International told the BBC that the military is using the legal system as "another convenient tool in its arsenal to smother dissent". "The relentless legal assault on Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the better-known examples of how the military has weaponised the courts to bring politically motivated or farcical charges against opponents, critics and protesters," the spokesperson said. The military's violent seizure of power last February triggered widespread demonstrations, prompting Myanmar's military to crack down on pro-democracy protesters, activists and journalists. Ms Suu Kyi - and many members of her party - are among more than 15,000 people who have been arrested by the junta since they seized power - 12,000 remain in prison, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma). On Friday, the UK's former ambassador to Myanmar and her husband were sentenced to one year in prison each for violating immigration laws. Vicky Bowman, who served as the UK's envoy in Myanmar from 2002 to 2006, and artist Htein Lin were arrested last week at their home in Yangon..."
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Source/publisher: "BBC News" (London)
2022-09-02
Date of entry/update: 2022-09-02
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Sub-title: The Civil Disobedience Movement member and former student leader was jailed under anti-terrorism laws.
Description: "A member of Myanmar’s Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), Thae Su Naing, has been sentenced to seven years in prison by Meiktila Court in Mandalay region. She received the maximum sentence allowed under the country’s anti-terrorism law. The 24-year-old teacher was a former chairwoman of the Meiktila University Students’ Union and taught in the local township. Thae Su Naing was sentenced under Section 52 (A) of the Counter-Terrorism Law on Monday, family members and colleagues told RFA. Sentences under the law range from three to seven years. One family member, who declined to be named for security reasons, told RFA it was unfair to sentence a young teacher to such a long prison term, “There is no justice. My sister is an ordinary school teacher, not a People’s Defense Force (PDF) leader,” the family member said. “This sentence is severe for my sister. She has to appeal but arrangements have not yet been made. I want my sister to come back home as soon as possible.” Thae Su Naing was arrested by the army at her home in Maiktila township on November 22 last year. She was accused of being a PDF leader and held for nine months before being sentenced. Her family told RFA that her leg had been broken during a beating she received from the junta soldiers who arrested her. They said her leg has not healed properly because she did not receive effective medical treatment in Meiktila Prison. Thae Su Naing was active in fighting for students’ rights during her university days. As a teacher, she participated in the anti-dictatorship CDM movement following the Feb.1, 2021 military coup. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), 12,171 people have been arrested since the military coup of February 1, 2021 up until Monday. Some 1,410 of them have been sentenced to prison terms across Myanmar. Last month the AAPP said 12 teachers had been killed and more than 200 arrested since Myanmar’s military seized control from the elected government..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
2022-08-30
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-30
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Description: "The wife of democracy veteran Ko Jimmy AKA Kyaw Min Yu has called in a statement for the Myanmar junta to be held accountable for his “unjust execution” in July and for the murder to be considered a war crime. In a statement released on Facebook on 20 August, Ma Nilar Thein called on organizations and the international community to take action and warned of more possible executions. Here is the personal Statement of Ma Nilar Thein on the execution of Ko Jimmy: 1. Since the SAC regime led by Min Aung Hlaing illegally seized the power of the nation, they have unlawfully killed so many people, and this “Death Penalty” punishment is also an unlawful act of murder and is a war crime. 2. The SAC regime never informed anything about Ko Jimmy from the time when he got arrested to the time that he was executed. And, he didn’t have any rights as a political-prisoners such as prison visits, receiving medicines and foods from the family, and legal representation from a lawyer. And, the trial was also a closed trial too and no one was able to access the trial. 3. A family member was allowed to have a Zoom Meeting with him for around 20 minutes, just a day before they carried out the execution. And, no one has informed about when and where they would carried out the execution. In addition to that, the SAC regime pretended as they would not yet carry out the execution. 4. The SAC has refused to return the dead body or any evidence that can proof the execution, back to the family since they have announced that “they have carried out the punishment” on the military-own newspaper. 5. It is clear that the SAC has violated the rights of the prisoner that they executed, moreover, they have also violated the rights of the family even after the execution. This bluntly shows that the SAC has violated human rights and standard valued of people by using arms and power. 6. I have learned through video records that a mob with around (50) people came to the houses of Ko Jimmy and Ko Phyo Zeyar Thaw on 27th July 2022. They stoned and threw with eggs at the houses and shouted that they have lost their family members because of Ko Jimmy and Ko Phyo Zeyar Thaw. We have confirmed that they don’t belong to any victims and they were the members of the USDP party, which is a subordinate organization under the terrorized SAC and members of religious extremist groups. And, media organizations and social media have expressed that this is just one of the agenda of the terrorized SAC. And, it was clear that the SAC had organized similar kinds of violence campaigns in the early time of the coup. 7. Since the coup in 2021, 76 political prisoners are under the death row and 41 political activists are death sentenced under absentia. This sums up 117 people under the death row including underaged young people, university students and women. This is the time for the international community to pressure from all possible sides to stop such kind of inhumane unlawful killings. 8. This unjust action of execution bluntly insults all of us, including people of Myanmar and pro-democracy activists amid the international diplomatic missions and ASEAN Human Rights Organizations pressured the SAC not to carry out the execution. 9. I strongly urged all the governments and organizations from the international community to take more effective actions against the SAC since I heard about more potential executions as I don’t want to see no similar cases like my husband, Ko Jimmy in the future..."
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Source/publisher: Mizzima
2022-08-22
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Political prisoners on hunger strike at Mandalay’s Obo Prison have been beaten and placed in solitary confinement since August 3, and are being denied medical treatment, said prison sources. Some 19 political prisoners are currently being held in solitary confinement. Four are anti-regime protesters, including Ko Naung Htet Aung from the Basic Education General Strike Committee, who were placed in solitary confinement on August 3. Another 15 political prisoners were placed in solitary after August 9, according to prison sources. Relatives and colleagues are concerned about the health of Ko Naung Htet Aung, a former chairperson of the Yangon Education University Students Union, who was badly beaten by prison authorities. A member of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU) said: “Ko Naung Htet Aung lost three teeth and was also beaten on his head and shoulders. We have learned that political prisoners including him are being denied medical treatment. So we are working for them to be able to receive medical treatment.” Ko Naung Htet Aung was sentenced on August 10 to three years in jail by a junta court inside Obo Prison for incitement under Section 505(a) of the Penal Code, said an ABFSU member. Political prisoners being held at Obo staged a hunger strike from August 1 in protest at the military regime’s executions of pro-democracy activists Ko Jimmy, Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, Ko Hla Myo Aung and Ko Aung Thura Zaw. Some 40 anti-junta prisoners joined the hunger strike and on August 3 four of them were placed in solitary confinement. On August 9, a prisoner being held for criminal offences seized a care package sent to a political prisoner with the same name. A brawl erupted when political prisoners complained to prison authorities about the incident. Anti-regime protesters were subsequently beaten by a prison official and convicts being held for committing crimes. As many as 30 political prisoners were beaten and 15 were subsequently placed in solitary confinement. An ABFSU member said that the prison authorities instigated the brawl between the political prisoners and criminal prisoners, as they needed an excuse to punish the political prisoners on hunger strike. “Political prisoners are being held with criminal prisoners. Criminal prisoners have taken the care packages sent to political prisoners. When the political prisoners complained, the prison authorities got the criminal prisoners to beat political prisoners. The political prisoners were then placed in solitary confinement. It was a deliberate set-up by the prison authorities,” said the ABFSU member. The ABFSU said that it supported the political prisoners’ hunger strike as a way of demonstrating opposition to the unfair judicial system. The anti-regime prisoners on hunger strike are demanding that prisoners on death row be spared, that political prisoners be released as requested by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, that political prisoners be allowed visits by relatives and that restrictions on their rights be lifted. The ABFSU and student unions have called on the public and anti-regime media to publicize the plight of political prisoners at Obo Prison, as the junta has imposed a news blackout on their ill-treatment. Some 125 people have been given death sentences by regime courts since last year’s coup, according to the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners..."
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-08-15
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "U Tin Tut, who was one of the “elders” and original members of the National League for Democracy (NLD), as well as a former parliamentarian, former political prisoner, and former student leader, died at his home in Sydney, Australia, on Aug. 8 at the age of 92. U Tin Tut was my father’s first cousin, someone I called “aba” or “older uncle.” He was also the first “political prisoner” I ever met, the person whose life inspired my scholarship on Myanmar’s democracy movement. When I was reunited with my Uncle Tut in 2014, after many years apart, I would ask him to tell me stories about his political struggles and his run for parliament in 1990. After dinner, when the entire family would sit around the living room, my uncle’s middle son, who seemed just as excited to talk about the topic as I was, would say: “Dad, tell her about Aung San Suu Kyi; do not forget about that,” or “What about the meetings you had with the Thakins, tell her about that.” Thakins were members of the influential Burmese nationalist group Dobama Asiayone (We Burmans Association) set up to oppose British colonial rule in the 1930s. My Uncle Tut would lean back in his chair, smile, and nod, but said relatively little about politics or his participation in it. Instead, we talked about other family members—my father, my other uncles, my aunts, my cousins—what they were doing, who was pursuing this or particularly talented at that, and how much they reminded him of other relatives I had never met. “And what about Thant,” he would say, “He is just like his father. And May Than, oh your grandfather loved her so.” I knew Uncle Tut needed time and space to tell his story—away even from his children and grandchildren—and in the right moment, he would recount what he knew. So, after many nights in Sydney, I walked with my uncle and aunt to the hotel where I was staying, a half-mile from where they lived. My aunt had knee surgery a few years back and my Uncle Tut, his hips failing him, also walked with a cane. I did not want them to walk such a great distance. I told them that I would hire a taxi even for a few blocks, but they would not have it. Then I told them we could do it on another occasion. I told them that we had plenty of time; I could come back to Sydney next summer and spend more time with them. But once my uncle had it in mind that he would tell me what he knew, he could not be persuaded to turn back. Born in the Irrawaddy Delta in 1931, in the village of Einme, U Tin Tut lived through British colonialism; lived through the Japanese occupation and their eventual overthrow; lived through the era of the Thakins and the fight for independence; lived through the parliamentary era; lived through General Ne Win’s dictatorship; lived through the 1988 pro-democracy movement and Ne Win’s own overthrow; his own election to parliament in 1990; six years in prison; and then migration to Australia. U Tin Tut’s father was the headmaster of a government school, first in Einme, and then in Pyinmana, where Uncle Tut received his primary education. He recalled to me in 2014 that “living in Pyinmana made all the difference, because there were a lot of politically active people, you see. There was not any one political cause that they all gathered around, but because my father was a teacher at the [government-run school] we always entertained guests from different places. And when they met they would talk about political issues. Even though at first I did not understand what they were saying, I would sit on the floor and listen to them. In that way, I came to be interested in politics.” During the Japanese occupation, Uncle Tut was not able to attend school, but continued to be politically socialized by his father’s friends: “Many political types continued to come to our home in the evenings, drank tea, and talked about the occupation with my father. There was the Dobama Asiayone led by the Thakins. The Thakins from Dobama were actually older people, not terribly educated or intellectual, unlike the Thakins who were university students, but I learned a lot from them nevertheless.” After the war ended, Uncle Tut was sent to Pathein to attend high school at the Cosmopolitan Po Karen High School. It was in Pathein that Uncle Tut first became involved with the student union. This was how Tin Tut became part of the long tradition of student leaders (the kyauntha gaungzaungs as they are called) and activists in Myanmar. After he entered university, his involvement in a student strike in 1953 landed him his first stint in prison. Uncle Tut recounted that his experience of imprisonment in the 1950s did not have the same dehumanizing qualities that he would later experience as a political prisoner under the military regime known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Doctors made regular visits to the prisons and as the resident physician felt Uncle Tut was too thin, he was put on a regiment of fresh cow’s milk. He recalled that prisoners were not only allowed to read, but that books and newspapers were plentiful, and they could order whatever they needed from the outside. Indeed, he seemed to recall this period of his life with great fondness. My own father, who was six years younger than Uncle Tut, and tasked with bringing food and supplies to the prison, remembered it differently. He told me that they would both sit and cry during the prison visits. In 1988, Uncle Tut once again became involved in national politics. Along with U Win Tin, with whom he was contemporaries and had a close, lifelong friendship, he became one of the earliest members and leaders of the NLD. During this period, he spent copious amounts of time in Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s home. In 1990, he ran for parliament as the NLD candidate for Einme. He won a resounding victory against his military-backed opponent but was never allowed to take office. Instead, along with hundreds of other elected parliamentarians, U Tin Tut was illegally detained and then imprisoned for six years, much of which he spent in solitary confinement. At different points during his imprisonment he found himself crossing paths with a younger generation of activists, including members of the 88 Generation, such as Ko Jimmy, who was among the four democracy activists hanged by the regime in late July, Ko Pyone Cho, and Ko Min Ko Naing. Ko Pyone Cho recalled in interviews I conducted with him in 2013 that much of his own political socialization during his first year in Insein Prison involved listening to my Uncle Tin Tut talk with his contemporaries, including figures such as Dr. Maung Maung Kyaw, who had been chair of the Student Union in the 1950s, and the leftist writer and former student leader U Lay Myint. Uncle Tut seemed to have a particular soft spot for Ko Jimmy, often recalling with dismay how the prison guards would not let him share some of his food provisions with his younger prison mate. Both in the movement and in prison, Uncle Tut was known for his quick temper, raspy voice, passion, and authenticity. He was also known for his loyalty and warmth as a friend and comrade. U Tin Tut was one of the few parliamentarians who made the difficult decision to migrate out of Myanmar. After his release from prison in 1996, his wife beseeched him to leave and he reluctantly agreed. Indeed, were it not for his wife, I believe Uncle would have stubbornly stayed on in Myanmar, continuing to struggle against the dictatorship, as many of his peers and comrades did, until the very end. While he never fully articulated it to me, I do not doubt that it pained him to go into exile. Yet, if he had never migrated out of Myanmar, he certainly would not have lived until he was 92, such that he could pass away peacefully at his home, with his wife by his side, and his four children and six grandchildren close by. He would not have seen his sons marry, his grandchildren graduate. And he certainly would not have been able to tell me—his “niece”—about his time in prison. His stories would have never planted a seed inside of me that grew into the many friendships that I would have with democracy activists and former political prisoners. His narratives of political strife and imprisonment would not have compelled me to return to Myanmar to search out his history and, in doing so, to document the democracy movement in the many imperfect and incomplete ways that I have. I am told that had my Uncle Tin Tut died in Myanmar before the coup, the community of political prisoners in Yangon would have gathered and given him the hero’s burial that he deserved. His coffin would have been draped in a flag of the NLD, for all the sacrifices that he made. Responsible members of the community would have read proclamations that the political organizations to which he had belonged over the course of his lifetime, including the NLD and student unions, released him from all future obligations and duties, allowing his spirit to be set free. While I cannot perform this rite for him, there is a part of me that recognizes that, in the last decades of his life, he needed no such release, no such liberation. He had become free on his own terms..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2022-08-12
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "August 9, 2022 At present, news on prison conditions in the country is under a blackout. The outside world is likely unaware of the real situation inside prisons – of human rights violations, torture, and murder. Monitoring Inside Prisons by Military Security Affairs Forces and Police The terrorist junta have ordered Military Security Affairs Forces (SAF) and police forces, to directly manage the prisons, as well as closely monitor the prisoners with strict rules to prevent information from getting out. Prisons Visits Banned In many of the places, including Yangon, and Obo (Mandalay) Prison, political prisoners have been denied visitation access by relatives since the terrorist junta seized power. As a result, prisoners are deprived of food, medicine and of contact with the outside. Transfer of Political Prisoners to Different Prisons; Torture and Extortion During the month, political prisoners have also been transferred to other prisons. In Monywa Prison, political prisoners were transfered twice in July and August, to Myingyan Prison, Nyaung Oo Prison, and Shwe Bo Prison. We also know that on August 5, more than 120 political prisoners from Insein Prison were transferred to Tharrawaddy Prison. Last July, around 100 political prisoners from Hpa-an Prison were transferred to other places, including Insein Prison. Among the political prisoners transferred, members of the Hpa-an Student Union were beaten and tortured on a daily basis. In Magway Prison, political prisoners were beaten daily without reason, both the family members and prisoners faced challenges because they were not informed before of the transfer to another prison. Political prisoners are also forced to do hard work such as carrying sewage and sacks of rice. In addition, they are beaten by a group of other prisoners without cause, until they were severely injured and made to sleep near the putrid sewage. If political prisoners refuse to do this, there are unfair demands like how much money they must pay. Whilst criminal prisoners are ordered to beat political prisoners. Increased COVID-19 Infections Within Prisons Increasing numbers of prisoners are catching COVID-19, they are being isolated without medical treatment. Around 50 political prisoners are infected in Obo Prison. Since they are not allowed to see relatives, they find it difficult to get medicine and food. At least three political prisoners are in serious pain and life-threatening condition. Hunger Strikes Political prisoners who have been sentenced to death, as well as families, are concerned, they are victims of severe mental stress following the execution of four political prisoners including two prominent activists. Particularly since the terrorist junta force’s announcement that “more death row prisoners are to be executed”. Following this, there have been reports that political prisoners in some prisons are on hunger strike. We are particularly concerned about the danger to these lives due to solitary confinement, and the severe beatings of political prisoners. There is, therefore, an urgent need to reveal the true situation. AAPP has been told that since a hunger strike in Obo Prison on August 4 and August 5, two gunshots were heard from the prison. Families of the detained are worried. We, AAPP, strongly condemn these human rights violations, torture, and killings concealed within the prisons. We urge the United Nations, international governments, human rights organizations monitoring the political situation, the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as ASEAN member states to demand the genuine prison conditions, as well as take action to prevent such targetted and widespread human rights violations..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2022-08-09
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "ရက်စွဲ။ ။ ဩဂုတ်လ ၉ ရက်၊ ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ် လတ်တလောအချိန်ကာလတွင် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ အကျဉ်းထောင်တွင်း အခြေအနေများကို ပြင်ပကမ္ဘာမှ မသိရှိစေရန် သတင်းအမှောင်ချထားပြီး လူ့အခွင့်အရေး ချိုးဖောက်မှု၊ ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုနှင့် သတ်ဖြတ်မှုများ ဆိုးရွားစွာ ဖြစ် ပေါ် နေကြောင်း သိရှိရသည်။ အကျဉ်းထောင်တွင်း စရဖနှင့် ရဲများဝင်ရောက်၍ စောင့်ကြည့်နေခြင်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စုသည် အကျဉ်းထောင်များအား စစ်ဖက်ဆိုင်ရာ လုံခြုံရေးတပ်ဖွဲ့ (စရဖ) နှင့် ရဲများက အကျဉ်းထောင်များအတွင်း ဝင်ရောက်၍ တိုက်ရိုက်စီမံခြင်း ပြုလုပ်နေသည့်အပြင် အကျဉ်းထောင်အတွင်းရှိ သတင်းများ အပြင်သို့ မပေါက်ကြားစေရန် စည်းကမ်းများ အထူးတင်းကြပ်ထား၍ အနီးကပ် စောင့်ကြည့်ခြင်း များပြုလုပ်နေကြောင်းသိရှိရသည်။ ထောင်ဝင်စာ ပိတ်ပင်ခြင်း ရန်ကုန်၊ အိုးဘို (မန္တလေး) နှင့် အကျဉ်းထောင်အများစုတွင် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများအား အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု အာဏာလုယူပြီးချိန်မှ စ၍ မိသားစုနှင့် ထောင်ဝင်စာတွေ့ခွင့် ပိတ်ထားသည်မှာ ယနေ့တိုင်ဖြစ်သည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် အကျဉ်းသားများမှာ အစားအသောက်နှင့် ဆေးဝါးများ မရရှိဘဲ ပြင်ပနှင့်လည်း အဆက်အသွယ် ဖြတ်တောက် ခြင်း ခံထားကြရသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများအား ထောင်ပြောင်းရွှေ့ခြင်း၊ ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခြင်းနှင့် ငွေညှစ်ခြင်း ယခုလပိုင်းအတွင်း နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများအား ထောင်ပြောင်းရွှေ့ခြင်းကိုလည်း ပြုလုပ်လျှက်ရှိသည်။ မုံရွာ အကျဉ်းထောင်မှ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများအား ဇူလိုင်လ နှင့် ဩဂုတ်လတို့တွင် နှစ်ကြိမ်တိုင်တိုင် ထောင် ပြောင်းရွှေ့ခဲ့သည်။ မြင်းခြံ၊ ညောင်ဦး၊ ရွှေဘိုထောင်များသို့ ပြောင်းရွှေ့ကြောင်းသိရှိရသည်။ ဩဂုတ်လ ၅ ရက် နေ့တွင် အင်းစိန်ထောင်မှ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား ၁၂၀ ကျော်ကို သာယာဝတီထောင်သို့ ပြောင်းရွှေ့လိုက်ကြောင်း သိရှိရသည်။ ပြီးခဲ့သည့် ဇူလိုင်လအတွင်း ဖားအံထောင်မှ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား ၁၀၀ ခန့် ကို အင်းစိန်ထောင် အပါအဝင် အခြားထောင်များသို့ ရွှေ့ပြောင်းခဲ့သည်။ ထိုသို့ ပြောင်းရွှေ့လာသော နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းများအနက် ဖားအံ ကျောင်းသားသမဂ္ဂအဖွဲ့ဝင်များကို နေ့စဉ်နဲ့အမျှ ပြင်းထန်စွာ ရိုက်နှက်ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်ခဲ့ကြောင်း သိရ သည်။ မကွေးထောင်တွင်လည်း ဇွန်လအတွင်း နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကို နေ့စဉ် အကြောင်းမဲ့ ရိုက်နှက်ခြင်းများ ပြုလုပ်ခဲ့သည်။ ထောင်အပြောင်းအရွှေ့ပြုလုပ်ရာတွင် မိသားစုများကို ဆက်သွယ် အသိပေးခြင်းများ မပြုလုပ်ဘဲ သတင်းအမှောင်ချ၍ ထောင်ပြောင်းရွှေ့မှုများကြောင့် မိသားစုဝင်များအနေဖြင့်ရော အကျဉ်းကျခံနေရသူ အနေ ဖြင့်ပါ အခက်အခဲများစွာ ကြုံတွေ့နေရလျက်ရှိသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကို မိလ္လာထမ်းခိုင်းခြင်း၊ ဆန်အိတ်များထမ်းခိုင်းခြင်းကဲ့သို့ ပင်ပန်းကြမ်းတမ်းသော အလုပ်များ ခိုင်းစေလျက်ရှိသည်။ ထို့အပြင် အကြောင်းမဲ့ အုပ်စုလိုက် ပြင်းထန်စွာ ဒဏ်ရာရရှိသည်အထိ ရိုက်နှက် ခြင်း၊ ရာဇဝတ်အကျဉ်းသားများကို ရိုက်နှက်ရန်ခိုင်းစေခြင်း၊ အကျဉ်းဆောင်အတွင်း အနံ့အသက်ဆိုးဝါးသော မိလ္လာနားတွင် အိပ်စက်ရန် နေရာချထားခြင်း တို့ကိုလည်း ပြုလုပ်လျက်ရှိသည်။ ထိုသို့ မလုပ်ချင်၊ မနေချင်ပါက မည်ရွေ့မည်မျှ ငွေကြေးပေးရမည်ဆိုသည့် မတရားငွေတောင်းခံမှုများလည်း ရှိနေသည်။ အကျဉ်းထောင်အတွင်း COVID–19 ကူးစက်သူ ပိုမိုများပြားလာခြင်း COVID-19 ကပ်ရောဂါ ကူးစက်ခံနေရသူများ များပြားလာပြီး ဆေးဝါးကုသမှုလုံးဝ မပြုလုပ်ပေးပဲ အခန်းခွဲထား သည်ဟု သိရှိရသည်။ အိုးဘိုထောင်တွင် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား ၅၀ ခန့် ကူးစက်ခံနေရပြီး မိသားစုနှင့် တွေ့ခွင့် မရသည့်အတွက် ဆေးဝါးနှင့်အစားအသောက်များ မရရှိဘဲ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား အနည်းဆုံး ၃ ဦးမှာ ဝေဒနာ ဆိုးရွားစွာ ခံစားနေရပြီး အသက် အန္တရာယ် စိုးရိမ်နေရသည်။ အစာငတ်ခံဆန္ဒပြခြင်း ထင်ရှားသည့် နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားနှစ်ဦးအပါအဝင် ၄ ဦးအား သေဒဏ်စီရင်လိုက်ခြင်း (သတ်ဖြတ်လိုက်ခြင်း)၊ နောက်ထပ် သေဒဏ်ကျအကျဉ်းသားများအား ဆက်လက်၍ ကွပ်မျက်ရန် ရှိကြောင်း အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်အုပ်စု၏ ထုတ်ဖေါ်ပြောဆိုချက်နှင့် ပတ်သက်၍ သေဒဏ်ချမှတ်ခံထားရသော နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများနှင့် မိသားစုများ အနေဖြင့် စိုးရိမ်ပူပန်မှုများ မြင့်တက်လာပြီး စိတ်ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာထိခိုက်မှုများ ကြီးမားစွာ ဖြစ်ပေါ်ခံစားနေကြ ရသည်။ ထိုအဖြစ်အပျက်၏ နောက်ဆက်တွဲအနေဖြင့် အချို့သော အကျဉ်းထောင်များအတွင်းရှိ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား များလည်း အစာငတ်ခံဆန္ဒပြလျှက်ရှိကြောင်းလည်း သတင်းများ ထွက်ပေါ်နေသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသား ထိုသူများကို ပြင်းထန်စွာရိုက်နှက်ခြင်း၊ တိုက်ပိတ်ပြစ်ဒဏ်များ ချမှတ်နေကြောင်းလည်း သတင်းများဖြစ်ပေါ်နေရာ ထိုသူများ၏ အသက်အန္တရာယ်အား အထူးစိုးရိမ်ရပါသည်။ ထို့ကြောင့် သတင်းအမှန် ကို ထုတ်ဖေါ်ရန် အရေးတကြီး လိုအပ်နေသည်။ အိုးဘိုထောင်တွင် ဩဂုတ်လ ၄ ရက်နေ့တွင် အစာငတ်ခံဆန္ဒပြခဲ့ ကြောင်း ကြားသိရပြီး ဩဂုတ်လ ၅ ရက်နေ့တွင် ထောင်တွင်း သေနတ်သံ ၂ ချက်ထွက်ပေါ်လာသည့်အတွက် အကျဉ်းသားမိသားစုများမှ အလွန်စိုးရိမ်လျက်ရှိသည်။ ထို့ကဲ့သော အကျဉ်းထောင်တွင်း သတင်းအမှောင်ချထားကာ တရားလက်လွတ် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုများ၊ ညှဉ်းပန်းနှိပ်စက်မှုများ၊ သတ်ဖြတ်နေမှုများအား မိမိတို့ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း အနေဖြင့် အပြင်းအထန် ရှုတ်ချကန့်ကွက်ပါသည်။ ကုလသမဂ္ဂအပါအဝင် လူ့အခွင့်အရေးအဖွဲ့အစည်းများ၊ နိုင်ငံတကာ အစိုးရများ၊ မြန်မာ့နိုင်ငံရေးအခြေအနေ မှတ်တမ်းယူ စောင့်ကြည့်နေသော အဖွဲ့အစည်းများ၊ အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာ ကြက်ခြေနီအဖွဲ့နှင့် အိမ်နီးချင်း အာဆီ ယံ နိုင်ငံများအနေနှင့်လည်း မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ အကျဉ်းထောင်များ၏ အခြေအနေအမှန်ကို သိရှိခွင့်ရရန် တောင်းဆို ရမည့်အပြင် ထိုသို့ ကြီးမား ကျယ်ပြန့်စွာ ကျူးလွန်နေသော လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုများကို အမြန်ဆုံးနှင့် အထိရောက်ဆုံး ကာကွယ်၊ အရေးယူကြပါရန် အလေးအနက် တိုက်တွန်းလိုက်ပါသည်။ နိုင်ငံရေးအကျဉ်းသားများကူညီစောင့်ရှောက်ရေးအသင်း..."
Source/publisher: Assistance Association for Political Prisoners
2022-08-09
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Description: "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)
2022-08-01
Date of entry/update: 2022-08-01
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Description: " 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
2022-07-29
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "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
2022-07-29
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "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)
2022-07-28
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-28
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Description: "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)
2022-07-28
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-28
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Description: "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
2022-07-27
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-27
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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
2022-07-27
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-27
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Description: "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)
2022-07-27
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "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
2022-07-25
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "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
2022-07-26
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-26
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Description: "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
2022-07-25
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "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
2022-07-25
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "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
2022-07-25
Date of entry/update: 2022-07-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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