Amnesty International yesterday urged Aung San Suu Kyi and her party’s new government to release all political prisoners when they take office next week, saying it is a historic opportunity for Myanmar to break away from the repression of the former junta rule.
“Myanmar’s legal framework reads like a textbook of repression, and authorities have in recent years increasingly used it to silence dissent,” Amnesty International Southeast Asia director Champa Patel told reporters.
Serious questions remain unanswered about the new government’s power to improve human rights given that the constitution keeps several key institutions under the military’s control, including the ministries of home affairs — which oversees the police — defense and border affairs.
Photo: AP
Amnesty’s report, based on interviews with human rights defenders, activists, lawyers, and prisoners of conscience and their families, documents the widespread crackdown on political opponents in the past two years. It said the government has relied on draconian laws and other intimidating tactics to silence dissent.
Aung San Suu Kyi led her National League for Democracy party to a historic win in the Nov. 8 elections, and is to replace a nominally civilian, military-backed government that has been in power since 2011.
Before that, Myanmar was ruled by the military since 1962. During that time, the junta kept Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for several years, and jailed hundreds of her supporters and other critics. While the government has released more than 1,100 detainees over the years, some remain in jails.
Amnesty says it knows of almost 100 political prisoners still behind bars, while hundreds of other activists are in detention or waiting for their trials to end.
There was no immediate comment, either from the outgoing government or Aung San Suu Kyi’s party.
Amnesty called on the new government to immediately release all prisoners of conscience, set up a panel to review all cases and ensure no peaceful activists are imprisoned, and to amend or repeal all laws used to crack down on human rights.
The NLD’s willingness to free prisoners of conscience is not in doubt, but it might not be able to do so: The Corrections Department is under the military-controlled Ministry of Home Affairs.
Even after “we have the new government and parliament, they will not have the full authority to manage the country,” Bo Kyi of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said. “The constitution says the commander-in-chief is the most powerful person in the country.”
The laws themselves have also been applied in ways that add to their severity against dissenters and activists. In one such case, Htin Kyaw is serving 13 years and 10 months for distributing leaflets criticizing the government. He was charged with the same offense separately in all 11 townships where he handed out the leaflets.
“It would have been really graceful if [outgoing Burmese] President Thein Sein had released all the political prisoners before the end of his term,” said Robert San Aung, an advocate for political activists on trial.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was