Is It A Real Progress?
By Htun Aung Gyaw
NLD Vice Chairman U Tin Oo was released from house arrest but releasing him from house arrest does not mean progress toward democracy and it is not a progress toward positive change. But his colleague Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is still under house arrest that she’d never committed a single crime.
On 30 May, 2003 leaders of Burma’s opposition political party, National League for Democracy (NLD) made an upper Burma organizational tour with its party members and supporters. The team was led by 1991 Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and the Party Vice Chairman Tin Oo.
Their car convoy was ambushed on May 30th, 2003 by the junta dead squads which killed as many as one hundred and was known as “Depeyin Massacre”.
The SPDC regime did not captured the culprits who killed innocent supporters of NLD party, but the regime captured NLD party Vice Chairman Tin Oo and Secretary General Aung San Suu Kyi saying that their lives were in danger and they need protection.
The real protection is detention and house arrest, this kind of act proved that criminals are at large and the victims are in custody. This is the reality of today lawlessness. After seven years under house arrest U Tin Oo was finally released not because of the regime kindness, because his house arrest term was up.
We all should know the regime released U Tin Oo for not a good gesture; they released him because the house arrest term is up. The regime tactic is if there is pressure on them and it is mounting bigger and bigger, they suddenly released some political prisoners for diverting the pressure. They use to release rumors that some significant change has come soon, many more will release within a month, so people waited for another month, wasted their precious time and forgot to fight back.
The regime use to give false hope to control the unrest, prison’s strikes and people movement. The significant tactic of the regime is using political prisoners as baits or as hostages to get some benefit from international actors. It is enough time for Burmese scholars and international actors not to fall into the regime’s trap.
PS: Htun Aung Gyaw is the one of the most prominent leaders of 1988 uprising which successfully toppled the General Ne Win led totalitarian regime. He is the patron of Burma Democratic Concern (BDC).
Monday, 22 February 2010
Prisoner's fiancee 'betrayed'
'President Obama and Secretary Clinton, my message is simple. Neither your words nor your actions show that you take my fiance's imprisonment seriously,' she wrote. 'I beg you to stop ignoring his plight, and to help secure his release from this illegal and unjust imprisonment. Just as Nyi Nyi continues to live up to the oath we took to defend America, please, live up to the promise America made to defend us.'
http://ping.fm/nY1OW
'President Obama and Secretary Clinton, my message is simple. Neither your words nor your actions show that you take my fiance's imprisonment seriously,' she wrote. 'I beg you to stop ignoring his plight, and to help secure his release from this illegal and unjust imprisonment. Just as Nyi Nyi continues to live up to the oath we took to defend America, please, live up to the promise America made to defend us.'
http://ping.fm/nY1OW
Mass Burmese hunger strike in Malaysian camp
Up to one thousand detained migrants, mainly Burmese, in a Malaysian camp are on hunger strike and demanding access to the UN refugee agency amidst severe overcrowding.
The predominantly Burmese inmates in the Lenggeng camp have for a long time been living in “terrible conditions”, according to Mie Ye Tun from the Arakan Refugee Relief Committee (ARRC).
“It is very difficult to continue their life; they are ready to [hunger] strike until whenever,” Mie Ye Tun told DVB after contacting detainees too afraid to speak to the press.
The camp is said to have a capacity of 1,250; but as of August 2009 it had a population of 1,430. Exact figures of the current population are difficult to attain.
Aegile Fernandez, head of Tenaganita, a migrant NGO based in Kuala Lumpur, said: “They have transferred detainees from other camps so it’s really full to the brim. I think this is one of the reasons they are on this hunger strike, because there is lack of water and it is so uncomfortable being crushed into one place like that.”
She added that “we are asking Suharkam [the Malaysian human rights commission] to go in immediately and get feedback”.
Fernandez also suggested that the protest had come amidst a crackdown by Malaysian authorities on undocumented foreigners in the country.
“They have started the operations for nabbing the undocumented workers after the Chinese New Year [last week] so the camps now will get even more full up; they will just dump them in with or without water.”
Malaysia’s home minister last week was quoted in the press as saying that the government intended to create an environment where foreigners without legal status would feel “afraid and threatened”.
If there was any doubt therefore about the chain of command in Malaysian policing, Mie Ye Tun relayed that: “One of the captains [elected detainees] from the camp was beaten badly because he made a report to the outside”. Another captain was “told to eat the food or [the police] will become violent. They threatened them”.
The crackdown comes after Malaysia was reclassified as a Tier 3 country for human trafficking by the US state department; the worst possible classification on its scale.
The situation has been called into question by Tenaganita as the Malaysian government looks set to register around 10,000 new migrant workers, despite the large numbers of undocumented migrants already in the country.
“Our call is that they stop the intake of new migrant workers; we have asked the government to register the ones who are already here,” she said.
“The ones who are here have not all come here illegally, [but] have become undocumented as a result of the employers or agents”.
http://ping.fm/ijgWI
Up to one thousand detained migrants, mainly Burmese, in a Malaysian camp are on hunger strike and demanding access to the UN refugee agency amidst severe overcrowding.
The predominantly Burmese inmates in the Lenggeng camp have for a long time been living in “terrible conditions”, according to Mie Ye Tun from the Arakan Refugee Relief Committee (ARRC).
“It is very difficult to continue their life; they are ready to [hunger] strike until whenever,” Mie Ye Tun told DVB after contacting detainees too afraid to speak to the press.
The camp is said to have a capacity of 1,250; but as of August 2009 it had a population of 1,430. Exact figures of the current population are difficult to attain.
Aegile Fernandez, head of Tenaganita, a migrant NGO based in Kuala Lumpur, said: “They have transferred detainees from other camps so it’s really full to the brim. I think this is one of the reasons they are on this hunger strike, because there is lack of water and it is so uncomfortable being crushed into one place like that.”
She added that “we are asking Suharkam [the Malaysian human rights commission] to go in immediately and get feedback”.
Fernandez also suggested that the protest had come amidst a crackdown by Malaysian authorities on undocumented foreigners in the country.
“They have started the operations for nabbing the undocumented workers after the Chinese New Year [last week] so the camps now will get even more full up; they will just dump them in with or without water.”
Malaysia’s home minister last week was quoted in the press as saying that the government intended to create an environment where foreigners without legal status would feel “afraid and threatened”.
If there was any doubt therefore about the chain of command in Malaysian policing, Mie Ye Tun relayed that: “One of the captains [elected detainees] from the camp was beaten badly because he made a report to the outside”. Another captain was “told to eat the food or [the police] will become violent. They threatened them”.
The crackdown comes after Malaysia was reclassified as a Tier 3 country for human trafficking by the US state department; the worst possible classification on its scale.
The situation has been called into question by Tenaganita as the Malaysian government looks set to register around 10,000 new migrant workers, despite the large numbers of undocumented migrants already in the country.
“Our call is that they stop the intake of new migrant workers; we have asked the government to register the ones who are already here,” she said.
“The ones who are here have not all come here illegally, [but] have become undocumented as a result of the employers or agents”.
http://ping.fm/ijgWI
Over 260 households being forcibly relocated
In yet another instance of high handedness by the Burmese military junta, over 260 households in Mudita Street, Ward No. 2 in North Okkalapa, Rangoon have been ordered to move from their current location, local residents alleged.
Most of the residents on Mudita Street, Ward No. 2 are slum dwellers.
The North Okklapa Township Peace and Development Council (TPDC) Chairman and Ward No. 2 PDC Chairman issued the order on February 16. The order entails shifting from their places. The reason cited was the outbreak of cholera in the locality last year.
"We were told to shift in January as well. We were to move to Buthidaung under the supervision and arrangement of the authorities and would be given Kyat 300,000 per household or else sign on a paper. We signed on the paper refusing the offer," a local resident from Mudita Street told Mizzima.
"We have lived here for 35 years and pay municipal taxes. We were told to go back to the place from where we came. Now they want us to demolish our houses but we don't want to move to another place at a bad time like now." another local resident said.
Rumours doing the rounds suggest the local authorities will also forcibly shift 1,500 other households in Metta, Marga, Neikban, Thitsa, Aung Bawga and Aung Chan Tha Streets from Ward No.
http://ping.fm/dSR5c
In yet another instance of high handedness by the Burmese military junta, over 260 households in Mudita Street, Ward No. 2 in North Okkalapa, Rangoon have been ordered to move from their current location, local residents alleged.
Most of the residents on Mudita Street, Ward No. 2 are slum dwellers.
The North Okklapa Township Peace and Development Council (TPDC) Chairman and Ward No. 2 PDC Chairman issued the order on February 16. The order entails shifting from their places. The reason cited was the outbreak of cholera in the locality last year.
"We were told to shift in January as well. We were to move to Buthidaung under the supervision and arrangement of the authorities and would be given Kyat 300,000 per household or else sign on a paper. We signed on the paper refusing the offer," a local resident from Mudita Street told Mizzima.
"We have lived here for 35 years and pay municipal taxes. We were told to go back to the place from where we came. Now they want us to demolish our houses but we don't want to move to another place at a bad time like now." another local resident said.
Rumours doing the rounds suggest the local authorities will also forcibly shift 1,500 other households in Metta, Marga, Neikban, Thitsa, Aung Bawga and Aung Chan Tha Streets from Ward No.
http://ping.fm/dSR5c
Burma's political prosecution of dissidents undermines legitimacy of planned elections
Min Myat Kyaw [Member, Asian Human Rights Commission]: "The sentencing of four supporters of democracy party leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to two years' imprisonment last week is the latest instance of how courts in Burma (Myanmar) operate under the military regime there to defeat civil and political rights, without regard to the terms of the very laws that they purport to uphold.
The imprisonment of Naw Ohn Hla and three others attracted some interest abroad partly because it coincided with a visit to Burma by the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the country, Tomas Ojea Quintana. The envoy has rightly emphasized that an election scheduled for late in the year will not be taken seriously abroad unless all prisoners of conscience are freed.
But the manner in which cases of political imprisonment are conducted in Burma underscores the difficulties that the global community faces in documenting and addressing their incidence. The same week that Naw Ohn Hla was jailed, the Asian Human Rights Commission issued an appeal on new charges against Ma Sandar, who was released just last September after serving a sentence that was instigated by her complaints about corrupt councilors. The new case against her is under the same sections of law and before the same judge; the outcome too will probably be the same. The week before, the Commission issued an appeal for Dr. Wint Thu and eight others, whom Special Branch police illegally arrested and held incommunicado for nearly three months. In December a court handed them jail terms of up to 71 years for allegedly planning to commemorate the monk-led uprising of 2007. The prosecutor's evidence consisted of confessions that were extracted through police torture.
The constant movement of detainees to and from Burma's jails on charges that have little or nothing to do with the real reasons for their custody and even less to do with the standards of law that the courts pretend to enforce makes tracking their cases and understanding their mechanics a full time job. No sooner are persons like Ma Sandar or Naw Ohn Hla let out than they or others are rearrested and charged with new offences. There are no sweeps netting hundreds or thousands of dissidents that might grab headlines overseas. Nor are there any mass releases: amnesties free up space for new inmates, and typically include few political prisoners, many of whom are near to the end of their terms anyhow. Instead there is only a daily passing back and forth through the penal turnstiles. There is only the pointless inflicting of meaningless punishments on people like Naw Ohn Hla, Ma Sandar and Dr. Wint Thu, who are condemned for mundane acts that in most other parts of the world would not excite official interest, let alone attract criminal sanctions. There is only the cruel banality of a dictatorship whose institutions for political and social control are not going to go away on account of an election."
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/hotline/2010/02/burmas-political-prosecution-of.php
The imprisonment of Naw Ohn Hla and three others attracted some interest abroad partly because it coincided with a visit to Burma by the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the country, Tomas Ojea Quintana. The envoy has rightly emphasized that an election scheduled for late in the year will not be taken seriously abroad unless all prisoners of conscience are freed.
But the manner in which cases of political imprisonment are conducted in Burma underscores the difficulties that the global community faces in documenting and addressing their incidence. The same week that Naw Ohn Hla was jailed, the Asian Human Rights Commission issued an appeal on new charges against Ma Sandar, who was released just last September after serving a sentence that was instigated by her complaints about corrupt councilors. The new case against her is under the same sections of law and before the same judge; the outcome too will probably be the same. The week before, the Commission issued an appeal for Dr. Wint Thu and eight others, whom Special Branch police illegally arrested and held incommunicado for nearly three months. In December a court handed them jail terms of up to 71 years for allegedly planning to commemorate the monk-led uprising of 2007. The prosecutor's evidence consisted of confessions that were extracted through police torture.
The constant movement of detainees to and from Burma's jails on charges that have little or nothing to do with the real reasons for their custody and even less to do with the standards of law that the courts pretend to enforce makes tracking their cases and understanding their mechanics a full time job. No sooner are persons like Ma Sandar or Naw Ohn Hla let out than they or others are rearrested and charged with new offences. There are no sweeps netting hundreds or thousands of dissidents that might grab headlines overseas. Nor are there any mass releases: amnesties free up space for new inmates, and typically include few political prisoners, many of whom are near to the end of their terms anyhow. Instead there is only a daily passing back and forth through the penal turnstiles. There is only the pointless inflicting of meaningless punishments on people like Naw Ohn Hla, Ma Sandar and Dr. Wint Thu, who are condemned for mundane acts that in most other parts of the world would not excite official interest, let alone attract criminal sanctions. There is only the cruel banality of a dictatorship whose institutions for political and social control are not going to go away on account of an election."
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/hotline/2010/02/burmas-political-prosecution-of.php
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