ND Burma
ND-Burma formed in 2004 in order to provide a way for Burma human rights organizations to collaborate on the human rights documentation process. The 13 ND-Burma member organizations seek to collectively use the truth of what communities in Burma have endured to advocate for justice for victims. ND-Burma trains local organizations in human rights documentation; coordinates members’ input into a common database using Martus, a secure open-source software; and engages in joint-advocacy campaigns.
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Refugees rise in Kachin, Shan states due to clashes
/in NewsTHE number of people displaced in the escalating clashes between government forces and ethnic armed groups in Shan and Kachin states rose to 1200, aid officials said Thursday.
Some 1100 people from Kaing Tine, Kyaukphyu Lay, Ar Pyaung and Hgin Gar villages fled to Kyaukme city due to fighting between Tatmadaw and Ta’aung (Palaung) National Liberation Army (TNLA) in northern Shan State’s Kyaukme and Namsan townships, according to Shan State Department of Relief and Resettlement Director U Soe Naing.
He said the displaced people from the clashes which began since the last week of December, have currently taken refuge at Warso Monastery, Aung Mingalar Monastery, No.3 Dhamaryone Sakan and Aung Myae Thar Yar Monastery.
“At present, we have provided them with basic necessities such as food and clothing,” U Soe Naing said.
Department officials will meet the displaced people who have taken refuge in Kyaukme to provide more food, he said, adding that his office will cooperate with local civil society groups and Red Cross in helping villagers who want to evacuate from their homes.
“We are directly giving aid to refugees in the areas in Northern Shan State which are under the government’s control,” said Union Minister for Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement Dr Win Myat Aye.
“Through negotiation with respective organisations, we have also provided for those who have fled to the areas beyond the government’s control,” he added.
Villagers feared that fights would intensify so they began fleeing from their villages since December 29, said U Thar Zaw, a relief worker.
Most of the refugees are women and children, and they still need blankets, pillows and food, said U Tin Maung Thein, a spokesperson for Zewita, a social welfare association in Kyaukme.
Tatmadaw and TNLA fought throughout December in Kutkai, Mong Ton, Muse, Mong Ko, Kyaukme and Namsan townships.
In the adjacent Kachin State, government forces — locally known as Tatmadaw — and the state’s ethnic armed group Kachin Independence Army (KIA) have also clashed in Mansi township, displacing 100 villagers, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) figures released on January 1.
“There was fierce fighting last month in Manwynegyi village. Villagers fled as the planes fired. It is calm now and we will have to arrange for them to go back,” Mansi township MP for State Hluttaw U Min Min said.
Dr Win Myat Aye said that the government can only extend immediate help to those refugees in government controlled areas.
“If refugees enter government-controlled areas, we will provide assistance. We are providing vocational training at IDP camps and arranging everything for them including healthcare,” he said.
Fighting between Tatmadaw and KIA stared in mid-December in Laiza, Hpakant, Tanai and Mansi, and the situation in these areas remains tense.
Myanmar Times
Ex-Political Prisoner Makes Art From Plastic Refuse
/in NewsBy KYAW PHYO THA 5 January 2018
Shortly before daybreak on the last day of 2017, San Zaw Htway, a Myanmar artist famous for his collages made from recycled plastic bags and also a former political prisoner, succumbed to a liver ailment in a Yangon hospital. Known for his humility and the promotion of his collage techniques among children, including those in internally displaced person camps, the 44-year-old had been diagnosed with advanced liver cancer brought on by the dire prison conditions he endured as a political prisoner and poor healthcare following his release. Here is his profile, published in the October 2014 edition of the Irrawaddy Magazine.
YANGON — Give him plastic bags of any color, and this former political prisoner will turn them into a work of art.
Instead of acrylic paint and brushes, San Zaw Htway opts to work with not only plastic bags, but also cardboard, instant coffee packets and other recycled goods. He taught himself to make painting-like collages with these materials while he was serving time under the former military regime.
“They’re all I need,” boasted the 40-year-old, pointing to scissors and adhesive containers littered across the floor of his studio in Rangoon. In one corner of the second-floor studio sits of a pile of smoothed plastic wrappings that otherwise would have been destined for a garbage can.
Since his release from prison in 2012, San Zaw Htway has held five solo shows in Burma, in addition to teaching his collage techniques to orphans and children living with HIV.
Now his work is gaining international attention. He has been shortlisted for the 2014 Artraker Award, which recognizes artists who are making a difference in highly challenging environments. The works of 12 candidates from 10 countries, including Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, will be exhibited from Sept. 18-25 at London’s a/political gallery.
“Being shortlisted means a lot to me because recycled collage art is still not well embraced in Burma,” said San Zaw Htway at his home, while preparing for his trip to the capital of England.
“Despite my access to paint and brushes now, I still stick to recycled collage art because it’s environmentally sustainable and I want the art trend to develop in Burma,” he added.
Painting was a childhood hobby for San Zaw Htway. When he was sentenced to 36 years in prison for his anti-government political activities in 1999, he was only a college freshman majoring in history. He spent 13 years in prison, during which time he was put in solitary confinement and he went on hunger strikes.
Burmese prisons are notorious for their squalid conditions and restrictions on prisoners’ rights, with even reading and writing prohibited. San Zaw Htaw said he saw art as a way to defy prison authorities. “I intentionally did it to show them that they can’t control everything in our lives,” he said. “But the problem was how to make it happen, since painting materials were not allowed.”
The student activist decided to make collages with materials within his reach. When his family sent him foods wrapped in plastic bags, he turned the bags into a canvas on which he plastered colorful cuttings from instant coffee packets and shampoo sachets. He scavenged prison garbage cans for plastic sheets in colors that caught his eye. He washed them, smoothed them out and applied them onto the makeshift canvas with the help of a smuggled scissor and glue.
Working late at night under the faint glow of a light bulb that dangled on the ceiling of the corridor outside his cell, he was careful to hide his work from prison authorities, taking days to finish a single collage. He produced portraits of Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi and collages of peacocks, the emblem of Burmese student and democracy movements. Some of his works reflected his longing for freedom, including “Blue Moon on the Highway,” one the three collages that have been chosen for the exhibition in London.
“I was lying awake one night in 2009 and I heard the occasional swishes of buses on the highway outside the prison. I felt a surge of longing to be on one of those buses, so I poured out my feeling onto the collage,” he said.
Htein Lin, a prominent Burmese contemporary artist and another former political prisoner, said San Zaw Htway’s nomination for the Artraker Award and his participation in the exhibition would be a source of pride for Burmese artists and their country.
“I like his recycled artwork, not only for its promotion of environmental sustainability, but also for its reflection of an important message behind all forms of prison artwork: You can lock up our bodies, but not our emotions and our creativity,” he said.
Apart from being a collage artist, San Zaw Htway is a counselor for former political prisoners and their families. Earlier this year he joined a training program—organized by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) with support from Johns Hopkins University—and now he offers counseling sessions five days per week.
“As a former political prisoner myself, I know very well to what extent we and our families have been mentally affected by what we faced for years. Counseling is one of the best ways to cure their traumas,” he said.
When asked how he felt to be participating in the exhibition in London, he said he was happy.
“My prison experience has taught me that no matter how dire the situation is, there is a way to achieve what you want to do,” he said. “That is my message to anyone who sees my art.”
The Irrawaddy News
What is the NLD Doing for Political Prisoners?
/in NewsIt was Jan. 4, 2018. As it was also the 70th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence, I could not help thinking about my days in prison. Independence Day is one of the special occasions each and every prisoner looks forward to with high hopes.
That is because of a custom of granting amnesty to prisoners and reducing jail sentences on every anniversary.
Everyone who has had to spend part of his or her life in prison knows how it feels. Prisoners cannot help feeling grateful to the government when they see some of their fellow inmates walk out of prison on such occasions, even if they themselves are not released. It is a fine practice among prisoners, despite being anti-government activists, to praise and thank the government for granting them amnesty.
Such days give hope to all types of prisoners. It is also a common practice among prisoners as these days approach to ask prison authorities for any unusual news from the outside.
All inmates look forward to these days because death sentences can be commuted, long sentences can be reduced and those about to complete their terms may be released.
I had not heard of anyone being released from prison under a general amnesty as I was writing this piece on Jan. 5. When I asked the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) about it, they said they had not heard of any releases either.
I could not help but empathize with the political prisoners in jails across Myanmar. They were surely extremely disappointed as their hopes were dashed. They have pinned all their hopes on such occasions.
When I saw that the government was organizing a grand New Year’s alms-offering ceremony and Dhamma talks attracting more than 100,000 devotees, I was confident there would be something for prisoners. I later came to learn that I had been completely wrong.
Back when the government’s ranks had no ex-political prisoners, amnesties and commuted sentences came every year. Former political prisoners were even allowed to form a committee to identify current political prisoners with the aim of getting them released.
A lot of political prisoners were freed this way. It has also become the norm for other inmates to be released alongside the political prisoners.
That is why I was confident that a government led by a party of former political prisoners would release the political prisoners left.
My expectations have proven to be wrong. It has been a long time since I last heard anything about political prisoners being identified. There are still about 100 political prisoners left in Myanmar, according to organizations of former political prisoners such as the AAPP.
The AAPP has even gone to the trouble of tracking down the original dossiers of the accused to identify people as political prisoners before adding them to its list. It found many cases in which what happened had nothing to do with the laws under which the victims were charged. The charges were fabricated intentionally to put the dissidents in prison, making it impossible to know if they are guilty or innocent based on the charges. The AAPP has carried out a thorough investigation to come up with a detailed list.
It was also revealed that there are about 120 lawmakers in the Union Parliament who were once political prisoners. There is no doubt that former political prisoners can empathize with their peers still behind bars. However, the question is why the representatives have not been able to help them. Why have they not tried to help them?
When I attended a ceremony to mark Independence Day at the headquarters of the NLD about 10 years ago, I was offered a badge with the name of a political prisoner on the back. When I asked about this, the party said it had chosen by lot a political prisoner for me to help.
The back of my badge said “Ma Khin Htar in Dawei Prison.” I was not able to help her because I myself soon became a political prisoner.
However, about two years after I was sent to prison a lady approached my family offering to help me because I had been chosen by lot for her. After consulting with my family, she sent me books to read in prison.
Such help can be of great benefit to a person in prison. It can give an inmate hope and strength. I later learned that the lady, Daw Sabel, had taught my son and daughter-in-law, and she has felt like a member of the family ever since.
I am deeply sad that the help and assistance the NLD offered when it was an opposition party disappeared after it came to power. I am just sad because I have not been able to find out why that has been so.
I believe the government has complete authority to release political prisoners. I am confident that no one can prevent it from, and interfere with it in, exercising that authority. It would be very ugly to write a history that says that about 120 former political prisoners were not able to come to the rescue of about 100 political prisoners behind bars.
What has been happening? Could you please help me find the answer?
Sai Nyunt Lwin is the secretary general of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy.
Irrawaddy News
Palaung Lawyer Detained After Gambling Den Shooting
/in NewsBy LAWI WENG 29 December 2017
An ethnic Ta’ang (Palaung) lawyer has been detained by police in Muse Township in northern Shan State in connection with a shooting in Lashio in Kaung Mu Tong quarter on Dec. 22, Ta’ang Legal Aid (TLA) reported yesterday.
Police accused Mai Myo Aung of involvement in a Dec. 22 confrontation in a gambling den that escalated and left one person shot dead and another injured. He is being held at a police station in Muse’s Kaung Mu Tong quarter, the TLA said. The aid group and the man’s wife allege that the police have physically abused the lawyer and refused to release alleged video footage implicating him.
“He was not at the location of the shooting. He was not even aware there had been a shooting. He was at another location on personal business, but the police have accused him of involvement,” said Mai Shein Htun, a TLA committee member who is assisting the lawyer.
In a statement, the TLA said Mai Myo Aung had been beaten while in custody. His only contact with the outside world was through visits by his wife, it said.
“He told us that [police] wearing boots had kicked him and struck him with their guns while interrogating him,” Mai Shein Htun said.
TLA alleged that police assaulted Mai Myo Aung while demanding he provide information about a group of armed men who attacked the gambling den in the 105 Economic Zone in Muse Township. Mai Shein Htun said this was not the first time the man had suffered at the hands of police. “Whenever there is fighting near Muse, the police beat him [for information],” the TLA official said.
TLA representatives were allowed a brief meeting with Mai Myo Aung on Dec. 26 at the police station. Mai Shein Htun said the man showed signs of having been beaten, including bruises on his face.
According to police, on Dec. 22 three people arrived at the gambling den and got into a dispute with security guards. The three people in the car drove away, but returned later on motorbikes and shot the security guards, the police said.
Police allege that Mai Myo Aung was among the three, and that the other two suspects escaped.
Police Captain Aye Myint told The Irrawaddy on Thursday that Muse police have CCTV camera footage showing Mai Myo Aung and the other two suspects, Mai Kyaw Hein and Mai Aie Ohn, in a car.
“Firstly, these three got into a quarrel with security guards near the scene,” he said. “The three suspects were upset with the guards, and went home. They returned to the gambling den on motorbikes and shot the victims,” Aye Myint said.
Police have not provided any evidence to Mai Myo Aung’s family or his lawyer from TLA, despite having detained him based on the alleged CCTV footage. He was arrested at 12:30 p.m. on Dec. 22 after being stopped while driving to another village on personal business. The shooting incident occurred at 11 a.m. that day, police said.
Police have not formally charged the lawyer, but said he would be prosecuted under Penal Code sections 302 and 307. The TLA said the police were treating the suspect as if he had already been convicted, even resorting to physical abuse in an effort to force him to admit involvement in the crime.
Mai Myo Aung is a lawyer who helps TLA provide legal assistance to ethnic minority people who cannot afford their own.
Ei Awa, Mai Myo Aung’s wife, told The Irrawaddy that the police lacked evidence to back up the accusation, adding that he had been arrested some distance from the scene of the shooting. Furthermore, the police initially said the shooting had occurred at a pawnshop, rather than a gambling den, she said.
Ei Awa added that the police insisted she communicate with them in Burmese, rather than in her own Palaung language. She was not allowed to ask her husband for any details about what had occurred, or how he had got to the gambling station.
“I was only allowed to ask him about what he wanted to eat. I was not able to ask him about other issues,” she said. Police were present and monitored her conversation with her husband.
She said she saw a bruise under Mai Myo Aung’s left eye, and added that it was possible he had other injuries elsewhere on his body.
Topics: Conflict, Human Rights
Irrawaddy News
Myanmar Political Prisoners File Complaint With UN Rights Office Over Journalists’ Detention
/in NewsA Myanmar rights organization has filed a complaint with the U.N.’s human rights office about the detention of two Reuters journalists charged with violating the country’s colonial-era Official Secrets Act.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a group dedicated to the release of political prisoners in Myanmar, lodged the complaint with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) under the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Dec. 20, eight days after the arrests of Thet Oo Maung, also known as Wa Lone, and Kyaw Soe Oo.
Police have detained the pair for possessing illegal government documents about security forces in northern Rakhine state, where a military crackdown has driven hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims into neighboring Bangladesh. They also have been accused of sending “important security documents regarding security forces in Rakhine state to foreign agencies abroad.”
“We sent it [the complaint] because the arrest of two Reuters journalists violates Article 347 of Myanmar’s Constitution as well as Articles 9, 14, 19, and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” AAPP spokesman Myo Kyaw told RFA’s Myanmar Service on Thursday.
Article 347 of Myanmar’s 2008 Constitution guarantees equal rights and equal protection before the law.
The international covenant is a multilateral treat adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in December 1966 and put into force on March 23, 1976, which sets forth the rights of individuals who have been arrested and detained and ensures them the right to freedom of expression.
The Working Group looks into information submitted by NGOs, individuals, their families, or their representatives concerning the protection of human rights in alleged cases of arbitrary detention.
If it determines that an arbitrary deprivation of liberty has occurred, it issues an opinion to that effect and makes recommendations to the relevant government, which is given 60 days to respond to the allegations in terms of facts, applicable laws, and the outcome of any investigations that have been ordered.
On Wednesday, a courthouse in Yangon’s Mingaladon township extended the detention of the two Reuters journalists by two weeks at their first hearing following 15 days of interrogation by police.
They are being held in Insein Prison on the outskirts of the commercial capital until their next court appearance on Jan. 10.
If they are found guilty of violating the Official Secrets Act, they could face up to 14 years in jail.
A question of entrapment
The two received the documents during a meeting in Yangon with two policemen who had been stationed in northern Rakhine. Though the two policemen with whom the journalists met just before their arrests were also taken into custody, they have not been charged.
A few days after the arrests, President Htin Kyaw issued an approval for police to proceed with the case against the journalists.
Yet on Dec. 18, the spokesman of the ruling National League of Democracy (NLD) party described the arrests as “entrapment” because Thet Oo Maung and Kyaw Soe Oo had been apprehended with the documents shortly after they finished their meal with the two officers.
But Thant Zin Aung, the attorney representing the journalists, said he doubts whether the arrests constitute entrapment.
“I have doubts about whether it is entrapment,” he said on Thursday. “I have many things to talk about because we have been studying this case, and we learned new facts today, but I can’t say what we’ve got now.”
Thet Oo Maung’s wife Pan Ei Mon on Thursday insisted that her husband had not done anything illegal during the course of his reporting.
“I know my husband hasn’t done anything against the law,” she told RFA. “I am just waiting for his release, but I don’t know what to say.”
The case has struck fear in the media in Myanmar, where a series of arrests of journalists or editors and defamation lawsuits against the media has taken place under the civilian-led government of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
“What I think is that authorities have threatened other journalists that they will act the same way if those journalists do what they don’t want them to do,” said Zayar Hlaing, editor of Mawkun Magazine, an investigative publication owned by the Yangon-based Myanmar Observer Media Group.
“We see their arrest as entrapment because they met the policemen, got papers from them, and then they were arrested soon after these policemen left them,” he said. “They have been charged under the Official Secrets Act only because the police found these papers on them.”
“It is a lie, and it is as if the police are stirring up a battle between the media and the people,” he said.
Thein Than Oo, an attorney with the Myanmar Lawyers’ Network, said the government has handled the situation poorly and agreed that journalists have a right to access information.
“First, the Ministry of Information didn’t follow journalism ethics when it published news about these journalists in the newspaper,” he said. “Second, it is not a crime when journalists work to cover news. They have the right to access information.”
Also on Thursday, a group of 50 Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists called on authorities in Myanmar to immediately release the two reporters.
“Their arrest is an outrageous attack on media freedom,” said a joint statement issued by the group. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo are brave, principled and professional journalists who were working in the public interest and were jailed simply for doing their jobs.”
“We call on the Myanmar government to immediately release Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, reunite them with their families, and drop all charges against them.”
Charges against others dropped
Meanwhile, a Myanmar court on Thursday formally dropped additional charges against two foreign journalists who have been serving time since their arrest in October for illegally flying a drone over the parliament building in Naypyidaw.
Singaporean journalist Lau Hon Meng, and Malaysian journalist Mok Choy Lin, their Myanmar interpreter, Aung Naing Soe, and driver, Hla Tin, were arrested on Oct. 27 as they worked on a documentary for Turkish Radio and Television Corporation subsidiary TRT World.
They are all serving two months in jail for violating Myanmar’s colonial-era Aircraft Act and are scheduled for release on Jan. 5.
Naypyidaw’s Zabuthiri township court had also charged them with illegally bringing a drone into Myanmar under the 2012 Import-Export Act, and the two journalists were further charged with violating Myanmar’s Immigration Act on Nov. 27, after their visas expired while they were in custody.
On Tuesday, Myanmar police withdrew the additional charges related to the importation of the drone and immigration violations.
Domestic and international rights groups have criticized the NLD government for appearing to backpedal on press freedom in the still-developing democracy.
Myanmar ranks 131 of a total 180 countries in the latest World Press Freedom Index issued by the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), an NGO that promotes and defends freedom of information and freedom of the press.
Reported by Tin Aung Khine, Win Ko Ko Latt, and Khin Khin Ei for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
RFA
National Human Rights Defender Forum 2017
/in Photo newsNational level Human Rights Defenders Forum, to December 19-20, Summit Parkview Hotel in Yangon. Read more