ND Burma

Shan State official who joined CDM killed in custody

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A former civil servant who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) against military rule died days after his arrest in northern Shan State more than a year ago, his family has recently learned.

Htay Lin Aung was a deputy staff officer with the General Administration Department in Shan State’s Nawnghkio Township when he decided to quit his job in support of the CDM shortly after the military seized power in February 2021.

After several attempts to arrest him for taking part in anti-regime protests, the junta finally managed to apprehend him at a toll gate near the entrance to the town of Kyaukme on March 8, 2022.

His family completely lost contact with him after that and has only recently received confirmation of his death in custody six days later, a source close to the family told Myanmar Now.

According to the source, who did not want to be named, appeals to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other organizations that provide assistance to political prisoners failed to yield any information about Htay Lin Aung’s fate.

However, a reliable source with knowledge of the case recently informed his family that he was beaten to death at the Kyaukme District Interrogation Centre for refusing to betray others taking part in the CDM.

“His hands were tied behind his back and his head was covered with a cloth. He chose to die. He gave his life to protect others,” said the family friend, citing the inside source.

Now that they know for sure what has happened to Htay Lin Aung, his wife and children will hold a donation ceremony in his memory, the family friend added.

An estimated 70% of civil servants in Nawnghkio Township joined the CDM after the coup. Many are currently being held in Lashio Prison, where they are serving long sentences for opposing the regime.

Protesters hold signs in support of the Civil Disobedience Movement during an anti-coup rally in 2021 (Myanmar Now)

A number of people taking part in the CDM around the country are known to have died in junta custody.

Win Lwin, a teacher from Sintgaing Township in Mandalay Region, was reported dead a day after his arrest on November 1, 2021. Another teacher from Mandalay Region’s Thabeikkyin Township named Zaw Min Aung died just hours after his arrest later in the same month.

Hlaing Win, a teacher from Sagaing Region’s Kanbalu Region, was killed within days of his arrest in December 2021, and in October of last year, another CDM teacher named Saw Moe Tun was beheaded by regime forces in Pauk Township, Magway Region.

According to the latest figures released by the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners (AAPP), the Myanmar junta continues to hold a total of 19,311 dissidents, including some ousted government leaders, in its custody.

The AAPP also claims that as of July 4, at least 3,745 people have died at the hands of the regime over the past two and a half years.

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ND Burma

Human Rights Situation weekly update (June 22 to 30, 2023)

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Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from June 22 to 30, 2023

Military Junta troops launched an airstrike and dropped bombs in Chin State, Kayah State, Kachin State, and Sagaing Region from June 22nd to 30th. Over 9 civilians were injured and 11 died by the airstrike and civilian buildings were burnt within a week. Over 35 civilians were arrested as human shields in Salingyi Township and Khin-U Township, Sagaing Region. 6 children were also injured by the Military’s heavy and light artillery attacks.

Military Junta troops raped and killed 2 women in Sagaing Region and also arrested and killed 18 civilians including 13 PDF Fighters. The Pyusawhtee troop which is under the Military Junta, also threatened the civilians from Kanbalu Township that they will occupy the houses and farms if the local civilians do not attend the Pyusawhtee military training.

Forced Prostitution

/in ,

(က) နိုင်ငံတကာဥပဒေအရ လိင်လုပ်ငန်းအတွင်းသို့ အတင်းအဓမ္မ သွတ်သွင်းခံရခြင်းတွင် မည်သည့် အင်္ဂါရပ်များ ပါဝင်သနည်း။

လိင်ဖျော်ဖြေရေး လုပ်ငန်းအတွင်းသို့ အတင်းအဓမ္မ သွတ်သွင်းခံရခြင်းအား လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှု တခုအဖြစ် မှတ်တမ်း တင်နိုင်ရန်အတွက် အောက်ဖေါ်ပြပါ အင်္ဂါရပ် (၄) ခု သက်သေထင်ရှားကြောင်း တင်ပြရပါမည်။

၁။ လိင်ဆက်ဆံမှုပုံစံတခုခု

၂။ အတင်းအကျပ် လုပ်ဆောင်ခြင်း သို့မဟုတ် အလိုမတူခြင်း

၃။ ငွေပေးခြင်း သို့မဟုတ် အလားတူပုံစံတမျိုးမျိုး

၄။ အစိုးရ၏ လုပ်ဆောင်ချက် တို့ ဖြစ်သည်။

Forced Prostitution
ND Burma

Myanmar military arrests 10 workers for garment factory strikes

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The detained include 2 members of a banned union.

Myanmar’s junta authorities have arrested 10 workers from Yangon region for incitement to riot, state-controlled newspapers reported Thursday.

Reports said two members of the outlawed Action Labor Rights group were arrested along with workers from two garment factories between June 14 and 17.

The Action Labor Rights members were identified as Thandar Soe Lin and Pyoe Myat Thin.

The workers came  from Shwepyitha township’s Hosheng Myanmar garment factory and Sun Apparel Myanmar in Hlaingtharya township.

The factory workers were fired and arrested for taking the lead in demanding a 17% pay rise to the equivalent of U.S.$2.70 a day.

An Action Labor Rights union official, who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons, told RFA the arrests of workers on political charges when they were only calling for better pay is a violation of labor rights.

“These workers were not doing anything political, and they were demanding their rights because the wages are low,” the official said. 

“Junta arrests of protesters demanding their rights is a violation of the rights of weak grassroots workers, and protects oppressive employers.”

Newspapers reported that two more union members, Thuzar – who goes by one name – and Thurein Aung have gone into hiding and authorities are trying to find and arrest them.

Thuzar is accused of inciting workers to riot and organizing a protest at the two factories on June 12 and 13.

The union official told RFA the two fugitives do not plan to leave Myanmar.

Action Labor Rights is a Yangon-based union that has been calling for protection of the rights of workers who have been suffering from various problems since the Feb. 1, 2021 coup.

Another trade union leader, who also declined to be named, said the junta had already clamped down on other trade unions.

“The workers were charged with Article 505 only. But those who are part of groups declared to be illegal organizations are charged with Article 17 (1),” he said, referring to a law on membership of illegal groups that carries a maximum three year prison sentence.

“Ït becomes alarming to the other [unions]. It hits many birds with one stone.”

On March 1, 2021, a month after the military coup, the junta’s Ministry of Labor, Immigration and Population declared 16 trade unions and organizations active in labor issues to be illegal groups.

RFA News

ND Burma

At least 10 dead in Myanmar junta airstrikes on Sagaing village

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An aerial assault targeting a village in Sagaing Region’s Pale Township on Tuesday afternoon killed at least 10 civilians, including a Buddhist monk, according to local sources.

The attack on Nyaung Kone, a village located less that 10km southwest of the town of Pale, took place at around 3pm and also destroyed a monastery and more than a dozen houses, the sources said.

Seven of the victims were killed in a house directly in front of the monastery. They included the monk and four of his relatives, as well as a man and his nephew who were also staying in the house, locals told Myanmar Now.

Some of the people killed by the airstrikes on Nyaung Koneon June 27 (Supplied)

The three remaining victims were in other houses in the area, they added.

One of the deceased was among six people who were taken to the hospital after the attack, while the other nine were killed instantly, locals said.

According to a member of the Yinmabin District People’s Defence Force (PDF), which helped to evacuate the village after the attack, some of the bodies were still burning when resistance forces arrived on the scene.

“One person had their face completely blown off. Some of the bodies were on fire, which we had to drag out of the burning buildings,” he said.

The victims, including 47-year-old monk Kyaw Myint Tun, were all aged between 18 and 65, according to PDF sources.

A man who survived the attack told Myanmar Now that it came completely without warning.

“We didn’t even hear the aircraft as it approached. There was just a whooshing sound when it was already too close for us to get away, followed soon after by a bang,” he said.

A piece of shrapnel from that first blast pierced a pole in his house near where his son was sleeping, the man said. Grabbing his son, he ran into the washroom to take shelter, but then fled towards the monastery, thinking it would be safer, he added.

It was while he and other family members hid inside a tunnel near the monastery that he heard more bombs being dropped from a fighter jet, as well as machine gun fire, he said.

“I think they were incendiary bombs,” said the man, describing the intense fires that broke out immediately after the second attack.

Another local said that houses near the monastery burned down within minutes of being hit. He added that the explosions left five craters, each about a metre and a half deep, in the ground.

The man said he didn’t know why the village was attacked, as there were no armed groups based there or in the surrounding area.

“We really didn’t think they would attack us, as we weren’t involved in the resistance movement. I couldn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. Now I don’t want to sit and wait for them to come kill me. Give me a gun and I’ll fight back,” he said.

Most of the village’s 300 households were still displaced on Wednesday amid rumours that a second assault was planned, sources there said.

Zaw Htet, a spokesperson for the Pale Township PDF, denounced the attack as “an inhuman act” by the junta’s air force.

“I wouldn’t complain if they were going after a military target, but this was a purely civilian village,” he said.

Another airstrike was also reported later the same day at Chin Pyit, a village located about 25km northwest of Nyaung Kone. Two people were injured in that attack, according to sources.

A map shows where airstrikes were carried out by Myanmar’s military in Pale Township on June 27

Myanmar’s military has relied heavily on its total control over the country’s airspace to target opponents of its rule since it seized power more than two years ago.

Its indiscriminate use of fighter jets and attack helicopters imported from Russia and China has been widely condemned for taking a heavy toll on civilians in conflict areas.
In a single incident on April 11, more than 160 people, including dozens of children, were killed in the village of Pa Zi Gyi in Sagaing’s Kanbalu Township, sparking international outrage.

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ND Burma

UN rights expert urges bolder action by Indonesia, ASEAN against Myanmar junta’s violence

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Speaking in Jakarta, Indonesia on Wednesday, a United Nations (UN) expert called on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to exert more pressure to end the Myanmar coup regime’s violence and human rights abuses. 

ASEAN—a bloc of ten countries that includes Indonesia and Myanmar as members—initially treated the February 2021 military coup and violent crackdown on protestors in Myanmar as a crisis. The bloc convened an emergency meeting and reached a “five-point consensus” calling for an immediate end to violence, and dialogue between the military and its opponents.

In the intervening years, however, the coup regime has reneged on the terms of the consensus, and other ASEAN members have taken few actions to compel the regime to abide by them. 

In his remarks in the Indonesian capital, Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, underlined Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s previous observation that there had been little progress in realising the terms of the consensus due to the coup regime’s obstruction. 

“President Widodo described the situation in Myanmar as ‘unacceptable’ and called for the military to end the use of force, release political prisoners, and restore democracy,” Andrews said.

Indonesia currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the regional bloc. Under Indonesia’s leadership, ASEAN was expected to take a harder line against the Myanmar junta than under the Cambodia’s chairmanship last year.

However, ASEAN members including Indonesia continue to allow Myanmar’s coup regime to represent Myanmar in most of the regional bloc’s dialogues, and have refrained from suspending its membership or divesting its authority to host conferences attended by the other members. 

One such conference, known as the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) Experts’ Working Group on Counter-Terrorism, will be hosted jointly by the Myanmar military regime and the government of the Russian Federation. 

ADMM-Plus—which will be attended by defence ministry officials from all ASEAN member states as well as China, India, and Russia—is scheduled to convene two more times in 2023. Its purpose is to plan and carry out training exercises aimed at strengthening coordination among the member states’ military forces in responding to terrorist attacks. 

The Myanmar military currently classifies groups that formed to oppose its seizure of power in 2021—including the publicly-mandated National Unity Government, the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, and the People’s Defence Forces—as terrorist organisations. 

Andrews condemned ASEAN’s legitimisation of the Myanmar coup regime and continued  acquiescence in its role in the regional bloc, particularly in defence-related meetings. 

“ASEAN defends this by claiming that these meetings are merely technical and are not in breach

of its prohibition on Myanmar political level participation in its meetings,” he said. “This is not acceptable. The junta should not be invited to attend any ASEAN meeting. At a minimum, ASEAN must not allow Myanmar military personnel to participate in these or any other defence meetings.”

Andrews emphasised that it was Indonesian officials’ initiative that spurred other ASEAN members to meet in Jakarta two months after the 2021 coup and draft the five-point consensus in order to hold the junta to account.

“Indonesia should show leadership, alongside other ASEAN countries and not attend if the

invitations to the junta military personnel are not rescinded. These types of actions not only undermine the credibility of ASEAN but also serve to legitimise the junta and prolong the suffering of the Myanmar people,” he added.

Andrews recommended other actions that Indonesia, as current ASEAN chair, can carry out in order to help bring Myanmar’s humanitarian crises closer to a resolution. 

Among the recommended actions were working directly with humanitarian and civil society organisations, instead of the junta, in delivering emergency aid to the victims of Cyclone Mocha, and continuing to support programs and initiatives to help Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees. 

“Our current course of action in response to the crisis in Myanmar is simply not working and a change of course is imperative,” he said. “This change will require vision and leadership, and I believe that Indonesia is positioned to provide that leadership and help forge a path forward to end the nightmare that life has become for millions in Myanmar.”

Myanmar Now News