Human Rights Situation weekly update (August 15 to 21, 2023)

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Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Aug 15 to 21, 2023

Military Junta Troop launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Sagaing Region, Bago Region, Kayin State, and Kachin State from August 15th to 21st. Military Junta troops attacked with heavy artillery which seemed to contain chemical poison, to Thasi Village, Kale Township, Sagaing Region, and 20 civilians were poisoned and took medical care. They also arrested over 30 civilians from Sagaing Region and Magway Region as human shields. Military Junta arrested and killed 8 civilians from Pinlebu Township and Khin-U Township.

Civilians were forced to leave their places by the Military Junta troop’s matching, for 5 times within a week. 2 children died and 1 was injured by the Military’s Human Rights Violations. 5 underage youth were arrested within a week. Military land mines killed a civilian and injured 2 people.

Human Rights Situation weekly update (August 8 to 14, 2023)

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Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Aug 8 to 14, 2023

Military Junta Troops launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Sagaing Region and Bago Region from August 8th to 14th. Military Junta troops arrested almost 50 civilians and used them as human shields in Tanintharyi Region. Juna’s troops arrested 2 civilians and burnt and killed them in Kale Township on August 12th. They also destroyed the part of the Seikphyu Road which connects Pathein- Monywa Road.

Pyusawhtee militias that work under the Military Junta  are threatening the civilians in various ways and collecting money in Sagaing Region and Tanintharyi Region. 8 civilians were killed by the Military Junta troop within a week. A child died and 2 were injured by the Human Right Violations of the Military Junta.

Beaten in prison for marking Martyrs’ Day, two Burmese inmates die

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Other inmates, including female prisoners, who participated were placed in solitary confinement.

Two Burmese political prisoners beaten by the ruling military junta’s prison authorities for participating in a ceremony marking Martyrs’ Day have died of their injuries, sources with knowledge of the situation said.

They were among four inmates authorities physically assaulted in Tharrawaddy Prison in Bago region on July 19 for marking the national holiday, RFA reported earlier.

The holiday marks the memory of renowned fallen figures within Burma’s independence movement, including Gen. Aung San, father of deposed and jailed former State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, seven other independence leaders, and one bodyguard who were gunned down by a group of armed men in uniform while holding a cabinet meeting in Yangon on July 19, 1947.

The holiday is marked annually by both pro-democracy groups and the military junta, which seized control of the elected government in a February 2021 coup and later sentenced Suu Kyi to 33 years in prison following trials that rights groups have condemned as shams.

The two inmates — Than Toe Aung, organizer of the National League for Democracy’s youth group in Yangon’s Thanlyin township, and Hla Soe from the town of Thone Sal in Bago’s Tharrawaddy (Tharyarwady) district — died after they were taken to the prison hospital, sources close to the prison told RFA on Monday.

The other two beaten inmates also received treatment in the prison hospital.

They were among the inmates in the men’s section of the detention center who held a saluting ceremony and discussion to commemorate Martyrs’ Day, while female prisoners in the women’s section wore black ribbons. 

Solitary confinement

Because of these activities, prison guards placed 16 male inmates and 15 females to solitary confinement. Four of them were severely tortured and had required medical treatment in prison since July 21.

Prison authorities have not notified the victims’ families about their deaths, Nyo Tun, a former political prisoner and a friend of Than Toe Aung, told Radio Free Asia. 

“The news that the two political prisoners have died came from not just one source, but from two or three from the prison,” he said.

Than Toe Aung, serving six years in prison for violating the Explosive Substances Act, died on Aug. 5 from severe head injuries.

Hla Soe, serving 20 years for violating the Counter-terrorism Law, died on Aug. 8.

Thaik Tun Oo of the Myanmar Political Prisoners Network said he was able to confirm the death of the two prisoners.

RFA could not reach the spokesman of Myanmar’s Prison Department for comment.

Prison guards have allowed some of the female inmates who participated in commemorating the holiday to return to their cells, while the situation of the men’s section remains unknown, said people close to the prison.

As of Aug. 14, more than 19,700 pro-democracy activists and civilians had been detained by authorities under the military junta since the February 2021 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based rights group. 

RFA News

Fire station raid triggers junta attacks in Budalin Township

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The attacks come as resistance forces continue to hold the township’s fire department chief and others for helping the regime to target dissidents

Regime forces have begun carrying out raids in Sagaing Region’s Budalin Township following the capture late last week of fire department staff and their families by local resistance groups.

According to sources in the area, a column of around 100 soldiers based in the Depayin Township village of Saing Pyin started attacking villages north of the town of Budalin early Thursday morning.

This column was later joined by another of around 70 troops based in Ku Taw, a village in western Budalin Township. At around 11am, the two columns converged in Kin San, a village some 20km north of Budalin, the sources said.

“The two columns combined to make one large force that I think will now start searching for the firefighters,” a local with ties to a resistance group told Myanmar Now.

The raids have forced hundreds of civilians from Kin San and other villages in the area to flee, according to residents.

Last Sunday, anti-regime groups stormed a fire station in downtown Budalin and detained 21 people, including the township’s fire department chief, 12 firefighters and other staff, and eight family members.

The resistance groups said they targeted the fire department because of its collaboration with the junta in sealing off dissidents’ houses and arresting civilians, and for its failure to help put out fires set by regime soldiers.

The groups say the detainees are being held in a safe place as they face prosecution for their role in supporting the junta.

There were also reports that the army column from Saing Pyin is holding around 30 local villagers hostage. Myanmar’s military routinely uses civilians as human shields in areas where it faces attack from resistance forces.

“Many of the hostages were middle-aged people just going about their business when they were taken away. Some of them didn’t seem to think that the army posed a threat to them,” said the source close to local resistance forces.

Budalin is less than 40km north of Monywa, Sagaing Region’s capital and largest city, and the seat of the junta’s Northwestern Regional Military Command.

In late July, three student leaders were tortured and killed following a raid on their office in western Budalin Township. Sources say they were repeatedly stabbed in the chest before being put to death.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, around 1.6 million people have been displaced from their homes in Myanmar since the military seized power in February 2021, with Sagaing Region alone accounting for more than half of this figure.

Myanmar Now News

‘Dramatic increase’ in Myanmar war crimes: UN probe

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Investigators say they are looking for evidence linking crimes to specific individuals, especially high-level officials

UN investigators said Tuesday they had gathered strong evidence of surging war crimes in Myanmar, including mass executions and sexual violence, and were building case files to help bring perpetrators to justice.

The Southeast Asian country has been ravaged by deadly violence since a coup deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in February 2021, unleashing a bloody crackdown on dissent that has sparked fighting across swathes of the nation.

The United Nations’ Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) said it had evidence that Myanmar’s military and affiliated militias were “committing increasingly frequent and brazen war crimes.”

It pointed among other things to indiscriminate aerial bombardments, the burning of villages and mass killings of civilians and detained combatants, as well as torture and horrific sexual violence.

The investigation team warned in its annual report that “the number of incidents bearing the hallmarks of serious international crimes” had surged since the coup.

“Every loss of life in Myanmar is tragic, but the devastation caused to whole communities through aerial bombardments and village burnings is particularly shocking,” Mechanism chief Nicholas Koumjian said in the statement.

“Our evidence points to a dramatic increase in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the country, with widespread and systematic attacks against civilians, and we are building case files that can be used by courts to hold individual perpetrators responsible.”

‘Highest level of cruelty’

The IIMM was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 to collect evidence of the most serious international crimes and prepare files for criminal prosecution.

While the team has never been permitted to visit Myanmar, it said it had engaged with over 700 sources and had collected “over 23 million information items,” including witness statements, documents, photographs, videos, forensic evidence and satellite imagery.

The team—already cooperating with the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court—said it “plans to accelerate its collection of evidence of the most serious international crimes.”

The investigators said they were particularly looking for “linkage evidence” demonstrating responsibility of specific individuals, especially high-level officials.

The IIMM report explained that military commanders have a duty under international law to prevent and punish war crimes committed by those under their command.

“Repeatedly ignoring such crimes may indicate that the higher authorities intended the commission of these crimes,” the report said.

It highlighted evidence of the use of child soldiers by “various armed actors,” and said it was seeing “more and more evidence concerning torture, sexual violence and other forms of severe mistreatment at numerous detention facilities.”

The evidence indicated that such crimes were “being committed with the highest levels of cruelty and harm to the victims, including rape with objects, other forms of humiliation, mutilation, gang or serial rape and sexual enslavement,” the report said.

The IIMM said it was also investigating rampant sexual violence committed during the bloody crackdown on Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority that in 2017 resulted in the displacement of nearly a million people.

“Sexual and gender-based crimes are amongst the most heinous crimes that we are investigating,” said Koumjian, saying these were “pervasive during the Rohingya clearance operations.”

Myanmar Now News

Human Rights Situation weekly update (August 1 to 7, 2023)

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Human Rights Violations took place in States and Regions from Aug 1 to 7, 2023

Military Junta Troops arrested almost 60 civilians and used them as human shields from Tanintharyi Region and Sagaing Region  from August 1st to 7th. Military Junta Troops launched airstrikes and dropped bombs in Pale Township, Sagaing Region on August 7th. Military Junta’s ships attacked with heavy and light artillery some villages which are located next to the Ayeyarwady River bank, between Katha Township, Sagaing Region, and Shweku Township, Kachin State. Military troops started targeting the youths and checked the civilians by going on the YBS buses in Yangon Region.

The head of the prison that works under the Military Junta, beat, and tortured the political prisoners from Thayarwaddy Prison and Dike-U Prison, Bago Region, and held them in solitary confinement. A child died and a person was injured by the Military’s heavy and light artillery attacks within a week. Local Civilians from Sagaing Region, Magway Region, and Mandalay Region left their places and fled from the Military Junta raiding.