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Dozens of political prisoners join hunger strike in Monywa

September 13, 2023/in News

The striking inmates’ demands included the return of confiscated personal items, removal of existing restrictions on receiving care packages, and adequate medical care Wai Moe Naing, leader of the Monywa People’s Strike Committee, is among the political prisoners participating in a mass hunger strike at Sagaing Region’s Monywa Prison since last week, sources familiar with […]

International humanitarian group sacks 80 Myanmar employees amid pay dispute

September 12, 2023/in News

The Lutheran World Federation (LWF), an organisation directing humanitarian aid projects in Myanmar, terminated scores of staff striking over compensation at its office in Sittwe, Rakhine State on September 4. Employees residing in the Rakhine State capital had requested that the Geneva-based international non-governmental organisation calculate their pay using the real market value of the […]

Dozens of political prisoners join hunger strike in Monywa

September 13, 2023/in News

International humanitarian group sacks 80 Myanmar employees amid pay dispute

September 12, 2023/in News

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Dozens of political prisoners join hunger strike in Monywa

September 13, 2023/in News

The striking inmates’ demands included the return of confiscated personal items, removal of existing restrictions on receiving care packages, and adequate medical care

Wai Moe Naing, leader of the Monywa People’s Strike Committee, is among the political prisoners participating in a mass hunger strike at Sagaing Region’s Monywa Prison since last week, sources familiar with conditions at the prison said.

The strike was a response to the harsh restrictions prison authorities had imposed on inmates, including limitations on the receipt of care packages and stricter enforcement of contraband rules.

A “special search force”—including junta police, members of the military, fire department staff, and administrators—had come to the prison in the Sagaing Region capital and confiscated inmates’ books, clothing, and other personal items on September 8.

The following day, 14 political prisoners initiated a hunger strike, demanding the return of the inmates’ personal items, the removal of existing limitations on receiving care packages, and adequate medical care for Monywa Prison inmates.

The prison authorities ignored these demands, prompting more political prisoners including Wai Moe Naing to join the strike, according to two sources who spoke with Myanmar Now.

Around 50 political prisoners in total are now participating in the strike, the sources said.

Prominent Monywa-based protest leader Wai Moe Naing is serving a sentence of nearly 50 years on several charges–including sedition, unlawful assembly, abduction with intent to murder, murder, and treason–after participating in the city’s protests following the February 2021 coup. He was arrested after being hit by a vehicle driven by regime forces during a protest, and has been in detention since April 2021.

According to Shin Thant, a member of the Monywa People’s Strike Steering Committee, authorities have placed Wai Moe Naing in solitary confinement, while three other hunger strike participants have fainted from hypoglycaemia and anaemia.

“The authorities refused to provide medical care for the three prisoners that fainted,” Shin Thant said. “The prison still hasn’t agreed to the conditions set by the prisoners.”

The Political Prisoners Network (PPN), a prisoners’ rights monitoring group, reported on September 12 that prison authorities said the striking inmates had not received treatment because it was against the law to go on strike in prison.

Thaik Tun Oo, a spokesperson for the PPN, said that in addition to the prisoners participating in the hunger strike, others held at Monywa Prison were refusing the prison’s food and subsisting only on what they received from their families.

“I have been told that they will continue the strike until the authorities meet their conditions,” he added.

Political prisoners’ families have said that oppression and mistreatment in prisons throughout the country became even worse after Myo Swe, an official in the junta’s defence ministry, was appointeddirector-general of the home affairs ministry’s Prison Department.

The military is not allowing in-person visits at most prisons, citing the risk from the COVID-19 pandemic as justification. The military has also refused to grant access to prisons to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners reported that the regime was still holding at least 19,458 political prisoners throughout Myanmar as of September 12 of this year.

Myanmar Now News

International humanitarian group sacks 80 Myanmar employees amid pay dispute

September 12, 2023/in News

Employees residing in the Rakhine State capital had requested that the Geneva-based international non-governmental organisation calculate their pay using the real market value of the kyat.

However, the organisation instead opted to base its calculations on the overvalued kyat-to-euro exchange rate set by the military regime-controlled Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM), resulting in significantly lower real compensation for its workers inside the country.

As of September 8, the market exchange rate stood at 3,715 kyat to the euro, in contrast to the CBM-set exchange rate of 2,250 kyat to the euro.

“The value of the Burmese currency has fallen too much. Commodity prices have risen sharply. In Sittwe, after Cyclone Mocha hit, prices went up exponentially,” a terminated LWF employee said.

According to the employee, the organisation’s staff held a silent protest at the Sittwe office from August 14 to 18 after the LWF refused the request to reevaluate their compensation.

LWF Sittwe staff’s letter regarding their silent strike on September 7 (Facebook)

Of just over 90 personnel working at the organisation’s branch office in Sittwe, 80 extended the strike for another two weeks after their initial demand was declined, the employee added. They then heard from the head of LWF operations in Myanmar via e-mail that the striking workers would be terminated.

“I feel it’s unfair that they have used their power to dismiss us from the organisation without addressing our demands compassionately,” another of the dismissed workers said.

The terminated employees included 43 men and 37 women, of whom four were mothers of newborns and another four were pregnant.

As of 12pm on September 11, LWF had not issued any public statements regarding the termination of its employees. Myanmar Now tried to contact the LWF office in Yangon by telephone and e-mail but received no response.

LWF has been operating in Myanmar since the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in 2008 and is currently in charge of aid projects in Rakhine and Karen states.

Myanmar Now News

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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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