Thursday, 21 January 2010 21:51 Salai Pi Pi
New Delhi (Mizzima) - Human rights conditions in military-ruled Burma continued to deteriorate in 2009, with increasing attacks on human rights defenders ahead of the general election scheduled for later this year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its annual report.
The New York-based rights watchdog, in its 20th annual World Report released on Wednesday, said human rights in Burma deteriorated in 2009 with the systematic violation of citizens’ basic freedoms, including freedom of speech, association and assembly.
The 612-page report said though there are signs of a struggling human rights movement, it is very difficult for human rights activists to work in Burma as authorities target rights activists.
“There is an embattled human rights movement but it is very difficult for human rights activists to work in a place like Burma,” Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of HRW, said in a video message on Wednesday.
The report argues that with over 2,100 political prisoners still languishing in prisons across the country and persisting politically-motivated arrests, including last year’s trial against opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese junta’s unwillingness to permit genuine political participation is well documented.
The Burmese Army, as reported in earlier reports, is said to carry out extrajudicial killings, forced labor and sexual violence.
“Abuses such as sexual violence against women and girls, extrajudicial killings, forced labor, torture, beatings and confiscation of land and property are widespread,” write the report’s authors.
Activists arrested in 2007 and 2008, particularly those in connection with the 2007 protests, were tried and sentenced unfairly in closed-door courts, while authorities arrested activists and members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party.
Meanwhile, a court in Insein prison on Wednesday charged eight activists, including four Buddhist monks and a school teacher, for their roles in the Buddhist monk-led protest in September 2007.
On Wednesday, human rights defender Aye Myint from Burma’s Pegu Division told Mizzima that in 2009 he provided assistance through the United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) office in Rangoon to over 100 children forcibly recruited as soldiers.
HRW said the establishment of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Human Rights Commission, which vows to adopt a “constructive,” “non-confrontational,” and “evolutionary” approach to human rights in the region, has failed to positively impact the situation in Burma and is hamstrung by the bloc’s policy of non-interference.
Despite calls during 2009 by members of the international community for the United Nations to establish a commission to investigate alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma as well as enact a global arms embargo, China, Russia, North Korea and others continue to sell arms to the Burmese regime.
HRW contends no government has yet taken the necessary initiative at the UN and calls for governmental supporters of human rights to come to the assistance of rights defenders by identifying and countering reactionary efforts.
Friday, January 22, 2010
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