July 19, 2013
A Statement by the Asian Human Rights
Commission
BURMA: Identifying and freeing remaining
political prisoners
The president of Burma, or
Myanmar, U Thein Sein in his recent visit to the United
Kingdom has made a commitment that all political prisoners
in his country will be released by the end of the year.
According to him, a committee is continuing to review all
relevant cases and determine those persons who are prisoners
of conscience and ought to be released.
The Asian Human
Rights Commission welcomes this guarantee, which comes after
the release of large numbers of political detainees,
including all of the most high profile prisoners. However,
the AHRC is concerned that the authorities are still
refusing or failing to identify as political prisoners other
persons whom, in the opinion of the AHRC, should enjoy the
benefits of the president's pledge.
Specifically, the
AHRC has issued appeals on behalf of former armed forces
personnel who are imprisoned for alleged security offences,
which are either political in their contents or by virtue of
the nature of the charges brought against them.
One of
those persons is Win Naing Kyaw, a former army major who was
detained at the airport in 2009, held without charge for 42
days and tortured to confess to carrying secret information
in and out of the country (AHRC-UAC-018-2012). He and two other
men, Thura Kyaw and Gopyan Sen, are presently jailed on a
variety of charges, including under the 1950 Emergency
Provisions Act, the Burma Official Secrets Act, and the
Electronic Transactions Law, all of which are laws that are
either explicitly political in their character or, in the
case of the third, customarily used in political cases. Yet,
although other former political detainees have recognized
Win Naing Kyaw as a political prisoner, according to his
family so far attempts to get the authorities to recognize
this fact have failed.
Another former armed forces officer
who should enjoy the president's guarantee is Ne Lynn Dwe,
a captain in the air force who in 2011 was detained and also
tortured to confess to posting information critical of the
armed forces on the Internet (AHRC-UAC-182-2012). Ne Lynn Dwe was
court martialled under the Emergency Provisions Act and
Electronic Transactions Law and is currently serving a
20-year jail term. Although his alleged offence may warrant
disciplinary proceedings, the criminal charges against him,
not to mention the manner in which he was detained and
tortured to confess, constitute grounds for his release in
accordance with the president's pledge.
The AHRC also
takes this opportunity to note that if the president's
commitment is to have any meaning, steps must be taken to
prevent the continued arrest and imprisonment of persons on
political grounds. Presently, police are arresting and
charging activists over their role in defying the expansion
of a copper mining operation at the Letpadaung Hills, about
which the AHRC has written frequently (AHRC-STM-108-2013). The copper mining
operation is a joint project of the armed forces'
corporation, and the police action is evidently motivated by
concern to protect the military's interests. The arrests
and trials are manifestly political in character.
The AHRC
is similarly concerned over numbers of persons imprisoned in
relation to the intercommunal and anti-Muslim violence of
2012-13, many of whom have reportedly been jailed in trumped
up and politically motivated cases. The AHRC has highlighted
the imprisonment of Islamic community elder Dr Tun Aung (AHRC-UAC-013-2013), who was accused of
inciting violence in the country's west but who by all
verifiable accounts did his best to prevent violence from
spreading and who was also forced to flee in fear of his
life when the bloodshed spread. Although Dr Tun Aung's
case has been raised at the highest levels, including by the
UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar with the government
delegation to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, still he
has not been released.
In light of the president's
remarks in the UK, the Asian Human Rights Commission calls
on the government of Burma, or Myanmar, to
1. Make the
work of the committee reviewing prisoners' cases more
transparent, in accordance with the principles of
democratization to which it claims to be adhering, such that
the criteria used to determine who is or is not a political
prisoner are fully known and understood by all concerned
parties.
2. Make the committee easily accessible to the
families of political prisoners, so that they or their legal
representatives can make submissions and engage in dialogue
with the committee. Presently, families of those persons
such as the armed forces personnel identified above say that
they get no information from and have no ready access to the
committee. Under these circumstances, questions about
numbers of political prisoners still in jail will persist,
despite whatever commitment the president makes.
3. Ensure
that the criteria used by the committee are sufficiently
broad as to include the cases of Win Naing Kyaw and Ne Lynn
Dwe among those that are determined to be political in
nature. It would be disingenuous to pretend that their
imprisonment was not for political reasons, and they deserve
to be released along with other detainees.
4. Review all
cases of persons detained and imprisoned in 2012 and 2013,
and currently in the courts, not only those imprisoned
before the current government began its operations, and
likewise ensure that persons who in this period who have
been imprisoned for political reasons, including Dr Tun
Aung, are released without
delay.
ends
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