For Immediate Release
Monday, November 19, 2012
USAID Press Office
202-712-4320 (more…)

Stephen Greene
Acting Media Relations Director
sgreene [at] phrusa [dot] org
Tel: 617-301-4210
Cell: 617-510-3417
Cambridge, MA – 11/16/2012 (more…)

Myanmar’s leaders continue to demonstrate that they have the political will and the vision to move the country decisively away from its authoritarian past, but the road to democracy is proving hard. President Thein Sein has declared the changes irreversible and worked to build a durable partnership with the opposition. While the process remains incomplete, political prisoners have been released, blacklists trimmed, freedom of assembly laws implemented, and media censorship abolished. But widespread ethnic violence in Rakhine State, targeting principally the Rohingya Muslim minority, has cast a dark cloud over the reform process and any further rupturing of intercommunal relations could threaten national stability. Elsewhere, social tensions are rising as more freedom allows local conflicts to resurface. A ceasefire in Kachin State remains elusive. Political leaders have conflicting views about how power should be shared under the constitution as well as after the 2015 election. Moral leadership is required now to calm tensions and new compromises will be needed if divisive confrontation is to be avoided. (more…)

The Ta’ang Students and Youth Organization (TSYO) released a report today called “Pipeline Nightmare” that illustrates how the Shwe Gas and Oil Pipeline project, which will transport oil and gas across Burma to China, has resulted in the confiscation of people’s lands, forced labor, and increased military presence along the pipeline, affecting thousands of people. (more…)

Much has been made in recent times of the continued use in Burma of antiquated and anti-human rights laws from the country’s decades of military rule, as well as from the colonial era. While legislators discuss the amendment or revocation of some laws, and the issue is debated in the public domain, much less is said of the superstructure of military-introduced administrative orders that officials around the country continue to employ in their day-to-day activities, invariably in order to circumscribe or deny human rights. (more…)

More than one year on, Sumlut Roi Ja, an ethnic Kachin woman abducted by the Burmese Army, is still missing and President Thein Sein is still failing to take action to investigate and prosecute the soldiers who abducted her. (more…)

As Burma’s political, economic and social spheres continue to gradually open up there has been increasing dissatisfaction among workers and those who have been denied a voice for the past several decades. This is evident by the recent case where workers rallied for improved working conditions in a wood furniture factory in Rangoon. (more…)

The Asian Human Rights Commission has for the past two months been following closely the struggle of farmers in Sarlingyi Township of Sagaing Region, Myanmar, against the forcible dispossession of their land for the Letpadaung Mountain copper mining operation of Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd and its Chinese partner. (more…)

After submitting a detailed comment to the US Department of State expressing concern over weak reporting requirements for US companies considering investing in Burma, EarthRights International, Freedom House, Physicians for Human Rights, U.S. Campaign for Burma and United to End Genocide issued the following statement: (more…)

The government in Burma should drop charges against activists following peaceful demonstrations on International Peace Day in Rangoon on September 21, 2012, Human Rights Watch said today. Thirteen activists face possible charges for violating the country’s 2011 public assembly law for leading a march of some 1,000 demonstrators calling for peace in Kachin State and elsewhere in Burma. The government has already charged two ethnic Kachin participants in the march for the alleged offense in multiple courts. (more…)

Bangkok – The Burmese government’s latest release of political prisoners falls short of meeting its commitment to release all political prisoners and shows the need for a transparent process to ensure that all political prisoners are immediately freed, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should allow independent international monitors unhindered access to Burma’s prisons to provide an accounting of all remaining political prisoners. (more…)

The Asian Human Rights Commission has followed closely reports in recent weeks of an uprising by farmers against a takeover of a large area of agricultural land in upper Burma by an army-owned company and a private partner. The land grab, in the Letpadan Mountain Range of Sarlingyi Township, Sagaing Region, is of some 7800 acres of fertile land, to make way for copper mining. Currently farmers of around 26 villages cultivate the land. The residents of four villages–Siti, Wehmay, Zidaw and Kandaw–have already been forced out of their homes. The grabber is the usual suspect–Myanma Economic Holdings Ltd., a conglomerate of army interests, staffed by retired army officers, along with a joint partner company, Myanmar Wan Bao. In this case the director of the project is one Lt. Col. (Ret.) U Aung Myint. (more…)

Thailand’s policies governing refugees on its soil are making them vulnerable to arbitrary and abusive treatment despite the country’s decades of experience as host for millions of refugees. (more…)

In late August 2012, the Chinese government forcibly returned at least 4,000 ethnic Kachin refugees to a conflict zone in northern Burma in violation of international law, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs today. (more…)

Shan community groups are gravely concerned about imminent repatriation of over 500 refugees from a camp on the northern Thai border into an area of active conflict. (more…)

The Asian Human Rights Commission on Thursday wrote to the government of Burma calling for a human rights lawyer to have his confiscated passport returned. (more…)

The Secretary of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission and two members of the Commission visited Myitkyina and Waingmaw of the Kachin State from 23 to 27 July 2012 and carried out the following tasks of the Commission: (more…)

For several years, some 40,000 unregistered Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have been receiving life-saving assistance from three international NGOs funded by the European Commission in two makeshift camps. In spite of the recent violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, the population of these camps has remained stable. However, the authorities in Dhaka have now requested the three international NGOs, who also assist the local Bangladeshi population, to cease their humanitarian activities. (more…)

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton announced in May that the United States would ease certain financial and investment sanctions on Burma in response to the historic reforms that have taken place in that country over the past year. Today, the U.S. Government has implemented these changes to permit the first new U.S. investment in Burma in nearly 15 years, and to broadly authorize the exportation of financial services to Burma. The United States supports the Burmese Government’s ongoing reform efforts, and believes that the participation of U.S. businesses in the Burmese economy will set a model for responsible investment and business operations as well as encourage further change, promote economic development, and contribute to the welfare of the Burmese people. (more…)

BROUK has received information from sources from Arakan that police and security forces are continuing to make mass arrests in Burma, and that Rohingya people are being tortured and killed in the process of these arrests. (more…)