Excellencies,
At the outset, pursuant to article 9.6 of the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), the ToR shall be reviewed five years after its entry into force.
We, the undersigned civil society organizations across ASEAN region and beyond, recognise the role of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting (AMM) in shaping the future of the AICHR in the course of the review of its ToR […]
• • •(BANGKOK) The government of Myanmar should immediately and unconditionally release Rohingya human rights defender Kyaw Hla Aung, who has been arbitrarily detained for 13 months, Fortify Rights said today.
A ruling yesterday by the Sittwe District Court in Myanmar’s Rakhine State again extended the detention of Kyaw Hla Aung, 74, despite that the prosecution has repeatedly failed to produce witnesses in his case. The Sittwe District Court denied him bail and set the next court date at August 18, 2014 […]
• • •A court in the southern Rangoon suburb of Padeban announced yesterday that the five Bi Mon Te Nay journalists still being held will no longer face charges under the draconian Emergency Act that carry a possible 14-year sentence, but will still be tried on lesser penal code charges […]
• • •As the 26th anniversary of the 88 massacre and crackdown approaches, Burma Campaign UK today launches a campaign calling on President Thein Sein to publish his full army record and reveal his role during this time.
When he became President, Thein Sein described the massacre and crackdown as having ‘saved the nation’ […]
• • •A group of independent United Nations human rights experts today called on the Government of Myanmar to do away with a draft bill imposing restrictions on religious conversion, stressing the right of every individual to freely choose or to change their faith […]
•Members of the US-based International Religious Freedom (IRF) Roundtable, a multi-faith informal group of organizations and individuals advocating for freedom of religion or belief, have written to US Secretary of State John Kerry ahead of his visit to Burma, urging him make it a priority to discuss reported violations of freedom of religion or belief with the government […]
• • •In an unprecedented move, the World Bank will be proposing that governments could ‘opt-out’ of requirements designed to protect indigenous peoples from unintended and negative consequences from development activities funded by the multilateral lender. In a leaked draft of new environmental and social standards to be considered for public consultation by a committee of the World Bank Executive Board on 30th of July, language has been included that would allow governments to disregard their existing obligations to indigenous peoples […]
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