Life Under the Junta: Evidence of Crimes Against Humanity in Burma’s Chin State

In 2010, Physicians for Human Rights investigated alleged human rights violations against the people of Chin State. Their research revealed extraordinary levels of state and military violence against civilian populations. The report, Life Under the Junta: Evidence of Crimes Against Humanity in Burma’s Chin State, provides the first quantitative data of these human rights violations. The report also reveals that at least eight of the violations surveyed fall within the purview of the International Criminal Court (ICC) […]

Burma Briefing No. 7: Support for a United Nations Commission of Inquiry

This briefing details the growing international support for a UN Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma […]

Burma: Visit to the India-Burma Border

“We have been ruled by the army for 48 years. The army has killed our hopes.” – A Chin pastor

“The elections amount to nothing more than a change of clothes for the military. They are completely unacceptable.” – A Chin refugee

In eastern Burma, the regime is carrying out military offensives against ethnic civilians, resulting in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people and rape, torture, forced labour and killings. Civilians, including women, children and the elderly, are sometimes shot at point-blank range. In western and northern Burma, the regime is also cruelly suppressing the ethnic nationalities, although the tactics vary […]

Accountability for serious crimes essential to sustainable peace and national reconciliation in Burma

Ahead of the general elections on November 7 in Burma, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Burma Lawyers’ Council (BLC) are publishing the main interventions of their joint seminar held in Bangkok in May 2009, where leading exiled Burmese organisations, international and regional human rights NGOs, as well as renown international legal experts gathered to discuss the possibility of prosecuting the leaders of the military junta for the systematic and gross human rights violations perpetrated in Burma […]

The SPDC’s crimes continue: A UN Commission of Inquiry is still needed to protect Burma’s people

In March 2010, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Burma Tomás Ojea Quintana recommended that the UN consider establishing a Commission of Inquiry to investigate “gross and systematic” human rights abuses in Burma.

Following Ojea Quintana’s recommendation, 11 countries endorsed the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry on crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma. A Commission of Inquiry, in addition to opening a door for victims’ rights to truth and justice, also has a preventive value to discourage more crimes from being perpetrated […]

Report on the Human Rights Situation in Burma: January – July 2010

This report provides up-to date information on human rights violations and highlights pressing issues and trends within the country including election-related human rights violations in the pre-election period […]

Situation of human rights in Myanmar (A.65.367)

Report by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon covering the period from 26 August 2009 to 25 August 2010.

Self-protection under strain: Targeting of civilians and local responses in northern Karen State

The SPDC Army continues to attack civilians and civilian livelihoods nearly two years after the end of the 2005-2008 SPDC Offensive in northern Karen State. In response, civilians have developed and employed various self-protection strategies that have enabled tens of thousands of villagers to survive with dignity and remain close to their homes despite the humanitarian consequences of SPDC Army practices. These protection strategies, however, have become strained, even insufficient, as humanitarian conditions worsen under sustained pressure from the SPDC Army […]

Upholding the Responsibility to Protect in Burma/Myanmar

Introduction

The situation in Burma/Myanmar remains grave. With elections scheduled for 7 November 2010 international attention on the country has increased. Such attention, and any policy action taken, must focus not only on the goal of democratic transition, and concerns about the regimes nuclear collaboration with North Korea, but also on the plight of Burma’s ethnic minorities who continue to suffer atrocities at the hands of the government. These atrocities may rise to the level of crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing – crimes states committed themselves to protect populations from at the 2005 World Summit, as described in the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect policy brief dated 4 March 2010, “Applying the Responsibility to Protect to Burma/Myanmar[…]

Burma Briefing No. 2: The United Nations General Assembly & Burma

This briefing calls on the United Nations General Assembly to establish a Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma. EU Member states are currently drafting the twentieth annual resolution on Burma, which is expected to be adopted later this year […]