Condemns the systematic gross violations of human rights and abuses committed in Rakhine State, in particular against Rohingya Muslims […]
• • •For many years in Burma, a person carrying a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights risked arrest and even jail. Underground human rights networks distributed copies and organised discussions on the articles it contained […]
• • •Burma’s parliamentary government is headed by President Thein Sein. In 2012 the country held largely transparent and inclusive by-elections in which the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, chaired by Aung San Suu Kyi, won 43 of 45 contested seats of a total 664 seats in the legislature. Constitutional provisions grant one-quarter of all national and one-third of all regional and state parliamentary seats to active-duty military appointees and provide that the military indefinitely assume power over all branches of the government should the president declare a national state of emergency. The ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) continued to hold an overwhelming majority of the seats in the national parliament and state and regional assemblies, and active-duty military officers continued to wield authority at many levels of government. There is no civilian control of the military; police forces also report to the military through the minister of home affairs […]
• • •Now that Indonesia and Malaysia have agreed to provide temporary refuge for Rohingya refugees, the recent humanitarian crisis is moving toward a longer term relief and resettlement operation. But the sequence of events leading up to the short-term relief operation demonstrated serious limitations in how regional actors respond to politically sensitive humanitarian challenges. The actions and words of Burma and the other ASEAN countries, as well as those of the United States, are important indicators of the current state of multilateral organizations, international law, and the support of human dignity. Most notably, the Rohingya refugee crisis should be used to shift the debate on the future of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) exercises between the United States and its allies […]
• • •Are Myanmar’s current drug policies effective? How do they impact important issues such as human rights, sustainable development, ethnic conflict, and the peace process?
• • •An estimated 63,000 people are believed to have traveled by boat in an irregular and dangerous way in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea in 2014. Another 25,000 joined them in the first quarter of 2015. They are part of a complex, mixed migratory movement composed of refugees, stateless people and economic migrants. Unregulated and, until recently, inconspicuous, the scale of the movement has tripled since 2012 and the level and scale of abuse suffered by voyagers is unprecedented in recent times.
• • •In response to the alarming rise in the irregular movement of persons in the Indian Ocean, the Royal Thai Government organized the Special Meeting on Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean on 29 May 2015 in Bangkok […]
• • •Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM) is extremely saddened by the heart-wrenching discovery of a mass grave of some 100 Rohingya in Perlis. We hope that the Malaysian government will now treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves and ensure an impartial and independent investigation is conducted. We note that there have been reports relating to the existence of such camps and holding houses in Malaysia for some time; we would urge the impartial and independent investigation to include the question of why apparently so little was done to act on these reports until now […]
• • •An agony of immense poignancy unfolds on the seas of South East Asia. A new wave of boat people, ejected by excruciating poverty and conflict from both Myanmar and Bangladesh are adrift in the seas. Exploited by unscruplous human traffickers, men, women and children are huddled in unhealthy, sqaulor ships, often sent to die in the seas. South East Asian seas have a wounded history of gulping down hundreds during the Vietnam conflict. A new wound opens up. Now a new saga of tears and shatteredness filles our consciousness everyday[…]
• • •APRRN welcomes the decision of the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to provide temporary protection to refugees and migrants rescued at sea as a step in the right direction […]
• • •