ေပါင္းေလာင္းအေရး ေဆာင္ရြက္ေပးေနေသာ ကယန္းမ်ဳိးဆက္သစ္လူငယ္ KNGY ၏ ဗဟိုေကာ္မတီ၀င္ ခြန္ႏိုင္လင္းထြန္း ကို ရဲတပ္ဖြဲ႔၀င္မ်ားမွ ရိုက္ႏွက္ျခင္းႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ ထုတ္ျပန္ေၾကညာခ်က္

Reform of the Police and the Judiciary is a Matter of Urgency

Over recent weeks, there has been a spate of unprovoked attacks by the Burma Police Force on peaceful, innocent civilians. On 14 August, nearly 50 police personnel in Mandalay Region shot at a group of around 200 farmers from Nyaung Wine Village, Singu Township. According to the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), a 30-year-old mother of two, Ma San Kyin Nu, is allegedly one of the victims, and has been admitted to Mandalay General Hospital for urgent medical treatment as a result of her injuries. The farmers were protesting against the fact that over 6,000 acres of their land was confiscated in 1991 by the 121 Logistic Battalion of the Burma Army – without any compensation being provided – by continuing to plough their fields.

After the police violence, the protesting farmers prevented police from making any arrests; however, later, another 100 police arrived and blockaded the entire village. Local residents then took matters into their own hands and briefly detained about 40 police officers, angered at the brutal approach of the police to the land conflict. Although the policemen were eventually released after negotiations, the dangers and risks of uncontrolled police violence and impunity are evident: blood has been shed and anarchy has prevailed. Even if police allegations that the protestors were armed with slingshots is true, under no circumstances is the use of live ammunition by police or other state security forces on civilian protestors proportionate or justified.

Furthermore, on 14 May, All Burma Federation of Students Union (ABFSU) member Kaung Htet Kyaw was beaten by police during a suppression of a farmers’ protest in Thegon Township in Pegu Region. Kaung Htet Kyaw sustained severe head injuries. ABFSU responded by releasing a statement denouncing police mistreatment [..]