President U Thein Sein: Immediately Investigate and Bring to Justice the Police Responsible for Grave Crimes Committed Against Peaceful Demonstrators

AAPP strongly condemns the use of excessive force and brutality by police officers in response to peaceful protestors in the early hours of 29 November, 2012. The government of President U Thein Sein must ensure […]

500 Join Free Political Prisoners Prayer in Mandalay

Around 500 people, including the relatives of political prisoners, gathered at Mandalay’s Maha Myat Muni Pagoda on Thursday to pray for the unconditional release of jailed activists and others behind bars for political reasons […]

၂၂ ရက္ မတ္လ ၂၀၁၂ ခုႏွစ္ မြန္းလြဲ ၁ နာရီတြင္ က်န္ရွိေနဆဲ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအက်ဥ္းသားမ်ား လြတ္ေျမာက္ရန္ ၀တ္ျပဳဆုေတာင္းပြဲတခုကို မႏၱေလးၿမိဳ႕ မဟာျမတ္မုနိ ရုပ္ရွင္ေတာ္ျမတ္ႀကီး ေရွ႕ေမွာက္တြင္ က်င္းပျပဳလုပ္ခဲ့သည္ […]

Mandalay Peace Protest – Sangha under pressure

Since yesterday we have been unable to contact any of the five monks who led the peaceful protest in Mandalay calling for the release of political prisoners and an end to the civil wars in Burma.

The last information that we could confirm was that the five monks had been ordered to return to their hometowns with transportation arranged by the authorities this afternoon (Friday 18 November). Two local journalists today confirmed with us that all five monks arrived in Monywa in Sagaing Division. However, the local Sangha decided not to allow them to stay at local monasteries, possibly fearing repercussions from the authorities […]

Mandalay Peace Protest – Police have surrounded the monastery

On Wednesday the senior monks requested that they once again move, this time to the Old Masoeyein Monastery. After the first public speech, which was attended by around 1200 listeners, the senior monks told Ashin Sopaka and his friends that they could not give them permission to speak any more and that they now would have to move again, this time to the smaller “Water Monastery” near Mahamuni Paya.

They have permission to stay at the “Water Monastery” for only one night. On Thursday they have to move to another place. Which place that will be is still unclear. The monastery compound has since been blocked by police. No civilians are allowed to enter and talk with the monks […]

We call on all monks, people of Burma and people outside of Burma to join Ashin Sopaka

In the past several months people around the world have been asking us “Where is Ashin Sopaka?” Now everyone knows.

On 15 November at 5 a.m., Ashin Sopaka and four other Buddhist monks locked themselves in a building on the compound of Mahamuni Paya, which is one of the most revered places in Burma. They unfurled banners in English and Burmese reading: “We want freedom”, “Free all political prisoners”, and “Stop civil war now”.

This is the first public protest by monks since the mass demonstrations in 2007 […]

Monks in Mandalay begin protest for peace in Burma and the world

Local Buddhist monks in Mandalay, Burma, protested for peace and freedom inside the Maha Buddhavam Museum of the Mahamuni Buddha Image which is located in southern part of the town. They were led by five monks probably including one from Germany and the protest began around 5 o’clock in the morning […]

Statement Calling for the Release of U Gambira

President U Thein Sein and his government have declared that they are leading Burma towards a democratic country but there are still many monks and others who are political prisoners and who are tortured in various ways.

Ashin Gambira, a leader of ABMA, was tortured in different ways. As a result, his health is now in a grave condition […]

Burmese monks meet the Swiss government

On Tuesday 5 April 2011, Burmese monks Ashin Kovida and Ashin Sopaka will offer a statement to the Swiss government. With this statement, they ask for support for the Burmese people […]

Monks’ Ongoing Resistance Against the Burma’s Military Regime

Riot police and security forces were on high alert in Rangoon this week after monks and activists issued a statement that they would be organizing protests against the 7 November elections. At least 2 monks were detained at the Shwedagon Pagoda for handing out pamphlets saying they do not accept the elections or the regime’s new flag.

Saturday marked the end of Buddhist Lent, an important religious event. On this day, temples and pagodas throughout the country hold alms donation ceremonies and are attended by millions of people. At Thayettaw Monastery in Rangoon, authorities stopped alms donations to monks […]

Leading Burmese Buddhist monks call on Burma election boycott

During a recent visit to Ottawa, Burmese Buddhist monks who played a leading role in the 2007 Saffron Revolution earnestly called on the government of Canada and the Canadian Parliament to reject the Nov. 7 elections in Burma due to unfair and undemocratic process […]