Burma: Overturn 6 Month Sentence of Human Rights Defender and Lawyer Saw Kyaw Kyaw Min

AAPP is calling on the U Thein Sein administration in Burma to overturn the 6 month sentence of Saw Kyaw Kyaw Min: a human rights defender, lawyer for political prisoners, and former leading member of the National League for Democracy – Youth (NLD-Youth) […]

Urgent Action: Doctor Held Incommunicado in Myanmar

Dr Tun Aung was arrested on 11 June in Rakhine state, western Myanmar and has been held in incommunicado detention since. He is a practicing medical doctor and the chairman of the Islamic Religious Affairs Council in Maungdaw. He suffers from […]

Former Political Prisoners Hold Planning Meeting for Future Actions ဆရာဦးေရႊထူးႏွင့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအက်ဥ္းသားမ်ား ဂုဏ္သိကၡာရွိစြာ လြတ္ေျမာက္ႏိုင္ေရးအတြက္ ညႇိႏိႈင္းေဆြးပြဲ က်င္းပ

A future planning consultation meeting, joined by 50 former political prisoners, was held on 19 August at the house of U Shwe Htoo who is still serving his sentence in Taunggyi Prison. Participants agreed to focus on 10 action points for future activities that aim for the release of remaining political prisoners with dignity […]

က်န္ရွိႏိုင္ငံေရး အက်ဥ္းသားမ်ား လြတ္ေျမာက္ေစရန္ ရည္ရြယ္ၿပီး အဆုိပါ အစည္းအေဝးကို ႏိုင္ငံေရးအက်ဥ္းသား ဆရာဦးေရႊထူး (ေတာင္ၾကီးေထာင္) ၏ မိသားစုအိမ္တြင္ ယေန႔(၁၉-၈-၂၀၁၂)မြန္းလြဲ (၂း၃၀)နာရီမွာ က်င္းပေၾကာင္း သိရပါတယ္ […]

UN Special Rapporteur Calls for Investigations, Accountability and Reconciliation in Burma

Last week, Tomás Ojea Quintana, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Burma undertook his sixth visit to the country. His statement upon leaving Rangoon touched on many crucial issues, including the release of political prisoners, the situation in Arakan State and the need for a truth commission.

Quintana welcomed the release of Phyo Wai Aung, a young man falsely accused, tortured and imprisoned for his alleged involvement in bombings during the Thingyan water festival in 2010. While this was a welcome gesture from President Thein Sein, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners reports that there are an estimated 448 political prisoners still behind bars. Each of these individuals must be released immediately, for as Quintana himself stated, “National reconciliation and democratic transition cannot move forward without this necessary step” […]

No Political Activists Must Remain in Burma’s Jails: Free Zaw Zaw Aung

Burma Campaign UK today repeated its call to Jeremy Browne MP, British Foreign Office Minister with responsibility for Burma, to pressure Burma’s military backed government to agree to the formation of a joint domestic and international board with the involvement of the UN, to investigate how many political prisoners remain in Burma’s jails, and secure their release […]

Statement of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar

I have just concluded my six-day mission to Myanmar – my sixth visit to the country since I was appointed Special Rapporteur in March 2008. I would like to express my appreciation to the Government of Myanmar for its invitation, and for the cooperation and flexibility shown during my visit, in particular for my visit to Rakhine State […]

Burma: Allow Torture Victim Medical Treatment and Prosecute Security Forces Responsible for Torture

Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) calls on the government to allow torture victim La Htaw Brang Shawng immediate access to appropriate medical care, as in line with international standards for detainees. In addition, security forces responsible for the torture of the Kachin villager must be prosecuted in order to send a strong message that the use of torture and related practices will no longer be tolerated in Burma […]

Burma: Release All Remaining Political Prisoners Now and Respect Civil and Political Rights

The Burmese authorities should immediately and unconditionally release all remaining political prisoners and fully respect the civil and political rights of the Burmese people, including former political prisoners, said the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its member organization, the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma (Altsean-Burma). In her Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Norway in June, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi also appealed for the earliest, unconditional release of all remaining political prisoners […]

No political prisoners must remain in jail! Free Myint Aye!

On Tuesday this week, the military backed government in Burma announced the release of 25 political prisoners. Three recent released activists’ cases were highlighted, as part of Burma Campaign UK’s new campaign, No Political Prisoner Left Behind, which highlights a political prisoner case every month […]

Myanmar: Release Remaining Prisoners of Conscience

The Myanmar authorities should immediately and unconditionally free all prisoners of conscience, Amnesty International said as 80 inmates, including some 24 political prisoners and 34 foreigners, were released from prison on Tuesday.

Among the 80 released on “humanitarian grounds” were three members of the National League for Democracy (NLD), Myanmar’s leading opposition party, but the largest group is affiliated with All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF) […]