Lifting Of Sanctions Premature, No Substantive Changes Yet

This week has seen the Thein Sein government awarded for their tentative steps towards a democratic Burma. Many countries such as the UK, Norway, Australia, and the US have announced an easing of sanctions while the EU will make a decision today although it seems a forgone conclusion that they will lift many sanctions. While these steps should be rewarded it must be noted that the fundamental conditions for which the sanctions were imposed in the first place remain and the steps taken by the government are tiny.

Catherine Ashton, EU Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security identified the three key areas in which EU policy towards sanctions against Burma will hinge on: national reconciliation, the release of political prisoners, and resolving ethnic conflict. If we take these three in turn, it is evident that these issues have not been resolved […]

David Cameron Must Highlight On-going Human Rights Abuses In Burma

On the eve of Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to Burma, Burma Campaign UK called on him to highlight the serious on-going human rights abuses in the country, and the lack of legal democratic reform. Despite reforms that have taken place, and allowing the NLD to […]

Statement from the Burma/Myanmar Delegation to the ACSC/APF 2012 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Burma/Myanmar’s workshop, along with three other workshops, was not allowed to take place at the ACSC/APF 2012. Rather, the organizers were forced to move the workshops to another location […]

Urgent Reforms Are the Real litmus Test of Government’s Commitment to Change

In the lead-up to the by-elections on 1 April, which are already marred by irregularities and censorship [1], rights groups have stressed that key benchmarks have not yet been met. The international community must press for urgent steps to meet these benchmarks […]

Burma: By-Elections a Step, but Not Real Reform

Burma’s April 1, 2012 by-elections are a step forward, but are not a real test of the government’s commitment to democratic reform, Human Rights Watch said today. “April’s by-election in Burma will almost certainly bring opposition […]

UK Must Not Abandon Burma’s Political Prisoners

Burma Campaign UK today called on British Foreign Secretary William Hague to ensure the European Union maintains pressure on the military backed government in Burma until all political prisoners are released and other key benchmarks are met […]

KNU Statement on Release of Padoh Mahn Nyein Maung

A member of the Central Standing Committee of the KNU, Mahn Nyein Maung, who hand been sentenced to life plus 3 years, was released on March 19, 2012, on the pardon by President of the Union of Burma (Myanmar), U Thein Sein […]

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 […]

Oral Statement Prepared for the Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in Burma in 19th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council

FIDH and and its member organization Altsean-Burma welcome the report by the Special Rapporteur and his emphasis on the situation political prisoners, institutional reforms, and accountability for gross human rights violations […]

Open Letter to Secretary General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations

We write to you today on behalf of the undersigned ASEAN civil society organizations to share our lingering concerns about on‐going human rights violations in Burma/Myanmar ahead of your mission to the country on 20 February 2012. We would like […]