Villagers Urge Reopening of Rangoon Access Road for Students

RANGOON — Villagers from Kyi Myin Dine Township have spent the past five days urging the reopening of an access road, the closure of which has added an hour to the commute of school students each morning.

The children of Oo Mya Ngar Sin Village, on the western bank of the Rangoon River, are regularly ferried to Ahlone Township to attend the No. 7 High School, the closest institution catering to primary, middle and high schooling. At the Ahlone ferry terminal, students walked 250 meters along an access road to reach the school. […]

Activists Call for Constitutional Change to Empower Women

Burmese women’s rights advocates added their voices to the contentious debate on amending Burma’s Constitution this week, urging charter changes to promote gender equality during the Beijing+20 regional review forum held in Bangkok.

Burmese women’s representatives, both from the government and civil society organizations, as well as exiled women’s activist groups, attended the Asia-Pacific Conference on Beijing+20 in the Thai capital from Monday to Thursday. The Beijing+20 gathering offered a review of Asia-Pacific countries’ progress on women’s empowerment and gender equality. […]

Ethnic Cleansing of the Rohingya: Obama’s Duty is ASEAN’s Shame

KUALA LUMPUR — With Barack Obama gracing the halls of Naypyidaw this week, the world has quite rightly been calling loudly for the President of the United States of America to raise concerns regarding the backslide in human rights and democracy in Myanmar, not least of which being the institutionalized persecution and ethnic cleansing of the country’s Rohingya minority. […]

Kachin Civil Society Groups Rally for Two Jailed IDPs

Kachin civil society groups held a public gathering in Shwezet church in the Kachin State capital Myitkyina on Tuesday to show their support for two Kachin IDPs, Brang Yung and Lahpai Gam, who were arrested by Burma Army soldiers in mid-2012 and allegedly severely tortured. […]

Thousands in Mandalay Rally for Faith Laws

MANDALAY — Thousands of Buddhist monks, nuns and laypeople marched through downtown Mandalay on Thursday afternoon to demand that the government take action on a set of highly controversial and currently stagnant interfaith bills.

Organized by the upper Burma chapter of the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, locally referred to as the Ma Ba Tha, the rally was joined by sympathizers from several nearby townships including Sagaing, Myingyun and Mandalay’s immediate surrounds […]

Burma’s Irrawaddy Threatened, Hit by Cyberattacks

Bangkok, October 3, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns recent threats and cyberattacks against The Irrawaddy, an independent media group dedicated to Burma news and analysis[…]

International Peace Day

Hundreds of peace marchers passed four different townships on Sunday, International Peace Day. The peace marchers called for ending war and to restore peace, while singing Peace songs. (Photo: Thaw Hein Htet / The Irrawaddy)

Free the Democratic Voice of Burma’s Video Journalists

Despite pledges by Burma’s new government that it has begun the transition to civilian rule, 17 video journalists (VJs) for the Oslo-based exiled media organisation, the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), remain imprisoned. They are among nearly 2,100 political prisoners in Burma, a testament to the lingering hold of dictatorial rule on the country […]

Refugees Recall ‘Saffron Revolution’

It was a day like any other. Kyaw Kyaw Htun, a 19-year-old university student, lived outside Rangoon, so when he started the day he had heard nothing of the clashes taking place between monk-led demonstrators and troops on the capital’s streets.

“I knew that some monks were marching around town but I did not know how many people were involved,” he said in an interview on the third anniversary of the so-called “Saffron Revolution.”

He made his way to the Internet cafe where he worked part-time and then discovered the full scale of the confrontation between demonstrators and armed forces.

A colleague was preparing to join the demonstration. He told Kyaw Kyaw Htun that the entire population of Rangoon was joining with the monks and that now was the people’s opportunity “to put an end to their suffering.”

Kyaw Kyaw Htun, using a pseudonym, admits now that he was scared because he had never been involved in politics before. But “many people were going so it felt alright” […]