Source: The Washington Post (2 February 2023)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/02/myanmar-military-generals-human-rights/
In the two years since Myanmar’s generals seized power, they have steered the country into one of the worst human rights disasters on the planet, with mass killings and detentions, torture, sexual violence and attacks on civilians. Attempts to stop them have so far failed — but there is more the United States can do.
On Feb. 1, 2021, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing grabbed power from a parliament elected the previous November in what had been an overwhelming victory for the National League For Democracy, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. She previously was de facto leader of a nascent democratic government in a power-sharing arrangement with the military. Since the coup, security forces in Myanmar, also known as Burma, have detained more than 17,600 pro-democracy activists, human rights defenders and their supporters and killed more than 2,900 civilians, according to the nongovernmental Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
The military has waged indiscriminate ground and air attacks on civilians in villages. About 1.5 million people have been displaced. Not to be forgotten are the more than 940,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled to neighboring Bangladesh after a scorched-earth campaign the military launched in August 2017. A broad opposition, the National Unity Government, is fighting back, along with numerous ethnic groups.
To spread fear, the junta last year began using the death penalty, executing four political prisoners, the first executions of political prisoners in over three decades. In December, seven students and three others were sentenced to death after sham trials. In total, the junta has put at least 139 people on death row. After closed military trials on politically motivated charges, Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to 33 years in prison.
The junta has blocked humanitarian aid from reaching millions in need. A five-point “consensus” plan by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which called for an end to violence and access for humanitarian relief, lies in ruins. The generals have called for an election in August — but with rules that will prolong the military’s control.
Congress recently boosted U.S. efforts to support democratic forces in Myanmar. On Tuesday, the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia imposed a new round of sanctions on the generals, some of them aimed at cutting off supplies of aviation fuel the military uses in aerial attacks on civilians. But the United States and its allies need to do more to liquidate a spider network of businesses and opaque financial deals that sustain the junta, including ties to China and Russia. A new report by the group Justice for Myanmar documented examples in which the junta drew support from 64 foreign governments and organizations. Sanctions and other tools could help take down these networks.
Myanmar’s agony should not slip out of sight. Action now might return the country to the democratic road on which it had previously embarked.
Showing posts with label Editorial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Editorial. Show all posts
Saturday, 4 February 2023
Wednesday, 29 April 2015
New Editorship and New Content for ADP
Dear Readers,
Asia Death Penalty is a blog founded in 2006, by Tim Goodwin. The purpose of the blog is to provide information to support people in Asia - and around the world - in the struggle to end the death penalty. The blog focuses on countries in the Asian region (broadly defined), but it also reports on issues of interest in the worldwide campaign for a world without executions. This blog draws on the work of Asian media and international human rights organisations, but it is an independent site.
The original author of the Asia Death Penalty Blog, Tim Goodwin, decided not to continue posting in 2012 for various personal reasons. Tim has invited myself (Daniel Pascoe) and Michelle Miao to take over as new editors to revive the blog. We are both academics at City University of Hong Kong and the University of Nottingham, respectively. Our research is focused on capital punishment in Asia.
We plan to post the following information on the blog, with proper attribution:
- NGO press releases and reports, including online petitions
- government press releases and UN documents
- academic articles, book reviews and notes on relevant international conferences
- relevant legal decisions
Here, we defined Asia broadly, as including East and Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. As of April 2015, the countries within these regions that retain the death penalty as a criminal punishment in law consist of the following:
Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, China (PRC), China (Taiwan), India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Korea (DPRK), Korea (ROK), Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Yemen.
Initially, our first few posts will document the most important developments in death penalty practice in Asia from 2011 to 2015 (the period during which the blog has been dormant). Thereafter, we will keep readers informed of regular developments.
We welcome contributions and comments. If you have material to contribute to to the blog, please contact us at dcpascoe@cityu.edu.hk or Michelle.Miao@nottingham.
Please note, this is an abolitionist site. Please do not use it to post comments in support of the death penalty or calling for particular people to be executed. We encourage you to use the stories and information posted on this blog. However, when you copy or distribute stories from this site, please acknowledge the original source and URL each time.
We hope you find the blog helpful,
Dr Daniel Pascoe
Assistant Professor
School of Law
City University of Hong Kong
Dr Michelle Miao
British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Nottingham
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