Released on 7 May 2012
Summary of the Current Situation
There was 1 arrest, 3 [1] sentences and 2 releases for the month of April.
The number of political prisoners AAPP can confirm behind bars and the location of their prisons is now 471; 465 more are under the verification process. The confirmed number will continue to fluctuate and is expected to increase as the verification process continues.
Trends
April witnessed a series of unprecedented visits by foreign leaders and diplomats, and an international rush to lift some of the long standing sanctions on Burma. The EU, the US, Canada, Norway and Australia acceded to Aung San Suu Kyi’s call, and rewarded Burma for its recent reforms by easing many of the non-military sanctions they had previously enacted. However, this should not blur the fact that hundreds of political prisoners are still imprisoned and that the treatment they are given fails to comply with international standards.
Phyo Wai Aung, a detainee who has been awaiting his verdict for over 2 years in Insein prison, is in need of urgent medical treatment as he is suffering, among other things, from an enlarged liver. Prison authorities, however, refuse to hospitalize him in an outside hospital where he can see a specialist. His case exemplifies the fact that prisoners are frequently deprived of vital medical care, a sanction that very often put them in life threatening situations.
Military personnel who express their political views in public continue to suffer from confidential arrests and ruthless verdicts. According to outside information that has not yet been confirmed by AAPP, 3 Air Force officers faced trial at a military court and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment after one of them published a critical article about the Tatmawdaw (Burmese army) on a website. The whereabouts of the 3 officers remain unknown and their families are not allowed to contact them.
Arrests, interrogations and imprisonments of those who resist and challenge land confiscations and forced evictions have continued in April. For instance, in Lewe Township, 3 villagers who resisted eviction were jailed for six months, and an appeal on behalf of 6 others who were sentenced in March was rejected by a district court. In 2011, the village’s residents were ordered to relocate to make way for a government project. Some 20 households refused to move, and were sued. In March, 6 residents were sentenced to 3 months in prison and hard labor; this month, 3 more were sentenced to 6 months in prison, and an appeal on behalf of the 6 villagers sentenced last month had been rejected.
Finally, a number of Buddhist monks released from prison during the recent amnesty are continuously harassed by the police and are being forced out of their monasteries. As before, it seems that President U Thein Sein’s regime remains deeply distrustful of the monks in Burma.
As the world commends Burma’s nominally civilian government’s first steps towards democracy, there is a growing concern that the international community may be moving too quickly in relaxing sanctions against it. As one exiled Burmese activist, Soe Aung from the Forum for Democracy in Burma, said, “The EU has suspended sanctions knowing that its own benchmarks on Burma have not been met: the unconditional release of all political prisoners and a cessation of attacks against ethnic minorities”.
[1] AAPP is investigating claims that 3 military officers were sentenced in the month of April
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